(b Laurenço Marques [now Maputo], Jan 7, 1899; d London, April 17, 1941). British popular singer. His father was Greek, his mother was Lebanese. Bowlly was brought up in South Africa and joined Edgar Adeler’s leading dance band in 1922, touring South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, East Africa and the Far East. He left Adeler in 1924 and took up a residency at Raffles Hotel, Singapore. In 1927 he went to Germany and made his first recording, Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies. A prestigious engagement lasting one year followed at the Savoy Hotel, London, with the bandleader Fred Elizalde. He had a major break in 1930 when he joined a recording studio band led by Ray Noble, with whom he made the original versions of songs which have become standards. These, all by Noble, included The Very Thought of You, Love is the Sweetest Thing, The Touch of your Lips...
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[Federico]
(b Manila, Dec 12, 1907; d Manila, Jan 16, 1979). Filipino bandleader, pianist, conductor and composer of Spanish parentage. He studied at the Madrid Conservatory, with, among others, Trago and Perez Casas. In 1921 he went to England for two years' study at St Joseph's College, London, and later entered Stanford University, California, where his parents intended him to study law. However, under the influence of Bloch, with whom he had composition lessons, he left in 1926 to give his attention to music. At this point his fascination for jazz and dance music began, and he led the Stanford University Band for a season at the Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles, while continuing formal composition studies. After cutting his first discs with his Cinderella Roof Orchestra in Hollywood, he returned to England to read law at Cambridge University (where his brother, the saxophonist Manuel (Lizz) Elizalde, was also a student) in ...
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Lise Waxer
[jr]
(b St Louis, July 16, 1925; d Manila, Philippines, May 5, 1982). American vibraphone player, percussionist, bandleader, composer and arranger of Swedish descent. Based in San Francisco’s Bay Area throughout his career, he began as a jazz player, playing the drums with the Dave Brubeck Trio (1949–51). In 1953 he joined George Shearing’s jazz quintet as a vibraphone player and percussionist, and the following year left to form his own jazz ensemble with such players as pianist Vince Guaraldi. His virtuosity and infallible sense of phrasing marked him as the greatest jazz vibraphone player since Lionel Hampton. He turned to Latin jazz in the late 1950s, working with percussionists such as Mongo Santamaría, Armando Peraza and Willie Bobo. Tjader became the most famous non-Latino Latin jazz musician and bandleader of the 1950s and 60s, with such hits as Soul Sauce and Mamblues in addition to memorable versions of Dizzy Gillespie’s ...
