Winding was born in
Aarhus, Denmark.[2] His father, Ove Winding was a naturalized U.S. citizen, thus Kai, his mother and sisters, though born abroad were already U.S. citizens. In September 1934, his mother, Jenny Winding, moved Kai and his two sisters, Ann and Alice. Kai graduated in 1940 from
Stuyvesant High School in New York City and that same year began his career as a professional trombonist with Shorty Allen's band. Subsequently, he played with
Sonny Dunham and
Alvino Rey,[2] until he entered the
United States Coast Guard during
World War II.
After the war, Winding was a member of
Benny Goodman's orchestra, then
Stan Kenton's.[2] He participated in Birth of the Cool sessions in 1949,[3] appearing on four of the twelve tracks, while
J. J. Johnson appeared on the other eight, having participated on the other two sessions.
In 1954, at the urging of producer
Ozzie Cadena, Winding began a long association with Johnson,[2] recording trombone duets for
Savoy Records, then
Columbia. He experimented with instruments in brass ensembles. The album Jay & Kai + 6 (1956) featured a trombone octet and the
trombonium. He composed and arranged many of the works he and Johnson recorded.
During the 1960s, Winding began an association with
Verve Records and producer
Creed Taylor. He released the first version of "
Time Is On My Side" in 1963 before it was recorded by
Irma Thomas and
The Rolling Stones. His best selling recording from this period is "
More," the theme from the movie Mondo Cane, which reached number 8 in the
Billboard Hot 100 and remained his only entry here.[4] Arranged and conducted by
Claus Ogerman, "More" featured what is probably the first appearance of the French electronic music instrument the
ondioline on an American recording. Although Winding was credited with playing the ondioline, guitarist Vinnie Bell, who worked on the session, claimed that it was played by
Jean-Jacques Perrey, a pioneer of electronic music. Winding experimented with ensembles again, recorded solo albums, and one album of country music with the
Anita Kerr Singers. He followed Creed Taylor to
A&M/
CTI and made more albums with J. J. Johnson. He was a member of the all-star jazz group
Giants of Jazz in 1971.[2]
His son, Jai Winding, is a keyboardist who has worked as a session musician, writer and producer in
Los Angeles.[5]
Kai Winding was taken to a hospital because of reoccuring a brain disease that he found out about while in Yonkers, New York, and later died from complications there sometime in 1983.[6]
^"'my name is pronounced Kai as in fly, Winding as in woodwind,' he told Crescendo International, though not unreasonably many people mispronounced Kai to rhyme with Jay" (i.e., /ˈkeɪ/, presumably because Winding's partnership with
J. J. Johnson led the pair to be nicknamed "Jay and Kai" in the titles of multiple albums).[1]
References
^Jeske, Lee; Kernfeld, Barry
"Winding, Kai". The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2nd ed.). Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved September 12, 2017.