![]() ![]() Goodman's new group included the young Swedish clarinettist Stan Hasselgard and, initially, Teddy Wilson, and it opened at Frank Palumbo's Click Club in Philadelphia in May 1948. Goodman had been critical of bop playing but, speaking of Wardell to Metronome, he said that "if he's bop, that's great. However, at a concert around the turn of that year featuring Benny Goodman, Goodman hired him for a small group that he was setting up as part of his flirtation with bebop. There were concerts at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium and the Shrine Auditorium and other venues.Īpart from time with a small band led by Al Killian, Wardell was still working mainly in one-off sessions during 1947. The success of "The Chase" was the break Wardell needed, and he became increasingly prominent in public sessions in and around Los Angeles, including a series of jam sessions organized by the disc jockey Gene Norman. Their fame began to spread, and Ross Russell managed to get them to simulate one of their battles on "The Chase", which became Wardell's first nationally known recording and has been called "one of the most exciting musical contests in the history of jazz". He had a lot of drive and a profusion of ideas". Gordon recalled, "There'd be a lot of cats on the stand, but by the end of the session, it would wind up with Wardell and myself.His playing was very fluid, very clean. In the Central Avenue clubs Wardell held tenor battles with Dexter Gordon. His early success in these sessions led Ross Russell to include him in a studio session he was organising for his Dial label. Here Wardell played in after-hours sessions in clubs such as Jack's Basket Room, the Down Beat, Lovejoy's, and the Club Alabam. But the real focus in Los Angeles was in clubs along Central Avenue, which were still thriving after the boom years brought about by the huge injection of wartime defence spending. In Los Angeles, Wardell worked with Benny Carter, blues singer Ivory Joe Hunter, and the small group that supported singer Billy Eckstine on a tour of the West Coast. The date produced "Easy Swing" and " The Man I Love" This was a quartet session for Eddie Laguna's Sunset label, and on it Wardell was supported by Dodo Marmarosa on piano. ![]() He left Hines late in 1946, settling in Los Angeles, California soon after arriving, he recorded the first session under his name. He married Jeri Walker in Chicago in September 1945. ![]() Although most of them had left when Gray joined, playing with the Hines band was a stimulating experience. This was a break for the 21-year-old, as the Earl Hines Orchestra was not only nationally known but had nurtured the careers of emerging bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. A young dancer, Jeri Walker, knew Earl Hines, and when the Hines band came through Detroit in late 1943, she persuaded Hines to hire Gray on alto saxophone since there was no tenor saxophone job at the time. Around this time, he met Jeanne Goings they had a daughter, Anita, born in January 1941. After a happy year there, he moved to Jimmy Raschel's band (Raschel had recorded a few sides earlier in the 1930s but did not do so again), then to the Benny Carew band in Grand Rapids, Michigan. When auditioning for another job, he was heard by Dorothy Patton, a young pianist who was forming a band in the Fraternal Club in Flint, Michigan, and she hired him. Gray's first musical job was in Isaac Goodwin's small band, a part-time band that played local dances. Advised by his brother-in-law Junior Warren, as a teenager he started on the clarinet, but after hearing Lester Young on record with Count Basie, he was inspired to switch to tenor saxophone. In early 1935, Gray began attending Northeastern High School, then transferred to Cass Technical High School, noted for having Donald Byrd, Lucky Thompson, and Al McKibbon as alumni. He spent his early childhood years in Oklahoma before he and his family moved to Detroit in 1929. The youngest of four children, Gray was born in Oklahoma City. Wardell Gray (Febru– May 25, 1955) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist who straddled the swing and bebop periods. ![]()
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