Help needed

marval

New member
Can any of you Jazzy people help me with a couple of queries please?

I am trying to find out who the Tenor Saxaphone player was with the Artie Shaw Orchestra in 1949. It mentions Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, but hubby doesn't think it was either of them. (Feel free to prove him wrong.)

I am also trying to find out who the pianist was with The Billy May Orchestra.

I have tried Googling, with not much success.

If anyone can help I shall send them a virtual thank you.


Margaret
 

OLDUDE

New member
1. Both Zoot and Al were members of the short lived 1949 bop-oriented Artie Shaw Big Band.
(It only survived 3 months)

2. Billy May had bands over very many years, in the course of which he probably had
dozens of pianists.
Unfortunately the sites I have checked (including Google, Wikipedia and CD Universe )
do not list any individual band members, probably for the above reason.
 
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gord

New member
hi margaret,just looked in my bruyninckx recordswing discography.beside cohn and sims,the only other tenor sax playing with shaw in 1949 was don lanphere,ed wasserman and herb steward.as for the piano with billy may,could be paul smith,he was on a lot of mays recordings. gord
 

Dorsetmike

Member
On a CD sleeve Buddy Cole is mentioned that was on some of the early Capitol recordings, on a later one Paul Smith is on Piano, Paul Smith later backed Ella Fitzgerald, I recall seeing them performing in Birmingham in the late 50s or maybe 1960.

The CD's are compilations from LPs, one has A band is Born and Big Band Bash, the other is Billy May's Big Fat Brass, and Bill's Bag, the second has a complete line up. Print is abysmally small though I'll try and get some heftier magnification. Think I may have another CD knocking around, I'll have a hunt tomorrow.
 

stu

New member
Hi Margaret, Gord detailed the line ups for the Artie Shaw band and all I come up with is that Herbie Steward was the tenor soloist from 1945 onwards until Artie disbanded, then when he assembled the 1949 band with Al and Zoot, Herbie Steward then took over the alto sax chair. Although Al and Zoot were the main tenor soloists Herbie would sometimes feature on tenor also. The '49 band mainly featured Artie with not a lot of space left for others, and Al and Zoot didn't get much space to stretch out and it could be hard to distinguish exactly who was who, but maybe it was Herbie Steward?
 
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