Biography

billcrowbass.com

Biography, page 2:

In 1954 I joined the Marian McPartland Trio (with Joe Morello on drums) at the Hickory House in New York City, and stayed there through 1955.

Count Basie Jimmy McPartland Marian Crow

Jimmy's daughter Dorothy

Joe Morello and Bill Crow, Hickory House

The bandstand at the Hickory House was in the center of a large oval bar, with a pyramid of liquor bottles at each end.

Marian taught me to play in every key.

While I was at the Hickory House, Irv Manning sold me the lovely old French bass that I have carried all over the world, and still play today.

Gerry Mulligan asked me to join his sextet in late 1955. We made a tour of Europe in 1956. These photos were taken in Torino, Italy, by Riccardo Schwamenthal, who was kind enough to send me copies recently. [copyright] He can be found here (www.ctsimages.com).

Bob Brookmeyer, valve trombone, Jon Eardley, trumpet, Zoot Sims, tenor sax, Dave Bailey drums.

Mr. Schwamenthal is the young man at the right of Brookmeyer and me, wearing a tie.

Also from Riccardo Schwamenthal's Archives are the following three photos taken by Gianni Cardanni in Lugano Switzerland. (www.ctsimages.com) [copyright]

I continued to be associated with Mulligan in quartets, sextets and his Concert Jazz Band through 1965, with a brief return to the Marian McPartland Trio during 1957.

Gerry Mulligan

Between jobs with Mulligan, I often worked with the Gene DiNovi Trio, the Al Cohn and Zoot Sims Quintet and the Clark Terry and Bob Brookmeyer Quintet. And I played one concert at Lewisohn Stadium with Duke Ellington's orchestra, one of the biggest thrills of my life. (July 24, 1958)
Ellington	Bill Crow, Gene DiNovi, Johnny Cresci 1960

Al Cohn and Zoot Sims	Zoot at Harry's English Bar, Brussels Harry

Mulligan at the piano Bill	Bob Brookmeyer and Clark Terry

A partial list of other employers through the years: Dizzy Gillespie, Kai Winding and J.J. Johnson, Al Haig, Jimmy McPartland, Bobby Scott, Max Kaminsky, Sol Yaged, Eddie Condon, Peanuts Hucko, Ralph Flanagan, Gary McFarland, Bud Freeman, Mose Allison, Ruby Braff, Pee Wee Russell, Billy Bauer, George Wein, Jim Hall, Lee Konitz, Art Farmer, Quincy Jones, Thad Jones, Duke Jordan, Tommy Flanagan, Roger Kellaway, Jimmy Rowles, Bob Rosengarden, Ed Polcer, Kenny Davern, Sam Donahue, Walt Levinsky, Phil Bodner, Joe Puma, Chuck Wayne, George Barnes, Scott Hamilton, Chris Griffin, Marty Napoleon, Joe Beck, Tommy Goodman, Ray Alexander, Herk Ferranda, Fred Smith, Drake Smith, Eddie Bert, Wil Greenstreet, Jimmy Hill, Peter Prisco, Chris Garone, Vinnie Ruggieri, Jay McShann, Al Grey, Winston Byrd, Turk Mauro, Houston Person, Johnny Morris, Jimmy Dean, Harry Glogower, Howard Williams, Sonny Carroll, Bobby Day, Joel Martin, Joe Hanlon's Bearcats, The Harlem Blues and Jazz Band, Tom Malone, Tom Kohl, Tomoko Ohno, Art Baron, Wayne Goodman, Chris Garone, Chris "Calloway" Brooks, Lou Caputo, Joe Morello.

Photo by Dennis Stock, Times Square NYC, 1958


John Wilson Jimmy Raney Phil Woods Bill Crow	Buzzy Drootin

Bill Eddie Bert J. R. Monterose 1991	Bill and Red Rodney at the Epicurean Jazz Festival, Columbia SC, 1989

Bill Marian McPartland	Willie "The Lion" Smith, Newport 1957

Kenny Davern Bill Chris Griffin	Bud Freeman Shorty Baker

Bernie Glow and Dick Perry "42ND STREET"

Jo Jones greeting Art Mardigan at Birdland, 1954

Gus Johnson and Basie band in background


Frank Wess, Ernie Wilkins, Marshall Royal, Frank Foster, Charlie Fowlkes	Joe Newman, Dick Katz, Teddy Reig, Basie

I also have played for singers Jackie Cain and Roy Kral, Mel Torme, Nina Simone, Morgana King, Chris Connor, Lainie Kazan, Lana Cantrell, Linda Hopkins, Al Jarreau, Tony Sotos, Jimmy Morrielli, Barbara Lea, Danny Tarrantino, Giacomo Gates, Marilyn Zavidow, Judy Marie Canterino, Aliza Cotton, Michelle LeBlanc, Tony Aiardo, Glenda Davenport and Carol Sloane.

