Daily Dose Of Jazz…

George Chisholm was born on March 29, 1915 in Glasgow, Scotland and at the age of fifteen in the late 1930s he moved to London, where he played in dance bands led by Bert Ambrose and Teddy Joyce. He later recorded with jazz musicians such as Coleman Hawkins, Fats Waller and Benny Carter during their visits to the UK.

During the Second World War, he signed on with the Royal Air Force and joined the RAF Dance Orchestra, known popularly as the Squadronaires, remaining in the band long after he was demobbed. George followed this with freelance work and a five-year stint with the BBC Showband, the forerunner of the BBC Radio Orchestra. As a core member of Wally Stott’s orchestra on BBC Radio’s The Goon Show, he made several minor acting appearances.

He had roles in the films The Mouse on the Moon, The Knack …and How to Get It and Superman III. He was part of the house band for the children’s programs Play School and Play Away. He also sang and was a storyteller on Play School occasionally.

During the 1980s despite undergoing heart surgery, Chisholm continued to play, working with his own band the Gentlemen of Jazz and Keith Smith’s Hefty Jazz among others, and playing live with touring artists.

By the mid-1990s he retired from public life suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Trombonist and vocalist George Chisholm, who was appointed as an Officer of the British Empire (OBE), died on December 6, 1997 at the age of 82.

CALIFORNIA JAZZ FOUNDATION

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The Jazz Voyager

The Jazz Voyager is crisscrossing the country once again and this week is heading to the Emerald City for this week’s destination. The club I will be relishing to the sounds of jazz is Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley, and it is located in downtown Seattle, kitty corner to the Amazon Spheres where 40,00 plants from over thirty countries are housed.  The atmosphere within this small venue is a cozy bi-level 350 seats that puts me between five to 50 fifty feet from the stage.

This evening of music entertainment is with Madeleine Peyroux, who spent her teenage years busking the busy streets of Paris, France. Befriending the city’s street musicians she made its Latin quarter her first performing stage. Years later in 1996, her breakthrough album Dreamland sold a striking 200,000 copies and Madeleine’s dusky voice was likened to that of jazz greats Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.

The venue is located at the corner of Lenora Street at 2033 6th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98121. For those who want more info go to https://notoriousjazz.com/event/madeleine-peyroux-2.

CALIFORNIA JAZZ FOUNDATION

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Born Charles Isaacs on March 28, 1923 in Akron, Ohio, he initially played trumpet and tuba as a child before settling on bass. He served in the Army during World War II, where he took lessons from Wendell Marshall. After the war he played with Tiny Grimes from 1948–50, Earl Bostic from 1951 to 1953, Paul Quinichette in 1953, and Bennie Green in 1956.

Ike, as he was affectionately called, led a local band in Ohio in 1956, then played for two years in the trio behind Carmen McRae, whom he married late in the decade. He went on to work with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, then with Count Basie, Gloria Lynne, and Erroll Garner in the Sixties,

With his own small groups he recorded only once as a leader, At The Pied Piper in 1967 for RGB Records. On this recording he plays in a trio with Jack Wilson on piano and Jimmie Smith on drums. As a coleader he recorded two albums with Maxine Sullivan.

As a sideman he recorded twenty-six albums with Count Basie, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, Roy Brown, Ray Bryant, Harry Edison, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Pee Wee Erwin, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Erroll Garner, Bennie Green, Al Grey, Jon Hendricks, Carmen McRae, Big Miller, Esther Phillips, Dan Wall, Jack Wilson, and Joe Williams.

Bassist Ike Isaacs died on February 27, 1981.

CALIFORNIA JAZZ FOUNDATION

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Lisa Lindsley was born March 27, 1957 in Ogden, Utah. Growing up she listened to her father’s records of jazz greats like Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Her mother, a film actress who had to leave Hollywood in the 1950s because of the McCarthy-era blacklist, imbued in her a love of theater.

While as a young teen attending Wasatch Academy in Mt. Pleasant, Utah Lindsley gravitated to the rock and pop music of the day, she discovered musical theater in high school, a passion that carried through to college. After graduating from the California Institute for the Arts theater program, she spent a decade touring and performing with The Imagination Company. However, raising two daughters put her performing ambitions on hold for years, but she developed a successful career as a voice over artist, cast in national ad campaigns, radio shows and video games.

Comin to jazz singing in mid-life, she earned national attention with her stellar 2010 debut release Everytime We Say Goodbye, featuring bassist Fred Randolph and pianist George Mesterhazy. At the behest of her high school contortionist daughter’s desire to hone her French while studying at the Fratellini Circus School, she moved to Paris, France in 2013. This was the next natural step in her musical evolution. Settling in the 19th arrondissement filled with cultural vitality Lisa quickly developed a network of regular gigs with skilled accompanists. These relationships on her sophomore album, Long After Midnight, with pianist Laurent Marode, drummer Mourad Benhammou, Esaie Cid on flute, clarinet and tenor saxophone, and Bay Area bassist Jeff Chambers.

Back in the States and living in the San Francisco Bay area, Lindsley has been working steadily around the Bay Area over the past decade. She has honed her skills with Roger Letson at Contra Costa College, and studied with Maye Cavallero, Laurie Antonioli and Pamela Rose at the California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley.

Vocalist Lisa Lindsley, who received essential on the job training from Bay area pianist/drummer Kelly Park,  continues her career of performance and recording.

CALIFORNIA JAZZ FOUNDATION

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Jazz Poems

WHAT I’M WILD FOR

I broke when I was ten and forty-

year-old Mr. D. was clambering on top of me

and it was all I could do to kick him back, keep

the red ceiling light in sight, and wait

for her to find me. So this is what she’s on

her knees for every night, praying

for Pops to come on back, rip her skirt off

and ride her until it’s only skin she ever wants

to feel again. I wanted to fling that in her face

the way a slick trumpeter cat from Philly

flung any panties at me summer I was fifteen.

I’ve seen more love in Alderson, behind

the warden’s back, behind Jim Crow’s back

on the way home from movies: dykes would touch

hands, feed cigarettes to one another

like they were kisses, before the cells broke us all up–-

forgers, whores, boosters, pushers, users.

The soldiers had it, too, begging for pieces

of my dress and stockings, tearing them to petals

under their noses because they have the smell 

of woman on them. I could love a whole

army like that. But two husbands later

and the hungry I feel is not the 600-miles-a-night

on a bus flashing slow silver between gigs

while my stomach opens wide. The cure

for that is simple as a couple bucks, red beans

and rice. What I’m wild for is a few grains

of dope and the shakes I get from head to satin

feet when it’s “Strange Fruit.” One night, my

body can’t

hold me down, the notes break clean, and no one

can see me, but they point to the voice flying over

the band and say, Billie, nobody sings 

hunger like you do, or love.

JANET M. CHOI

SUITE TABU 200

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