Ike Day

Isaac Day, Jr. (1925 - c. 1958), better known as Ike Day, was a Chicago-based hard bop and bebop jazz drummer.

Referred to as “legendary” by many jazz musicians, including Andrew Hill, very little is known about Day except for a few specific dates when he played with Tom Archia and his All Stars, with Gail Brockman, Andrew "Goon" Gardner or John "Flaps" Dungee, Gene Ammons, Claude McLin (possibly), Junior Mance, George Freeman and Jo Jo Adams, a line-up that recorded at the Pershing Ballroom, Chicago in early 1948, and with Fats Navarro, LeRoy Jackson, Clarence "Sleepy" Anderson, Gene Ammons and Tom Archia at Leonard Chess's club, the Macomba Lounge, in 1948, where both Kenny Dorham and Max Roach went to see him, as did, according to Duke Groner, Buddy Rich and Louie Bellson.

Ike Day started playing professionally in April 1943, at around the age of 17, when he filed a contract with the Musicians Union for a 12-week contract at the Bar o' Music. After a month, however, he was suspended by the Commissioner of Police for bad behaviour.

In April 1944, he was in a band led by Jesse Miller performing at Joe's Deluxe Club, with Albert Atkinson (sax), Kermit Scott (tenor sax), Argonne Thornton (piano), Walter Buchanan (bass).

He also recorded a Gene Ammons/Christine Chatman session for on February 28, 1949, released as Jug and Sonny (Chess LP 1445), The Soulful Saxophone of Gene Ammons (Chess LP 1442) and Gene Ammons - Early Visions (Cadet 2CA 60038).)

In 1950 he led a trio featuring Sonny Rollins and Vernon Bivel just before Rollins was convicted on a drugs charge and sentenced to eight months.

...
Wikipedia