Tuesday 21 April 2020

Mundell Lowe born 21 April 1922


James Mundell Lowe (April 21, 1922 – December 2, 2017) was an American jazz guitarist who worked often in radio, television, and film, and as a musician who was on many sessions through the years despite never becoming a household name,

Mundell Lowe learned to play guitar from the age of six, growing up in and around Laurel, Mississippi, the son of a Baptist minister. He helped his father hoe cotton on his farm but had no aspirations to work on the land. Aged ten, he acquired his first six-string guitar and became hooked on jazz. Having listening to Charlie Christian, he knew at once which style to emulate. Three years later, he absconded from home and headed for New Orleans where he frequented the Bourbon Street jazz clubs.

Although his father eventually caught up with him, Lowe ran away again -- this time to Nashville where he worked  on the Grand Ole Opry radio program and briefly joined the Pee Wee King band. In 1940, he graduated from school, had a stint with the orchestra of Jan Savitt and was in 1943 drafted for military service, posted at a camp near New Orleans. There, he had the good fortune to meet the resident entertainment officer, John Hammond Jr. who organized weekend jam sessions. He performed in an Army dance band while in Guadalcanal.

Though assigned to Fort McPherson near Atlanta and posted to the Engineering Corps, Lowe's acquaintance with Hammond proved beneficial after his demobilization. In 1945, Hammond helped Lowe get a job with the Ray McKinley Orchestra (leader of the post-war Glenn Miller band). After that, Lowe worked in small combos, recording sessions and club dates with most of the big names of the genre, including Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Ben Webster and Red Norvo. He then worked intermittently for the next few years at Café Society and other clubs in New York.


Between 1948 and 1965, Lowe was engaged as guitarist/arranger by the NBC Orchestra in New York and also acted as musical director on TV's Today Show. In 1965, he relocated to Los Angeles where the head of Screen Gems, Jackie Cooper, offered him work as conductor/composer of music for television. On the weekends he played jazz, sometimes getting permission from NBC to leave for six-month periods. In the jazz world he played with Jimmy Dorsey and Tommy Dorsey, Bill Evans, Billie Holiday, Red Norvo, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, and Lester Young. He composed and arranged for NBC.He was 
responsible for introducing pianist Bill Evans to record producer Orrin Keepnews, resulting in Evans's first recordings as a leader.

In 1965 he moved to Los Angeles and worked for NBC as a staff guitarist, composer, and arranger. He wrote music for the TV shows Hawaii Five-O, Starsky & Hutch, and The Wild Wild West, and the movies Billy Jack and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask. He recorded with Carmen McRae and Sarah Vaughan.


                             

Lowe also subsequently branched out into music education. During the succeeding decades he was active as a teacher of film composition at the Grove School of Music in Studio City and at the Guitar Institute of Technology in Los Angeles. During the 1980s, he worked with André Previn, Tete Montoliu, and the Great Guitars.

He was a teacher at the Guitar Institute of Technology and the Grove School of Music. For several years, he was music director of the Monterey Jazz Festival. During 1979-1985 he played locally in Los Angeles, often with Richie Kamuca and Benny Carter. In 1983, he formed a small group called TransitWest which performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival and included among its personnel bass player Monty Budwig and flutist Sam Most. In the later decades of his life he collaborated often with flautist Holly Hoffman. At the age of 93, he released the album Poor Butterfly.

Mundell Lowe was inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame and received a Lifetime Achievement prize at the San Diego Music Awards in 2008. During his career, he also worked with Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Hodges, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Lee Konitz, Peggy Lee, The Everly Brothers, Fats Navarro, Shirley Scott and Dinah Washington.

Lowe was married to singer Betty Bennett, his third wife, for 42 years. In his last years, the couple lived in San Diego. He struggled with ill health during his later years and had bounced back from angina, bladder cancer, kidney disease and stage IV lung cancer. 
Lowe was characteristically spry his 95th birthday concert at the San Diego jazz club Dizzy’s. Rather than just play a few songs, as had been anticipated, he performed for nearly an hour with a band that included fellow guitarists Jaime Valle, Bob Boss and Ron Eschete. 

