Aaron Bell
Samuel Aaron Bell ( born April 24, 1922 in Muskogee, Oklahoma; † July 28, 2003 in New York City ) was an American jazz bassist and pianist of the swing.
Bell played for a study of music education in New Orleans and a five-year military service in 1947 with Andy Kirk. Then followed several years of studying music in New York City and work at a high school music teacher. He had first engagements at Ed Wilcox, then at Lucky Millinder, Teddy Wilson, Eddie Heywood and Lester Young at the beginning of the 1950s. After Bell had his own trio with pianist Charles Bateman and drummer Charlie Smith ( 1954-56 ), then initiated an orchestra for the Broadway play Compulsion ( 1957-1958 ), worked for television and played briefly in 1959 with the trio of Billy Taylor. In the spring of 1960, Bell became a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, with which he was in Europe in 1961 for two years. The Duke took him in 1962 to the recordings of the plate John Coltrane and Duke Ellington. Later, Bell taught at various universities and wrote for the theater, so for the Off-Off -Broadway theater La Mama. With La Mama He played in the summer of 1978, a European tour, on which the Cotton Club Gala was shown a revue of that program, with the legendary Cotton Club in New York was opened. Bell was the musical director of this program.
Throughout his career took on Aaron Bell plates with Cat Anderson, Buck Clayton, Johnny Hodges, Billie Holiday, Jimmy Rushing, Charlie Shavers, Friedrich Gulda and Urbie Green. In 1985, he appeared at a series of events Ellington Society with The Duke's Men in New York. Yet emerged in the 1990s recordings with Harold Ashby.
1992 Bell was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame.
Disco Graphical Notes
- Jimmy Rushing: His Complete Vanguard Recordings ( Vanguard, 1954-57 )
- Lester Young: Masters of Jazz ( Storyville, 1951-56 )
- Duke Ellington: The Girl 's Suite / The Perume Suite (Columbia 1957-61 ), Piano In The Background ( Columbia, 1960), Featuring Paul Gonsalves ( OJC, 1962), Piano In The Foreground (Columbia, 1963)
- Duke Ellington And John Coltrane ( Impulse!, 1962).
- Johnny Hodges: Triple Play ( Bluebird, 1967)
- Harold Ashby: I'm Old Fashioned ( Stash, 1991)
Lexical entries
- Martin Kunzler: Jazz Encyclopedia, Reinbek, Rowohlt, 1993
- Bielefeld catalog 1988 & 2002
- Richard Cook & Brian Morton: The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Edition, London, Penguin, 2002 ISBN 0-14-017949-6.