Ross Russell

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Ross Russell (born March 18, 1909 in Los Angeles , † January 31, 2000 in Palm Springs ) was an American jazz producer and author.

Life

Russell published some detective stories in Pulp magazines in the 1930s and was at times a reporter who u. a. accompanied the band by Luis Russell on tour. After being a radio operator in the US merchant navy during the Second World War, he founded the record store "Tempo Records" in Los Angeles. As a jazz fan, he took the opportunity to record Charlie Parker , who was then in New York with the bebop revolution of jazz, for his newly founded Dial label when he came to Los Angeles with Dizzy Gillespie at the end of 1945 to go to Billy Berg's nightclub in Hollywood to play. The famous recordings were made difficult by the fact that the drug and alcohol addict Parker was prone to excesses. This finally led to his admission to the mental hospital in Camarillo in 1946 , from which he was released thanks to the efforts of Russell in his care. In 1947 he organized further recordings with Parker in Los Angeles and New York. With Dial, which existed until 1949, recordings were also made, e.g. B. published with Dizzy Gillespie , Erroll Garner and Dexter Gordon .

In 1961 he published a jazz novel "The Sound", the hero of which was modeled after Parker, and also in his best-known book, the Charlie Parker biography "Bird Lives - The high times and hard life of Charlie" Yardbird "Parker" by 1973, which is written very vividly, his experiences as a novelist come to the fore, so that critics called for too much narrative freedom. Russell wrote for jazz magazines and taught "African American Music" at Palomar College and the University of California. Another well-known book by Russell deals with Kansas City Jazz ("Jazz Style in Kansas City and the Southwest", Berkeley, 1971), from which Parker also emerged.

In 1981 he sold his record collection and archive to the University of Texas at Austin . In retirement, he lived mostly in the caravan in various places in California, most recently near Palm Springs, occasionally lecturing and working on a book about bebop before his death.

He was married four times and had a son and a daughter.

Fonts

  • Charlie Parker , by Ross Russell, Verlag Droemer Knaur, 1991, ISBN 3426024144 , ISBN 978-3426024140 . English Original: Bird Lives. The High Life And Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker , New York, Charterhouse 1973, Quartett Books, London 1980, ISBN 0-7043-3094-6
  • Jazz Style in Kansas City and the Southwest , University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1971

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ross Rusell's biography at allmusic . www.allmusic.com. Retrieved September 6, 2009.
  2. ↑ Parker named his song Relaxin 'at Camarillo after this stay. This was one of Parker's dial recordings.
personal data
SURNAME Russell, Ross
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz producer and writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California, USA
DATE OF DEATH January 31, 2000
Place of death Palm Springs , California, USA