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Art Farmer was born on Council Bluffs, IA on August 21, 1928. Art Farmer’s music was consistently inventive that has been more greatly appreciated as he continues to develop. His lyricism gives his bop-oriented style its own personality. His formative years was largely overlooked. Farmer studied piano, violin and tuba before settling on trumpet. He helped popularized the Flugelhorn among brass players. He worked in Los Angeles from 1945, performing regularly at Central Avenue and spending time in the bands of Johnny Otis, Jay Mcshann, Roy Porter, Benny Carter and Gerald Wilson among others. Some of the groups also included his twin brother bassist Addison Farmer (1928-63). After playing with Wardell Gray (1951-52) and touring Europe with Lionel Hampton’s Big Band (1953). Art Farmer move to New York and worked with Gigi Gryce, Horace Silver’s Quintet (1956-58) and Gerry Mulligan Quartet (1958-59).

Art Farmer, who made many recordings in the latter half of the 1950’s, including with Quincy Jones and George Russell for Prestige, he co-led the Jazztet with Benny Golson (1959-62) and then had a group wil Jim Hall (1962-64). Farmer moved to Vienna in 1968 where he joined the Austrian Radio Orchestra and worked with Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band and had made tour with his own units. Since the 1980’s Farmer has visited the United States more often and has remained greatly in demand up to the present day.

Art Farmer has recorded many sessions as a leader through the years including for Prestige. United Artists, Contemporary, Mercury, Argo, Columbia, Atlantic, CTI, Enja, Sweet Basil and Concord.

Roy Eldridge played professionally since the age of 16 years, first with a touring carnival (where he imitated Coleman Hawkins’ famous tenor saxophone solo in Stampede) and later with the Midwest obscure bands. In 1930, he moved to New York and played in various dance groups in Harlem, including that of Teddy Hill, in 1932, he began a serious study in the style of Louis Armstrong. In 1933, he worked in Pittsburgh and in Baltimore before returning to New York, where his first solo recording in 1935 with Hill immediately attracted attention, later this year, he joined the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra at the head trumpeter and occasional singer.

In autumn 1936 he formed his own group of eight piece band in Chicago with his brother Joe Eldridge as a saxophonist and arranger, the group broadcast at night, and Eldridge took advantage of his position to save several outstanding extended solos, including Gone and after Wabash Stomp. After a brief period of studying radio engineering in 1938 Eldridge formed ten piece bands, which began the following year began residency in New York at the Arcadia ballroom later to  Kelly’s Stable.

At that time, Eldridge has been widely regarded as the jazz trumpet solo remarkable of his time and he began receiving offers of liberal white swing bands. In 1941 he joined Gene Krupa, becoming one of the first black jazz musicians to be accepted as a permanent member of the brass section of a big white band. If Krupa, he recorded with her famous ballad performance of Rockin ‘Chair and became a national celebrity, especially in a new hit, Let Me Off Up Town, with Anita O’Day. When the band broke in 1943 Krupa, Eldridge has played as a freelance and led his own group in New York for a while before taking a position in the Artie Shaw band in 1944. A year later, after several racist incidents have occurred while the band was on tour, he left Shaw to organize a big band of his own. Like most great jazz ensembles at the time, his group was financially unsuccessful, Eldridge and soon returned to small group work. In 1948 he began a long association with Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic.

Although in the early 1940s Eldridge had a major role in the jam sessions at Minton’s Playhouse in New York, which is then crystallized in bop, he was out of sympathy with this style, and by the late 1940s, its music was considered old. In a crisis of confidence, he moved to Paris in 1950 toured with Benny Goodman. During his years in Paris, he was lionized by the public of French jazz, and made some of his best recordings, including a version of Fireworks duet with Claude Bolling in which both men have reworked ideas shared by Armstrong and Earl Hines to the registration of the same title (1928). After his return to the USA in April 1951, he joined the growing movement of mainstream jazz, performing in small groups, with Benny Carter, Johnny Hodges, Ella Fitzgerald (1963-5) and, in particular, Coleman Hawkins, with which he made several outstanding albums for Verve. From 1970 until 1980, when he was incapacitated by a stroke, he led a traditional group in Ryan’s in New York. Thereafter, it sometimes plays like a song

If you love jazz, you surely know these saxophonists who have etched their names in the jazz history. Thanks to http://www.funtrivia.com for this wonderful trivia quiz!

