Ray Durant

This artist was created Horatio Durant but never used his real first name professionally. He was of Panamanian descent and significant amounts of his profession was spent as both pianist and personnel arranger for the Deep River Kids, a vocal group that held taking a good half of a hundred years. Durant’s musical origins had been in the same types of golf swing jazz fundamentals that produced the fantastic bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker; they both experienced early affiliations with pianist Claude Hopkins. Durant, spending his musical youngsters as both trombonist and pianist, found its way to the U.S.A. from Panama at age 19. His 1st professional gig is at NEW YORK in a music group led by Bob Sylvester. During a protracted stint at a golf club known as the Annex, somebody will need to have glued Durant’s back towards the piano bench and he by no means performed trombone at another gig. Subsequently he started employed in Napolean’s Savoy Ramblers, after that with Hopkins in the illustrious Natural cotton Club. The second option bandleader himself was a pianist, but Durant was his selection of somebody dependable to regulate the key pad while Hopkins was out front side performing. Durant himself led a music group for a couple of years before diving in to the Deep River Kids in 1939, twelve months before this group started its recording profession with some Bluebird/RCA Victor slabs. Durant isn’t the pianist using one of the very most famous of the recordings, nevertheless — “Light from the Silvery Moon,” released in 1947, features Body fat Waller, who grabs 1st billing on the initial label. Lengthier substitutions in the group’s lineup also occurred due to the Second Globe Battle. Cam Williams required the area of Durant when THE GOVERNMENT were able to dislodge him from your piano bench, Harry Douglas was changed by Leroy Wayman, etc. Both Durant and Douglas back-floated in to the Deep River Kids once the battle was over, starting the group’s amount of very best achievement. In the ’50s the changing record marketplace was not excessively kind to the kind of vocal group, meaning the task flowed more in direction of live functionality. As of this the pianist excelled, getting involved in the group’s significant tour called following the play A Streetcar Called Desire and a number of extremely popular abroad tours. Durant appears to have slipped out of view in the ’70s and had not been involved with a version from the Deep River Guys the fact that tireless Douglas revived in the next decade.