Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Henry (Hank) Mobley was born on July 7, 1930 in Eastman, Georgia but was raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Early in his career, he worked with Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach, and then took part in one of the landmark hard bop sessions, alongside Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Doug Watkins and Kenny Dorham, resulting in the release of Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers and the Jazz Messengers. When they split in ’56, Hank and Silver continued their collaboration in the 50s.

During the 1960s, he worked chiefly as a leader, recording over 20 albums for Blue Note Records between 1955 and 1970 and playing many of the most important hard bop players such as Grant Green, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Clark, Wynton Kelly and Philly Joe Jones, along with a particularly productive partnership with Lee Morgan. He spent a brief time with Miles Davis in 1961 replacing John Coltrane.

Hank was a major voice on tenor saxophone, known for his melodic playing, is widely recognized as one of the great composers of originals in the hard-bop era, with interesting chord changes and room for soloists to stretch out.

He was forced to retire in the mid-1970s due to lung problems and although he worked two engagements at the Angry Squire in New York City in ‘85 and ‘86 in a quartet with Duke Jordan. He recorded as a leader for Blue Note, Prestige and Savoy record labels leaving history thirty-two albums and another fifty-six sitting in the sideman seat.

A few months later tenor saxophonist and composer Hank Mobley, who soared in the hard bop and soul jazz genres with his laid-back, subtle and melodic delivery, passed away from pneumonia on May 30, 1986.


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The Jazz Voyager

Thelonious Jazz Bar: Av, 20 de Octubre # 2172, L Paz, Bolivia / Telephone: 2443948 / Contact: Juan Pereira / This is a small jazz club located at an altitude of 4000m. Rated best venue for jazz lovers as they present all forms of jazz. Live performances Wednesdays through Saturdays. Open from 18:30 hrs./6:30pm onwards. Drinks and snacks available.

 

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Louie Bellson was born Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni on July 6, 1924 in Rock Falls, Illinois. He started playing drums at three years of age and at 15 pioneered the double-bass drum set-up. By 17 he triumphed over 40,000 drummers to win the Slingerland National Gene Krupa contest and graduated from high school in 1939.

1943 saw Bellson performing with Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee in the film “The Powers Girl” followed two more by the decade’s end. Between 1943 and 1952, he performed with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James and Duke Ellington, for whom he composed “Skin Deep” and “The Hawk Talks”. In 1952 he married Pearl Bailey, leaving Ellington to be her musical director, a union that lasted 38 years until her death in 1990.

Through the 1950s and 1960s, Louie performed with Jazz At The Philharmonic or J.A.T.P., Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie, again with Duke Ellington and Harry James, as well as appearing on several Ella Fitzgerald studio albums.

Equally adept as a big band or small group drummer, Bellson recorded extensively and led his own big and small bands, occasionally maintaining separate bands on each coast. His sidemen have included Blue Mitchell, Don Menza, Larry Novak, John Heard, Clark Terry, Pete and Conte Candoli and Snooky Young.

Louie Bellson, composer, arranger, bandleader and jazz educator passed away from Parkinson’ s disease on February 14, 2009.


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Hollywood On 52nd Street

Dearly Beloved and I’m Old Fashioned 1942 song written by Johnny Mercer and Jerome Kern, introduced by Fred Astaire in the 1942 musical romance comedy film You Were Never Lovelier. Set in Buenos Aires, Astaire’s co-stars are Rita Hayworth, Adolphe Menjou and Xavier Cugat. Jerome Kern composed the music with Johnny Mercer writing the lyric.

The Story: The Acunas are a rich Argentine family, with four daughters and the tradition of marrying them off in order, oldest first. When sister #1 gets married, sisters #3 and #4 pressure Maria, sister #2, to get married because they have their husbands picked out already. But Maria hasn’t yet met a man she likes and knowing this her father secretly sends his daughter flowers and anonymous love letters, creating a “mystery man” for her to fall in love with. But Robert Davis, an American dancer looking for work, stumbles into the picture. Maria falls for him, but the father does not approve.


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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Eric Watson was born July 5, 1955 in Wellesley, Massachusetts. After graduating from Oberlin Conservatory he moved to Paris and by 1982 he recorded his first trio album with Paul Motian and Ed Schuller followed by two solo albums.

He worked in a long-time duo with double-bass player John Lindberg that became extended with Albert Mangelsdorff and Ed Thigpen. He has played and recorded with Steve Lacy, Linda Sharrock and Joelle Leandrein1991. His trio with Mark Dressler and Ed Thigpen recorded Silent Hearts” in 1998 that became the basis for the “Full Metal Quartets” a year later with saxophonist Bennie Wallace.

Eric’s current small catalogue of seven recordings includes a solo piano project Sketches of Solitude” in 2002 that became one of the best-selling jazz albums in France. Between 2003 and 2005 he toured Europe, Asia, and Australia with tenor saxophonist Christof Lauer.

His dance score The Peking Ballet was commissioned by Radio City Music Hall to a record summer attendance of 200,000. Watson has presented commissioned works at the Lyon Opera, the State Theatre in Poitiers, he has written for Martial Solal and the Orchestra National de Jazz and for Australian violinist Jane Peters.

 In 2001, Eric Watson was appointed artistic director of La Villette Jazz Festival, is musical consultant to the director of the Cité de la Musique, and in 2003 he was appointed as a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.


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