Music Fun Time

Cab Calloway was an jazz singer and band leader who came to fame in the 1930′s. His was one of the busiest jazz acts of the time. He appeared on dozens of shows, acted in many movies and played with many other big names of the day like Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Bing Crosby [...]

Louie Prima’s family emigrated from Sicily, Italy to New Orleans in the early 1900′s. At the time of Louie’s youth, in the 1920′s, New Orleans was a hot bed for early jazz, dixieland and swing music. This environment created some of our great musical visionaries, such as the trumpet player Louis Armstrong, and Louie Prima [...]

Eddie Lang was a major jazz guitarist in the early 1900′s.  Born to a Italian family in South Philadelphia Eddie’s father was a banjo and guitar maker with an affinity for classical music.  Early on Eddie learned the violin, perhaps because of his father and it’s prominence in the classical world, but after eleven years [...]

Kevin O’Donnell’s Quality Six was a fine Jazz band.  Originally formed in Chicago the band had a superb line up some serious players.  I get the feeling that this band was never intended to be a full time gig.  It was more of a break from whatever projects the players had going at the time.  [...]

Mambo music is a spectacular form of jazz popular in Latin America.  In the mambo world only one man had earned the nick name of “The Mambo King” and he is Perez Prado.  I was originally turned onto Perez Prado by a coworker from El Savador who had been turned onto him by his wife [...]