1. This Kansas City-born saxophonist is widely regarded as the greatest saxophonist ever. He was known by the nickname “Yardbird,” or more frequently the shortened version, “Bird.”

a. Lester Young
b. Charlie Parker
c. Gerry Mulligan
d. Dexter Gordon

2. This North Carolina tenor man played with some of the most influential jazz artists of his era, including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Johhny Hartman. One of his biggest hits was “My Favorite Things.”

a. Nat Adderly
b. John Coltrane
c. Johnny Hodges
d. Sonny Stitt

3. This New Yorker is almost unanimously considered the greatest baritone sax player of all time. He played with countless big names, including Miles Davis, Gene Krupa, Dave Brubek and Stan Kenton, and composed the classic jazz standards “Walking Shoes” and “Swing House.”

a. Bob Brookmeyer
b. Chet Baker
c. Gerry Mulligan
d. Benny Carter

4. This Philadelphia native played with the likes of Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman and Jimmy Dorsey, but gained widespread fame as part of Woody Herman’s “Second Herd” band. He helped start the bossa nova craze of the 60’s alongside Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

a. Stan Getz
b. Ben Webster
c. Boots Randolph
d. Lionel Hampton

5. This alto saxophonist from San Francisco was known for his smooth, cool tone. He is widely known for his collaboration with pianist Dave Brubek, and composed Brubek’s biggest hit, “Take Five.”

a. Gene Ammons
b. Chet Baker
c. Paul Desmond
d. Jim Hall

6. Although born in Buffalo, New York, this sax man was more closely identified with the city of Philadelphia, where he spent most of his life. A master of the funk style of playing, he also achieved great commercial success with tunes such as “Mr. Magic,” “Winelight” and “Just The Two of Us.”

a. Stanley Turentine
b. Phil Woods
c. Grover Washington, Jr.
d. David Sanborn

7. This alto man from Massachusetts was greatly influenced by Charlie Parker, and is known for his excellent solo on Billy Joel’s hit “Just The Way You Are.”

a. Phil Woods
b. Art Blakey
c. Jackie McLean
d. Roland Kirk

8. This legendary tenor player from New Jersey played with Art Blakey, Maynard Ferguson and Miles Davis before co-founding the seminal fusion group Weather Report.

a. Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis
b. Roland Kirk
c. Wayne Shorter
d. Johnny Hodges

9. This Fort Worth, Texas native was best known as a trailblazer in the avant garde form also known as “free jazz.”

a. Ornette Coleman
b. John Coltrane
c. Jimmy Hamilton
d. Sammy Nestico

10. This alto/soprano sax prodigy from Brooklyn, New York has achieved universal acclaim with his legendary fusion band, Spyro Gyra.

a. Michael Brecker
b. Hank Mobley
c. Gary Bartz
d. Jay Beckenstein

Great names in the jazz world must always be remembered. Here are some trivia information on the classic musicians of jazz and blues courtesy of http://www.funtrivia.com.

1. Which jazz trumpeter was known for his ballooning cheeks and tilted bell on his instruments?

a. Louis Armstrong
b. Glenn Miller
c. Tommy Dorsey
d. Dizzy Gillespie

2. Which jazz cornet player was portrayed by Danny Kaye in a movie biography?

a. Red Nichols
b. Benny Goodman
c. Glenn Miller
d. Gena Kupra

3. What hit Swing song did Ziggy Elman adapt from an old Jewish folk tune?

a. Horay For Captain Spaulding
b. Nature Boy
c. And The Angels Sing
d. If I Were A Rich Man

4. Which Count Basie composition was used on the infamous Gong Show?

a. Backstage At Stuff’s
b. April In Paris
c. Jumping At The Woodside
d. One O’Clock Jump

5. Which jazzman met success despite the loss of an arm?

a. Lester Young
b. Pete Kelly
c. Red Nichols
d. Wingy Manone

6. Who composed the jazz standard “Misty”?

a. Erroll Garner
b. Fats Weller
c. Benny Goodman
d. Count Basie

7. Which pianist co-wrote “Round Midnight”?

a. Fats Waller
b. Eddy Duchin
c. Meade Lux Lewis
d. Thelonius Monk

8. Name Dave Brubeck’s best-known tune.

a, Theme from Mr. Broadway
b. Le Souk
c. Take Five
d. Unsquare Dance

9. What was Duke Ellington’s real name?

a. Thomas Fats
b. Glenn
c. Benjamin
d. Edward Kennedy

10. Who is considered the “Father of the Blues”?

a. W. C. Handy
b. R. Nathaniel Dett
c. Scott Joplin
d. Charlie Patton

By Host News

Paul Desmond studied the clarinet at San Francisco State University and played in various local bands before joining the Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1951. Because his career has been almost exclusively with this group until its dissolution in 1967, he shared his success, without receiving the recognition it deserves.

Desmond continued to play occasionally with Brubeck in the 1970s, notably in 1975 when the two men have recorded an album of duets. He also appeared at festivals and toured Europe, Australia and Japan for George Wein. He later worked in New York on the half-note with his own group, which included Jim Hall (1974), and in Toronto as a soloist with a rhythm section (1974-5).

Desmond was one of the most capable of “cool” trend alto saxophone jazz, Lee Konitz, who was the main exhibitor, and Lester Young, Benny Carter, and others had announced in the late 1930s . His tone was a luminous quality, consistent throughout the instrument, which was particularly recalls Carter, but his most notable gift for improvisation is its power of melodic invention, supported in part that depends on use unusual sequence of the imagination. Desmond independent recordings, with sidemen Gerry Mulligan (1962) and Hall (1959-65), for example, did more justice to the many people who Brubeck, for whom he composed the famous Take Five 5 / 4 time.