Leonard Gaskin

Bassist Leonard Gaskin was an essential if unheralded contributor towards the evolution of bebop, adding to seminal schedules headlined by jazz icons including Charlie Parker, Mls Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Coleman Hawkins. Within the old age of his profession he emerged among the most sought-after program musicians in NEW YORK, showing up on myriad pop, R&B, and gospel LPs along with the landmark folk work The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Delivered August 15, 1920, in NEW YORK, Gaskin was raised in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant region with potential jazz greats like drummer Potential Roach and pianists Duke Jordan and Randy Weston. He briefly examined piano aswell before switching to bass, producing his professional debut in 1943 alongside Roach and Weston within a music group supporting former touch dancer Clark Monroe, who afterwards opened up the venerable Harlem jazz golf club Monroe’s Uptown Home, among the primary venues in the first background of bebop. Gaskin was later on a fixture from the Monroe’s home music group, also serving a protracted stint at Minton’s Playhouse, the epicenter of the present day jazz motion. In 1944, he changed Oscar Pettiford in Dizzy Gillespie’s music group in the 52nd Road nightspot the Yacht Golf club, accompanied by stints behind Cootie Williams, Charlie Parker, Don Byas, Eddie South, and Charlie Shavers. Unlike therefore a lot of his contemporaries, Gaskin shied from alcoholic beverages and narcotics, and continuing living at his family’s Brooklyn house through the entire formative many years of his profession — his psychological stability echoed the complete timekeeping and refinement of his playing, and demand for his solutions continued to develop as the 10 years continued. Gaskin became a member of Erroll Garner’s trio in 1949, staying using the group for five years while he freelanced on classes headlined by Stan Getz, J.J. Johnson, and Billie Vacation. He became a member of Eddie Condon’s Dixieland music group in 1957 within the suggestion of clarinetist Bob Wilbur — the lone African-American person in the group, Gaskin became a member of Condon’s ranks with time for a English tour, and continued to be within the lineup upon their go back to their regular gig at Condon’s NEW YORK golf club. By 1960 Gaskin relocated to studio focus on a full-time basis — as well as the 1962 Dylan program, which yielded a rendition of the original “Corrina, Corrina,” he performed on times behind everyone from Wayne Dark brown to Marvin Gaye to Small Richard, and in 1961 he actually headlined the Swingville launch Leonard Gaskin in the Jazz Music group Ball, adopted a year later on by Leonard Gaskin in the Darktown Strutters’ Ball. Gaskin later on assumed the part of educator, touring NY schools as an associate of the groupings the International Artwork of Jazz and the nice Groove Music group. For greater than a 10 years, he and drummer Oliver Jackson teamed to try out the Western european jazz celebration circuit, and he also frequently collaborated with Sy Oliver’s Rainbow Area Orchestra. Gaskin capped off his profession in 1994 by executing on the Light House’s Congressional Ball on the behest of Leader Costs Clinton. Although his touring timetable slowed dramatically within the 10 years to check out, he composed a privately released autobiography and donated his personal jazz collection towards the American Music Archives on the Smithsonian’s Museum of American Background. After spending his last years in a Queens nursing house, Gaskin passed away January 24, 2009, at age 88.