John Kirby Beethoven Riffs On ( Symphony 7, mvt 2)

Audiences back then were expected to know the source of the jazz takeoff on a classical work. John Kirby (December 31, 1908 June 14, 1952), was a jazz doublebassist who also played trombone and tuba. Kirby was born in Winchester, Virginia. In 1926, he moved to Baltimore, Maryland, a town he is still linked to by some. He played with Chick Webb and Fletcher Henderson. In the early 1930s, he performed some amazingly complicated tuba work on a number of Henderson s recordings. In an unusual move, Kirby picked up on the doublebass at the time when tuba was falling out a favor as the orchestra s primary bass instrument (few tuba players continued their role in the orchestra by switching to doublebass). Kirby started his own band in 1937. The John Kirby Sextet, known as The Onyx Club Boys (usually including Kirby on bass, Charlie Shavers on trumpet, Buster Bailey on clarinet, Russell Procope on alto saxophone, Billy Kyle on piano and O Neill Spencer on drums) would become one of the more significant sm