Dodo Marmarosa
Dodo Marmarosa (actually Michael Marmorosa; born December 12, 1925 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, † September 17, 2002 ) was an American jazz pianist.
Life
Marmarosa was a musical prodigy and had a classical piano training before he switched to jazz. It's nicknamed Dodo he got as a child because of its relatively large head. Jazz at the way he taught along with his schoolmates Erroll Garner. He made his debut at the age of fifteen years as a member of Johnny ' Scat ' Davis Orchestra. In 1942 and 1943 he worked with Gene Krupa and Charlie Barnet, with whose band he recorded his first recordings. Here he also met for the first time on Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, central bebop. His trained in classical music virtuosity stood him in good stead in the fast bebop pieces.
From 1944, he has performed with Tommy Dorsey and Artie Shaw and recorded with Lester Young. He also played in 1945 in Boyd Raeburn ( among others in the Boyd Raeburn meets Stravinsky ), Lyle Griffin, Tom Talbert and Lucky Thompson. As Barney Kessel then went to Los Angeles, where he worked as a studio musician and played with Parker, Lester Young, Teddy Edwards, Howard McGhee, Wardell Gray and Lionel Hampton, among others on the known Dial sessions of 1946/47, with Parker. In 1947, he took for dial also with its own trio, one of the Harry Babasin. Because of his failing health and personal reasons in 1948, he returned to Pittsburgh to his family. Although he still toured in 1949 with Johnnie Scat Davis and Artie Shaw, played in 1952 with the Lighthouse All Stars in Hermosa Beach and in 1953 with Charlie Spivak, but then disappeared for most of the 1950s, from the jazz world.
In between were a failed marriage and health problems. In 1954 he was drafted into the army. Because he did not get along there, he was temporarily hospitalized and treated with electroshock, but then released in unstable mental state. He first made then no attempt to return to the jazz scene and worked as a hotel pianist. 1956 persuaded him the trumpeter Danny Conn reappear in clubs. In 1960 he was on the way to California hanging by a car breaks down in Chicago, where he drew attention to himself again playing in clubs. In 1962, he took in Chicago Album Dodo 's Back on ( produced by Jack Tracy for Argo ), the same year he played two plates with Gene Ammons and with trumpeter Bill Hardman one. He then joined occasionally alternating between Chicago and Pittsburgh on, most recently in 1968 in his hometown of Pittsburgh. Passing through musicians such as Dave Brubeck, who asked for the bebop legend, it could still sometimes talk to a gig. He spent his final years mentally ill (he had a potentially Parkinson's related tremor, but when playing the piano disappeared ) and diabetes suffering in the VA Medical Center in Lincoln - Lemington ( a home for army veterans ), where he worked for residents and occasional Visitors played on an organ.
In the 1990s and 2000s, his recordings have been on several albums ( Dodo Bounce, 1991, The Chicago Sessions, 1995; Complete ' Dial' Sessions, 1996; Dodo Lives, 1997, Pittsburgh 1958, 1997, A Proper Introduction to Dodo Marmarosa: Dodo's Dance, 2004), partly new, partly also published for the first time. In particular, in the 1940s, he was outstanding because of excellent sound and complete game after the Jazz Rough Guide as a pianist and had " most of its contemporary competitors, but unfortunately his late work, look pale. "
Discography (selection)
- Up in Dodo 's Room with Miles Davis, Lucky Thompson, Howard McGhee, Teddy Edwards, Charlie Parker, and others, 1946
- Raindrops by Barney Kessel, 1946
- The Dial Masters, 1947
- Dodo 's Back! with Marshall Thompson (drums ), Richard Evans (bass ), and others, 1961