Felix and All the Cats

GASKIN, LEONARD
Leonard Gaskin is a consumate bassist playing for over 50 years and has shared the bandstand with such titans as Earl Hines, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holiday not to mention Charley Parker. His style is deliberate and elegant especially in the swing idiom.

Leonard was born on August 25, 1920 in Brooklin, New York. He began his professional career in 1943 in Harlem with a band led by Clark Monroe that included Max Roach, Duke Jordan, and Ray Abrams, then moved to Kelly's Stables on the fable 52nd Street. Leonard is one of the innovative musicians who made 52nd Street famous playing with jazz greats Dizzy Gillepsie, Stan Getz, Charlie Shavers, Clyde Hart, Big Sid Catlett, Miles Davis, Budd Johnson, Don Byas, Billy Taylor, Eddie South, Tiny Grimes, Dexter Gordon, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, J. J. Johnson, Eddie Heywood, Erroll Garner, and many others. After a short time with the Louis Armstrong All Stars in the early '50's, Gaskin joined Eddie Condon. While with Condon he recorded extensively with other groups adding children's songs to his vast repertoire. Gaskin was on Condon's famous United Kingdom trip when the band included Wild Bill Davison, Cutty Cutshall, George Wettling, Gene Shroeder, and Bob Wilber. In the '60's Gaskin made countless recordings with a divers array of pop, soul, folk, and gospel performers including Bob Dylan, Dionne Warwick, Wayne Newton, Little Richard, Rev. James Clevelan, Lightin' Hopkins to name a few. In the '70's under the aegis of the International Art of Jazz, Inc., he and a select group of musicians toured many New York State schools exposing the students to jazz as "America's National Treasure." During this period he was a regular with Sy Oliver's Rainbow Room Orchestra until he joind the Savoy Sultans led by Panama Francis. He has toured Europe several times and has appeared at many jazz festivals. A gala party celebrating his 70th birthday was a scheduled event at the 1990 Edinburgh Jazz Festival. In 1994, Gaskin was invited to perform at President Clinton's Congressional Ball at the White House. Immediatly following, he was invited by Dizzy Gillepsie Foundation of Senegal to come to Africa to lecture on jazz.