Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jesse Powell was born in Smithville, Bastrop County, Texas, on February 27, 1924. He received his formal music training before he began his professional career at age eighteen, when he toured with fellow Texan, Oran “Hot Lips” Page beginning at the age of eighteen during 1942–43.
During the war years he went on to play with Louis Armstrong in 1943–44, then with the Luis Russell Orchestra in 1944–45. He replaced fellow Texas tenorist Illinois Jacquet in the Count Basie Band for a tour of California in 1946. At this time Powell also worked with blues singers Champion Jack Dupree and Brownie McGhee.
1947 saw Jesse joining Curly Russell’s band, and in 1948 he formed his own band in New York City. That same year he performed with trumpeter Howard McGhee at the first international jazz festival in Paris. In 1949–50, he was a member of the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band, with whom he recorded a solo on Tally Ho. In 1953 he once again formed another jump-rhythm band, and in 1964 a Powell quintet played at Birdland in New York City.
Tenor saxophonist Jesse Powell died on October 19, 1982 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Colin Thomas Purbrook was born February 26, 1936 in Seaford, East Sussex, England and learned piano from the age of six from his father, who was also a professional pianist. As an eleven year old, in 1947 he won three Challenge Cups at the Brighton Music Festival. He went on to study music at the Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. As well as playing piano, he also played the trombone with the Cambridge University Jazz Band.
Leaving Cambridge in 1957 he joined Sandy Brown’s quintet on double bass for a six-month period at the popular Oxford Street 100 Club. He played piano for three years with Al Fairweather’s All Stars, and also played with Kenny Ball, both as a pianist, trumpeter and double bassist. In the early 1960s he worked with Kenny Baker, Ian Carr, Tony Coe, Bert Courtley, Jimmy Deuchar, Wally Fawkes, Alan Ganley, Derek Hogg, Dudley Moore, John Picard, Don Rendell, Ronnie Ross, and Ronnie Scott.
In 1961 he worked alongside composer and musician Charles Mingus on the music score for the film All Night Long which was eventually released in 1962. Later in the decade he continued working with Brown and Coe, as well as with Brian Lemon, Humphrey Lyttelton, and Phil Seamen on drums. He played piano for the BBC 2’s music programme Jazz 625 with Dakota Staton and the Keith Christie All Stars respectively and was a member of Benny Goodman’s sextet when the clarinetist recorded a special gala performance for BBC2 in 1964.
He often played with drummer Phil Seamen, joining his trio during the late 1960s and early ’70s. Colin was a frequent sideman for Americans touring the UK, and worked over the course of his career with Chet Baker, Ruby Braff, Benny Carter, Doc Cheatham, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Art Farmer, Dexter Gordon, Barney Kessel, Howard McGhee, James Moody, Annie Ross, Zoot Sims, and Buddy Tate. He was involved with the production of a number of stage plays from the 1970s through the 1990s. He led trios and quartets into the 1990s, took up a couple of residencies as a solo pianist, and continued to tour and appear on radio and television and, despite the fact that he began to suffer from rheumatoid arthritis in 1995.
Pianist, double bassist, trumpeter and songwriter Colin Purbrook, who also led his own smaller and larger ensembles, died in London, England of cancer on February 5, 1999.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Thomas Penn Newsom was born in Portsmouth, Virginia on February 25, 1929 and earned degrees from the Norfolk Division of the College of William & Mary, the Peabody Conservatory of Music, and Columbia University. He went on to serve in the United States Air Force during the Korean War where he played in the band.
He toured with the Benny Goodman Orchestra and performed with Vincent Lopez in New York. Newsom joined the Tonight Show Band in 1962, and left it when Carson retired in 1992. In addition to Carson’s orchestra, he performed with the orchestra for The Merv Griffin Show.
Well known within the music industry as an arranger as well as a performer, he arranged for groups as varied as the Tonight Show ensemble and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, and musicians Skitch Henderson, Woody Herman, Kenny Rogers, Charlie Byrd, John Denver, and opera star Beverly Sills.
He won two Emmy Awards as a music director, one in 1982 with Night of 100 Stars, and in 1986 for the broadcast of the 40th Annual Tony Awards. He also recorded six albums as a bandleader and another four as a sideman.
On April 28, 2007 saxophonist Tommy Newsom, who was nicknamed Mr. Excitement by Johnny Carson and was the band’s substitute director, died of bladder and liver cancer at his home in Portsmouth. He was 78 years old.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Judy Lewis was born on February 19, 1958 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and from age seven she studied classical piano, subsequently winning competitions throughout the Midwest. Moving to New York City she continued with her studies at Columbia University, but gradually moved from music to study religion. At 20 she moved to Israel where she continued to perform while searching for spiritual meaning in her life.
Her success as a performer was overshadowed by her desire to concentrate on spiritual matters. In 1991 Lewis began playing the piano again and by 1995 she returned to a music career, in addition to teaching to support her family. Dissatisfied with the classical form, by the mid-90s she turned to jazz. The catalyst came in Los Angeles, California when she attended her first jazz concert and was soon practicing extensively the work of jazz pianists such as Chick Corea, Bill Evans, Tommy Flanagan, Red Garland and Keith Jarrett.
She began composing her own music, formed a group, the Back Alley Jazz Quintet, and made her jazz debut in 1996. By the following year, Judy had brought the group down to a trio. Her acclaim grew in Israel, then expanded to tours of Europe and the USA. In 2002 she released a solo set, Waiting On A New Day, and then in 2003 she formed the fusion band, Phoenix Over Manhattan which would evolve into an acoustic band, No Expectations that was greeted warmly by critics.
Energetic, enthusiastic and determined, her concept of jazz had a vibrancy that was welcomed by many for its contrast to the smooth jazz outpourings of the early century. Pianist Judy Lewis, who operates a recording company, Visionary Insomniac Records, continues to perform, compose and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ron Horton was born on February 12, 1960 in Bethesda, Maryland and attended Berklee College of Music from 1978 to 1980. He moved to New York City two years later where, as a longtime member of Jane Ira Bloom’s band (1983-2000), he became an integral part of the jazz scene.
Since 1992 Ron has been a member of the New York Jazz Composers Collective and the Herbie Nichols Project under Frank Kimbrough and Ben Allison. From 1998 to 2003 he was also a member of Andrew Hill’s sextet, and appeared on his album Dusk (1999).
Horton worked as a sideman with Ted Nash, Allan Chase, Bill Mays, Jon Gordon, Andy Laster, Phillip Johnston, Matt Wilson, Roberta Piket, Rez Abbasi, Walter Thompson, Pete Malinverni, Jamie Baum, Bill Gerhardt, Rich Rosenzweig, John McKenna, Michael Jefry Stevens, Peggy Stern and others.
He has given master classes and workshops at The New School in New York, the New England Conservatory of Music, the University of North Carolina, and Oxford University.
Trumpeter Ron Horton, who released his debut album as a leader in 1999, continues to perform and record.
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