Daily Dose of Jazz…
Mary Stallings was born August 16, 1939 in San Francisco, California, one of the eldest of 11 children growing up in the Laurel Heights district, where she still lives, starting as a gospel singer at the First AME Church. Her professional singing career began before she graduated from Lowell High School. Encouraged by her uncle, saxophonist Orlando Stallings, she listened closely to the great jazz singers.
As a teenager, Stallings was appearing in Bay Area nightclubs performing with Ben Webster, Cal Tjader, Earl Hines, Red Mitchell, Teddy Edwards and the Montgomery brothers. Before graduation from high school she joined R&B pioneer Louis Jordan’s Tympani Five. One night in the early Sixties at San Francisco’s Black Hawk nightclub, Dizzy Gillespie invited Ms. Stallings out of the audience and onto his bandstand to sing. By the time she was 26, Mary was playing the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival together with Gillespie in 1965.
The vocalist is perhaps best known for her 1961 collaboration with vibraphonist Cal Tjader on Cal Tjader Plays, Mary Stallings Sings on Fantasy, however, she went on to tour Asia, South America and perform stateside sharing billing with Billy Eckstine, Joe Williams, Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald. From 1969 – ’72 she held a three-year residency as the Count Basie Orchestra girl singer.
After a short semi-retirement Stallings returned to full-time singing at the end of the eighties and finally came to the attention of the national jazz audience with her 1994 release of the aptly titled “I Waited for You” with the Gene Harris Quartet. She followed with Fine and Mellow, Spectrum, Manhattan Moods, Live at the Village Vanguard and Remember Love.
Over the years Mary has worked with jazz luminaries Monty Alexander, Paul Humphries, Ron Eschete, Hendrik Meurkens, Dick Oatts, Geri Allen, Ben Wolfe and Andy Simpkins. She has performed at major festivals being backed by the likes of Marcus Shelby’s Jazz Orchestra, Eric Reed Trio and Wycliffe Gordon and is the recipient of San Francisco’s SF Jazz Beacon Award. She continues to perform, tour and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph Armand Castro was born on August 15, 1927 in Miami, Arizona and went to school in Pittsburg, north of Oakland, California in the Bay area where he began playing professionally at the age of 15. After graduation he enrolled at San Jose State University but his matriculation was interrupted not once but twice by Army service and then with the forming of a working trio.
Moving to New York City in 1956 Castro hit the ground working at Basin Street, The Embers, Hickory House and Birdland. During this period in his career, Leonard Feather and Dave Brubeck critically lauded his talent.
Two years later Joe moved back to the West Coast landing in L.A. playing with Teddy Edwards, Billy Higgins and Leroy Vinnegar. The bebop pianist recorded and performed extensively with The Teddy Edwards Quartet while also making two of his own recordings as a leader for Atlantic Records. His debut album in 1956 “Mood Jazz” utilized three different ensembles: a large orchestra with strings and voices, another string orchestra without voices and a regular jazz combo of piano, trumpet, alto saxophone, bass, and drums. His sophomore album titled “Groove Funk Soul” was recorded on July 18, 1958 and included tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards, bassist Leroy Vinnegar and Billy Higgins on drums.
In the early 1960’s, tobacco heiress/jazz enthusiast Doris Duke and then long-term boyfriend Castro, along with silent partner and friend Duke Ellington, formed record company Clover Records and music publishing company Jo-Do. Castro’s third album as a leader titled “Lush Life” was the only album released on Clover Records. But by 1966, Jo-Do, Clover, and the Castro-Duke relationship had failed, and all three were shortly dissolved.
From 1959 to 1960, Castro backed vocalists Anita O’Day and June Christy; was music director for Tony Martin from 1961 to 1963. He performed with sidemen Chico Hamilton, Red Mitchell, Ed Shonk and Howard Roberts in his trios and quartets. Castro moved to Las Vegas in the 70s and continued to accompany vocalists and play in Las Vegas pit bands until he became the musical director for the Tropicana’s Folies Bergere. Pianist Joe Castro passed away on December 13, 2009.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lorez Alexandria was born Dolorez Alexandria Turner on August 14, 1929 in Chicago, Illinois and began as a singer in churches in her teens, spending 11 years as part of an “a cappela” choir. Turning to jazz, she worked the local Chicago club scene before moving to Los Angeles in 1962 to further her career.
