A jazz trumpeter who performed as a soloist in bands fronted by Rudy Vallee, Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman; backed up Bing Crosby and Billie Holiday; and fronted his own band — all before his death at age 33 from alcohol-fueled cirrhosis — Roland Bernard “Bunny”...
Happy 94th birthday to jazz saxophone legend Lou Donaldson, born in Badin, North Carolina, on this day in 1926. “His distinctive blues-drenched alto has been a bopping force in jazz for more than six decades,” says the National Endowment for the Arts, which named him...
A trailblazer vocalist and actress who was the second African American to be nominated for an Academy Award and the first to star in her own television show, Ethel Waters was born in Chester, PA, on this day in 1896. She rose from a difficult childhood to begin...
When I first started at The Atlantic Grill, I was told I had an office off of the kitchen. Well, I don’t believe in chefs having an office. Laptops are moveable. If I need an office moment, I set it up on a stainless steel table that way I’m still in the kitchen....
Do you remember that mellow sax solo on Phoebe Snow’s 1975 hit “Poetry Man”? That’s our birthday man John Haley “Zoot” Sims, born in Inglewood, California, on this day in 1925 (his solo kicks in around the 2:30 mark). After serving as an Army corporal during World War...
