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Jim Douglas (guitarist)
Jim Douglas (born Robert James Elliot Douglas, 13 May 1942) is a Scottish jazz guitarist, banjoist, and author born in Gifford, East Lothian, Scotland. He is best known for his work with the Alex Welsh band, which saw him playing with musicians such as Red Allen, Earl Hines, and Ruby Braff. His membership of the band ran from 1962 until the group disbanded in 1981. Douglas wrote and self-published a semi-autobiographical book, ''Tunes, Tours and Travel-itis - Eighteen years of Facts, Faces and Fun with the Alex Welsh Band''. in which he cites several humorous encounters with legends of the business, as well as recounting the band's many strange and bizarre misadventures. He followed this up three years later with ''Teenage to Travel-itis - Growing Up in a World of Jazz''. The sequel chronicles his adventures in the Jazz world before and after his time with the Alex Welsh Band. He played drums in his youth before switching to guitar. In his teens he accompanied clarinettist Pete Ke ...
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Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, hymns, marches, vaudeville song, and dance music. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, ...
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Gifford, East Lothian
} Gifford is a village in the parish of Yester in East Lothian, Scotland. It lies approximately south of Haddington and east of Edinburgh. It groups around the Colstoun Water (locally called Gifford Water) at the junction of the B6369 and B6355 surrounded by rural farmland. History The village of Gifford takes its name from the 13th-century Sir Hugo de Giffard of Yester, whose ancient Scoto-Norman family possessed the baronies of Yester, a name that derives from the Cambro-British word Ystrad (modern Welsh: Vale), Morham, and Duncanlaw in Haddingtonshire, and Tayling and Poldame in the counties of Perthshire and Forfar. The first Hugo de Giffard's grandson, Hugh de Giffard, was a magician who built Yester Castle ( south-east of the present-day Yester House), the ruins and an underground chamber (the 'Goblin Ha') of which can be seen in Yester Wood. The same ''Hobgoblin Hall'' featured in the poem " Marmion" by Walter Scott. The Mercat Cross was built in 1780 and ...
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Red Allen
Henry James "Red" Allen Jr. (January 7, 1908 – April 17, 1967) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist whose playing has been described by Joachim-Ernst Berendt and others as the first to fully incorporate the innovations of Louis Armstrong. Life and career Allen was born in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of the bandleader Henry Allen Sr. He took early trumpet lessons from Peter Bocage and Manuel Manetta. Allen's career began in Sidney Desvigne's Southern Syncopators. He was playing professionally by 1924 with the Excelsior Brass Band and the jazz dance bands of Sam Morgan, George Lewis and John Casimir. After playing on riverboats on the Mississippi River, he went to Chicago in 1927 to join King Oliver's band. Around this time he made recordings on the side in the band of Clarence Williams. After returning briefly to New Orleans, where he worked with the bands of Fate Marable and Fats Pichon, he was offered a recording contract w ...
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Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, also known as Earl "Fatha" Hines (December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983), was an American jazz pianist and bandleader. He was one of the most influential figures in the development of jazz piano and, according to one source, "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz". The trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (a member of Hines's big band, along with Charlie Parker) wrote, The piano is the basis of modern harmony. This little guy came out of Chicago, Earl Hines. He changed the style of the piano. You can find the roots of Bud Powell, Herbie Hancock, all the guys who came after that. If it hadn't been for Earl Hines blazing the path for the next generation to come, it's no telling where or how they would be playing now. There were individual variations but the style of … the modern piano came from Earl Hines. The pianist Lennie Tristano said, "Earl Hines is the ''only'' one of us capable of creating real jazz and real swing when playi ...
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Ruby Braff
Reuben "Ruby" Braff (March 16, 1927 – February 9, 2003) was an American jazz trumpeter and cornetist. Jack Teagarden was once asked about him on the Garry Moore television show and described Ruby as "the Ivy League Louis Armstrong". Braff, who was of Jewish heritage, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was renowned for working in an idiom ultimately derived from the playing of Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke. He began playing in local clubs in the 1940s. In 1949, he was hired to play with the Edmond Hall Orchestra at the Savoy Cafe of Boston. He relocated to New York in 1953 where he was much in demand for band dates and recordings. He resided in Harwich, Massachusetts and died of complications from emphysema, heart failure, and glaucoma on February 9, 2003, in Chatham, Massachusetts. He had spent a good part of his life living in the Riverdale section of The Bronx, New York City. Discography As leader/co-leader * '' Buck Meets Ruby'' (Vanguard, ...
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Alex Welsh
Alex Welsh (9 July 1929 – 25 June 1982) was a Scottish jazz musician who played cornet and trumpet and was also a bandleader and singer, Biography Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Welsh started playing in the teenage Leith Silver Band and with Archie Semple's Capital Jazz Band. After moving to London in the early 1950s, he formed a band with clarinetist Archie Semple, pianist Fred Hunt, trombonist Roy Crimmins, and drummer Lennie Hastings. The band played a version of Chicago-style dixieland jazz and was part of the traditional jazz revival in England in the 1950s. In the 1960s, Welsh's band played with Earl Hines, Red Allen, Peanuts Hucko, Pee Wee Russell, and Ruby Braff. During the 1960s and early 1970s, Welsh frequently toured, including many visits to the United States. He was influenced by his fellow trad jazz bandleader Chris Barber and built up and extensive musical repertoire, working from popular music as well as jazz and building up a large mainstream following ...