Although Alexandria never made the anticipated breakthrough to a wider audience, but she was highly regarded as a jazz singer by those who knew her work, whether as critics, musicians or fans. Over the course of her career Lorez recorded with such musicians as King Fleming, Ramsey Lewis, Howard McGhee and Gildo Mahones.
Lorez had an attractive voice, a good feel for jazz phrasing, and a cleanly enunciated delivery that was always highly sensitive to the import of the lyric she was singing. She remains best known for her album Alexandria the Great released in 1964 that featured her in a variety of contexts ranging from big bands to small groups, including several tracks with the Wynton Kelly Trio.
She recorded several albums, including This is Lorez Alexandria with the King Fleming Quartet 1957; Deep Roots 1960; A Woman Knows 1978 and Harlem Butterfly 1984.
Retiring from performing in 1996, she suffered a stroke shortly afterwards, remaining in failing health. Vocalist Lorez Alexandria succumbed to complications from kidney failure on May 22, 2001 in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Puma was born on August 13, 1927 in the Bronx, New York. He became known professionally playing with Joe Roland in 1949. During the ‘50s he held down a position as a studio musician working with Louis Bellson, Artie Shaw, Eddie Bert, Herbie Mann, Mat Mathews, Chris Connor and Paul Quinichette. In 1957 he won the “New Star Award for Guitar” from Metronome Magazine.
He went on to record as a leader during this time and into the Sixties working with Morgana King, Bobby Hackett, Gary Burton and Carmen McRae and between 1972 and ’77 the guitarist led an ensemble with Chuck Wayne. He continued to perform and teach into the late 90s.
The typical Puma style was filled with clean melodic lines, perfect “comping” behind the other players. He had a humorous ad lib quality that showed up as “out of tempo” playing or quoting other melodies.
Guitarist Joe Puma left the world eight albums as a leader and numerous others as a sideman, passing away on May 31, 2000 in New York City a few months shy of his 73rd birthday.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Patrick Bruce Metheny was born August 12, 1954 in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, a suburb southeast of Kansas City. At 15 he won a Down Beat scholarship to a one-week jazz camp, taken under the wing of guitarist Atilla Zoller and met Jim Hall and Ron Carter In NYC. Following high school graduation in 1972, he briefly attended the University of Miami, was quickly offered a teaching position but moved to Boston, accepting a teaching assistantship at Berklee College of Music with vibraphonist Gary Burton, making his name as a teenage prodigy.
In 1974, Metheny gained notoriety playing two sessions with Paul Bley and Carol Goss’ Improvising Artists label along with bassist Jaco Pastorius. He entered the wider jazz scene in 1975 when he joined Gary Burton’s band and his musical momentum carried him rapidly to the point that he had soon written enough material to record his debut album “Bright Size Life” with Pastorius and drummer Bob Moses.
One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz and New Age musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and ’80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group, is involved in side projects, and has released notable solo, trio, quartet and duet recordings. He has worked with musicians such as Jim Hall, Dave Holland, Roy Haynes, Toninho Horta, Gary Burton, Joni Mitchell, Chick Corea, Pedro Aznar, Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Haden, John Scofield, Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, Bill Stewart, Ornette Coleman, Brad Mehldau and many others.
His style incorporates elements of progressive and contemporary jazz, post-bop, new age, Latin jazz and jazz-fusion. He has been voted Guitarist of the Year by the Down Beat Magazine Readers Poll several times, was granted the Miles Davis Award by the Montreal International Jazz Festival, has amassed an impressive catalogue of 97 albums as a leader, collaborator or sideman, has three gold albums and has received 20 Grammy Awards.
Guitarist Pat Metheny has been touring for more than 30 years, playing between 120-240 concerts a year.
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