I traveled with Glen Moore on the S.S. Uruguay to South America in 1952, and made three concert tours in Europe and one in Japan with Gerry Mulligan between 1957 and 1964.

During the summer of 1962 I played the Seattle World's Fair and toured Russia with Benny Goodman’s band.


The band Benny Goodman took to Russia in the summer of 1962: John Bunch, Teddy Wilson, John Frosk, Joe Newman, Joe Wilder, Jimmy Maxwell, Bill Crow, Willie Dennis, Jimmy Knepper, Wayne Andre, Victor Feldman, Turk Van Lake, Mel Lewis (hidden), Zoot Sims, Jerry Dodgion, Phil Woods, Tom Newsom, Gene Allen. Our vocalist was Joya Sherrill. Benny got mad at her, so he left her songs off the record album. But she was a big hit with the Russians.
Sightseeing in Moscow: Mel Lewis, Joe Newman, Jimmy Knepper, Willie Dennis, Bill Crow, Victor Feldman

Phil Woods Turk Van Lake Crow Jerry Dodgion Jimmy Knepper Tom Newsom Teddy Wilson

On the Black Sea beach at Sochi

Dodgion, Newman, Woods, Newsom, Feldman, Crow

Jamming with the local Russian musicians:

Konstantin Nosov and Victor Feldman

On the day we got back from Russia, Jack Lewis grabbed most of the band for a quick record date for Colpix, an album called "Jazz Mission to Moscow." Victor Feldman had flown home to California, and Teddy Wilson and John Bunch had stayed in Paris, so Jack got Eddie Costa to play piano on the date. It was Eddie's last jazz record date before he died in an auto crash. He sounded absolutely wonderful.

After a tour of Japan with Gerry Mulligan in 1964, a three week gig in Antigua with Bob Alexander and Al Klink in 1973, and a two-week industrial show in Vienna with John Lesko in 1979, I didn't leave the United States again until I appeared with Clark Terry’s quintet at the 1992 Oslo Jazz Festival, and with Eddie Higgins and Anita O’Day on the S.S. Norway's Jazz Cruise of the Carribbean during the fall of that year.

And I played a concert tour in Spain with the John Eckert Quartet in December 1994.

John Eckert, Seville, 1994

In 1965, I joined the house band at Eddie Condon's, with Yank Lawson, Peanuts Hucko, Cutty Cutshall, Dave McKenna and Morey Feld. When Dave and Morey left, we had Dick Hyman and Cliff Leeman.

In 1966, I began working at the New York Playboy Club, with leaders Kai Winding, Sam Donahue and Walter Norris, a job that lasted through 1971. I got to play at different times there with Jerome Richardson, Joe Farrell, Ray Mosca and Ronnie Bedford.

In addition to jazz work, I played society jobs with Peter Duchin between 1972 and 1974, and Broadway shows from 1975 to 1989, sometimes doubling on tuba. My Broadway shows include "Rodgers and Hart," "Boccaccio," "Music Is," "The King And I," "The Grand Tour," "Twentieth Century," "Carmelina," "Morrissey Hall," and over eight years with David Merrick's "42nd Street."

I also did some work for Joe Grimm in a dinner theater near my home in Rockland County, New York, with Stan Free on piano.

In the summer of 1995 I was a featured performer and lecturer at the Ottawa Jazz Festival.

With Gene DiNovi in Ottawa, 1995

I played concerts with the Dick Sudhalter Quartet in 1996 on the Lindblad Cruise Ship Polaris, between Ushuaia, Argentina and Santiago, Chile.

And in 1998 I played the jazz festival in Cork, Ireland, with Spike Robinson

(see 2nd photos page.)

I served as a member of the Executive Board of Local 802, AFM from 1983 to 2003, and now work three days a week in the Recording Department at Local 802.
I am currently playing regularly with the Doug Proper Quartet and the Carmen Leggio Trio and Quartet, mostly around New York's Westchester and Putnam Counties and in Connecticut.

Doug Proper	Carmen Leggio Bill Crow Eddie Bert James Chirillo