By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
What a night for music in Buffalo on a November night 65 years ago at Kleinhans.
WWOL’s Joe Rico brought some of the biggest names in jazz for one night only in what promised to be “the biggest jazz concert in Buffalo history.”
The show featured Count Basie, Billie Holliday and Dizzy Gillespie. For the uninitiated, Basie was “a primary shaper of the big-band sound that characterized mid-20th century popular music.”
Frank Sinatra called Billie Holiday, “unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing (through the ’40s and ’50s.)”
Known in pop culture as much for his giant inflated cheeks as his music, Dizzy Gillespie is remembered as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time.
The running-out-of-space add-on to the program was Buddy Rich — whose drumming prowess extended inside and outside the jazz world. He was named by Rolling Stone magazine as the 15th greatest drummer of all-time.
Legendary Buffalo jazz DJ Rico used “Port of Rico,” with Basie on the organ, as one of his theme songs throughout his long Buffalo radio career.
Illinois Jacquet Port Of Rico 1952
Rico was the son of Emelino “Papa” Rico, whose “Neapolitan Serenade” broadcast for five decades from Buffalo’s West Side.
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