Bman's Blues Report

George Murphy "Pops" Foster (May 19, 1892 – October 29, 1969) was a jazz musician best known for his vigorous playing of the string bass. He also played the tuba and trumpet professionally. Foster was born to Charley and Annie Foster on a plantation near McCall in Ascension Parish near Baton Rouge in south Louisiana. His family moved to New Orleans when he was about ten years of age. His older brother, Willard Foster, began playing banjo and guitar; George started out on a cello then switched to string bass. Foster married twice: to Bertha Foster in 1912 and Alma Foster in 1936. Pops Foster was playing professionally by 1907 and worked with Jack Carey, Kid Ory, Armand Piron, King Oliver and other prominent hot bands of the era. In 1921 he moved to St. Louis to play with the Charlie Creath and Dewey Jackson bands, in which he would be active for much of the decade. He also joined Ory in Los Angeles. He acquired the nickname "Pops" because he was far older than ...

Sammy Price (October 6, 1908 – April 14, 1992) was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and jump blues pianist and bandleader. He was born Samuel Blythe Price, in Honey Grove, Texas, United States. Price was most noteworthy for his work with his own band on Decca Records, known as the Texas Bluesicians, that included fellow musicians Don Stovall and Emmett Berry. The artist was equally notable for his decade-long partnership with Henry "Red" Allen. During his early career, Price was a singer in local venues in the Dallas area. Price lived and played jazz in Kansas City, Chicago and Detroit. In 1938 he was hired by Decca Records as a session sideman on piano, assisting singers such as Trixie Smith and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Later in his life, he partnered with the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, and was the headline entertainment at the Crawdaddy Restaurant, a New Orleans themed restaurant in New York in the mid 1970s. Both Benny Goodman and Buddy Rich played with Price at this venue....