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Alan Elsdon
Alan Elsdon (15 October 1934 – 2 May 2016) was an English jazz trumpeter and flugelhornist. Biography Elsdon was born in London on 15 October 1934. He studied trumpet under Tommy McQuater. His early professional work included time with Cy Laurie (1954–56), Graham Stewart and his 'Graham Stewart Seven' (1957–58), a Royal Air Force band, and Terry Lightfoot (1959–61); with Lightfoot he played alongside Kid Ory and Red Allen. Elsdon led his own band from 1961 (he made an appearance on 1 June 1962 in a TV series called ''All That Jazz'') into the 1990s, and during the 1960s also played with Edmond Hall, Albert Nicholas, Wingy Manone, and Howlin' Wolf Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910January 10, 1976), better known by his stage name Howlin' Wolf, was an American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player. He was at the forefront of transforming acoustic Delta blues into electric Chica .... Elsdon played in Keith Nicholls' Midnite Follies Orchestra from 1978 to ...
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Lennie Hastings
Leonard "Lennie" Hastings (5 January 1927 – 14 July 1978) was an English jazz drummer. Biography Hastings started out playing in military bands during World War II in the 1940s, which included Micky Bryan's Rug Cutters in 1942. He then played with Freddy Randall (December 1950 – November 1953 and June – August 1954) and Alex Welsh (December 1954 – January 1957). Following these engagements, Hastings played in local combos and led an ensemble in Düsseldorf and then played with Nat Gonella briefly before rejoining Welsh. He was Welsh's drummer for well over a decade, during which time he also recorded with Earl Hines, Rex Stewart, Eddie Davis, Ben Webster, and Bill Coleman. He was particularly popular in TV appearances with the Alex Welsh band, and was known as "Herr" Lennie Hastings dressed in his trademark lederhosen and orange wig with false monocle, and noted for ending numbers playing a drum break and waving his arms with a shout of "Oo yah Oo yah" whilst holding ...
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Ed Polcer
Ed Polcer (born February 10, 1937, in Paterson, New Jersey, United States) is an American jazz cornetist, bandleader, festival director, club owner, and mentor of young musicians. He has been described as a "melodic mellow-toned cornetist with an unforced delivery". Polcer started leading jazz bands while attending Princeton University. While at Princeton studying engineering, he was headed toward a promising career as a professional baseball player. During that time, he was asked to play at the wedding of Princess Grace and Prince Rainier in Monaco, as well as a concert in Carnegie Hall. He chose music over baseball. When cornetist Bobby Hackett recommended him to Benny Goodman, he abandoned his engineering and purchasing day jobs and joined Goodman's small band. Other musicians in that band included John Bunch, Bucky Pizzarelli, Slam Stewart, Al Klink, Zoot Sims, George Masso, and Peter Appleyard. While in his 20s and 30s, Polcer played with Teddy Wilson, Bobby Hackett, Kenny D ...
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Keith Smith (trumpeter)
Keith John Smith (19 March 1940 – 4 January 2008) was a British jazz trumpeter, principally active on the trad jazz and Dixieland revival scenes. He was born in Isleworth, Middlesex, England. Smith originally intended to pursue studies in engineering, but began playing trumpet at the age of 15 and soon after began playing in local amateur ensembles, including Norrie Cox's band and the New Teao Brass Band (the latter including Chris Barber and Ken Colyer). His first professional gig came in 1960 as a member of Mickey Ashman's Ragtime Jazz Band. In 1962, he started the Climax Jazz Band and began recording. In 1964, Smith visited New Orleans for the first time, where he played with George Lewis. Intending to move to the US permanently, he worked briefly in New Orleans before spending time in California and New York. In 1966, he organized an all-star band to tour Canada and Europe, which included Pops Foster, Jimmy Archey, and Alvin Alcorn. He moved to Denmark in 1972 and r ...
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Swing Guitarists
Swing or swinging may refer to: Apparatus * Swing (seat), a hanging seat that swings back and forth * Pendulum, an object that swings * Russian swing, a swing-like circus apparatus * Swing ride, an amusement park ride consisting of suspended seats that rotate like a merry-go-round Arts, entertainment, and media Films * Swing (1938 film), ''Swing'' (1938 film), an American film directed by Oscar Micheaux * Swing (1999 film), ''Swing'' (1999 film), an American film by Nick Mead * Swing (2002 film), ''Swing'' (2002 film), a French film by Tony Gatlif * Swing (2003 film), ''Swing'' (2003 film), an American film by Martin Guigui * Swing (2010 film), ''Swing'' (2010 film), a Hindi short film * Swing (2021 film), ''Swing'' (2021 film), an American film by Michael Mailer Music Styles * Swing (jazz performance style), the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or "groove" in jazz * Swing music, a style of jazz popular during the 1930s–1950s Groups and labels * Swing (Canadian band), a Cana ...
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Scottish Jazz Guitarists
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish identity and common culture *Scottish people, a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland * Scots language, a West Germanic language spoken in lowland Scotland *Symphony No. 3 (Mendelssohn), a symphony by Felix Mendelssohn known as ''the Scottish'' See also *Scotch (other) *Scotland (other) *Scots (other) *Scottian (other) *Schottische The schottische is a partnered country dance that apparently originated in Bohemia. It was popular in Victorian-era ballrooms as a part of the Bohemian folk-dance craze and left its traces in folk music of countries such as Argentina (Spanish ... * {{disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ca:Escocès ...
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