He had also fractured his hip from a fall, six weeks before his death. He died at his home in San Diego on December 2, 2017, at the age of 95 after receiving hospice care.

(Edited from Wikipedia, a bio by I.S.Mowis @ imdb & The San Diego Union Tribune)

3 comments:

boppinbob said...

Today’s birthday boy has been requested by Egroj.

So for “The Incomparable Mundell Lowe (1978)” go here:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KTWS1kcv

1) On The Trail 05:49
2) Serenade In Blue 06:48
3) P Town 05:58
4) Let’s Fall In Love/Birds Do It 03:30
5) Souvenirs 05:50
6) Blue Lou 04:40
7) I Think You Always Knew 02:02
8) St. Thomas 04:18


Guitarist Mundell Lowe has not recorded nearly enough as a leader, though this somewhat obscure effort from the late '70s on the now-defunct Dobre label is well worth obtaining. With Lowe accompanied by bassist Bob Magnusson and drummer Nick Ceroli, most of this studio session consists of very familiar warhorses, with a couple of exceptions. Even though "On the Trail" has been recorded countless times, Lowe's easygoing version, complete with features for his sidemen, sounds very fresh. Al Cohn's subtle "P-Town" and a smoking take of Sonny Rollins' calypso anthem "St. Thomas" are also first-rate. But Lowe especially showcases his immense talent during his solo interpretation of his beautiful miniature ballad "I Think You Always Knew."

(AllMusic Review by Ken Dryden)
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For “SATAN IN HIGH HEELS (A.K.A. BLUES FOR A STRIPPER) (1960)” go here:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XaSMqee6

01. Satan in High Heels 3:24
02. Montage 2:11
03. The Lost and the Lonely 3:38
04. East Side Drive 2:48
05. Coffee, Coffee 3:27
06. Lake in the Woods 3:30
07. From Mundy On 3:27
08. The Long Knife 2:22
09. Blues for a Stripper 3:27
10. Pattern of Evil 2:26

"The producer of "Satan", Leonard Burton, decided for the most part that he wanted a jazz score. Some of the pieces are jazz pieces, but I tried to be very careful in the arrangements because there is one thing that automatically kills jazz: the moment the music written is tense, jazz "will not happen." Jazz ideas are like good conversation, the moment a conversation becomes tense, talk is difficult. However, there has to be a certain intensity to create excitement. I hope I've accomplished this."

-Mundell Lowe

Note: The original soundtrack from the motion picture "Satan in High Heels", was the first issued on LP in 1961 by Charlie Parker Records PLP-406S. Only a year later the same recordings, but in a different track order, were reissued also on LP under the title "Blues for a Stripper", Charlie Parker Records PLP-822. Now, this memorable music composed and conducted by Mundell Lowe appears on CD.

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Here’s a few more from the library:


Mundell Lowe Quintet (1954)

https://www.upload.ee/files/11529992/Mandell_Lowe_Quintet__1954_.rar.html

Mundell Lowe – Guitar Moods (1956)

https://www.upload.ee/files/11530015/Mundell_Lowe_-_Guitar_Moods__1956_.rar.html

Mandell Lowe – A Grand Night For Swinging (1957)

https://www.upload.ee/files/11530040/Mundell_Lowe_-_A_Grand_Night_For_Swinging__1957_.rar.html

Mandell Lowe – Guitar Player (1977)

https://www.upload.ee/files/11530002/Mundell_Lowe_-_Guitar_Player__1977_.rar.html

And one from egrojs world blog. (password – egroj) Thanks Egroj!

Mundell Lowe And His All Stars ‎– Themes From Mr. Lucky The Untouchables And Other TV Action Jazz (1960)

https://mega.nz/file/XQczgICa#0EjLWBQKxdfWJXZN6GuhENWsmxq-Mc5uvkx2lT4cKr8

RiCK SAUNDERS said...

Yay! A million thanks. I heart Mundell Lowe. Don't forget the lovely album he did with Sammy Davis Jr in 1958 called Mood to Be Woo'd. he whole album is just Sammy and Mundell.

Enjoy their version of Bewitched:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaAwVcP_kCo

egroj.jazz said...

Great guitarrist!