Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Harold “Doc” West was born on August 12, 1915 in Wolford, North Dakota. He learned to play piano and cello as a child before switching to drums. By the 1930s he was playing in Chicago with Tiny Parham, Erskine Tate and Roy Eldridge. Towards the end of the decade he filled in for Chick Webb when he was unable to lead his own orchestra.
The early 1940s Doc played with Hot Lips Page and on the emerging bebop scene at Minton’s Playhouse in New York City alongside Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Tiny Grimes and Don Byas. He played with Oscar Pettiford in 1944 and stood in for Jo Jones occasionally in Count Basie’s orchestra.
He appears on recordings led by Slam Stewart, Leo Watson, Wardell Gray, Billie Holiday, Big Joe Turner, Jay McShann and Erroll Garner, leaving a small but impressive catalogue as a sideman. Drummer Doc West passed away on May 4, 1951 in Cleveland, Ohio while on tour with Roy Eldridge.
Take A Dose On The Road
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Anthony Pompeo, better known as Johnny Rae or John Rae was born on August 11, 1934 in Saugus, Massachusetts and grew up in music, as his mother played piano in night clubs in the Boston area. His area of musical study in jazz led him to become a drummer and vibraphonist. Graduating from East Boston High School in 1952, he went on to study piano at the New England Conservatory and timpani at Berklee College of Music.
Johnny joined Herb Lee’s R&B band right out of high school, gigged with Slim Gaillard and Milt Buckner, played drums and vibes with Al Vega and Jay Migliori. Upon the recommendation of MJQ’s John Lewis, he teamed up with to play with George Shearing, alongside Toots Thielemans, Al McKibbon on bass and three Latin percussionists that included conguero Armando Peraza. It was during this period that Peraza taught him to play timbales.
He played with Johnny Smith, Ralph Sharon, Cozy Cole and Herbie Mann throughout the Fifties. The next couple of decades were equally commanding of his talents by Cal Tjader, Stan Getz, Gabor Szabo, Charlie Byrd, Earl Hines, Art Van Damme, Anita O’Day and Barney Kessel among many others. Though mainly concentrating in the context modern jazz, he never wandered far from Latin music and the Latin jazz percussion he played.
Though he was on more than three-dozen recording sessions, Johnny only recorded one as a leader, “Opus De Jazz, Volume 2” in 1960 for Savoy. A second release under his name was in actuality him fronting Herbie Mann’s band for contractual reasons.
Since the 1980s Rae has worked in music education, has authored several instruction books and was a disc jockey in San Francisco for many years. He assembled a tribute band to Tjader called Radcliff (Tjader’s middle name) and led the band until his death. Johnny Rae, drummer and vibraphonist passed away in 1993 in San Francisco, California.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
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The Jazz Voyager
Dazzle Restaurant and Lounge: 930 Lincoln Street, Denver, Colorado / Telephone: 303-839-5100 Fax: 303-839-5102 / info@dazzlejazz.com / Web: dazzlejazz.com / Contact: Miles Snyder or Donald Rossa.
DazzleJazz presents an authentic jazz club experience unlike anything in Colorado. You will expect a high quality of service, food and drink to accompany the intimate showcase of local, national and international musicians. The club has been listed as “One of the Top 100 Jazz Clubs in the World” by Downbeat Magazine and “Best Jazz Club” by Westword. They strive to be a positive and unique part of the Denver community. Cool cocktails, fine cuisine and jivin’ jazz!
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Patti Austin was born on August 10, 1950 in Harlem, New York City to a jazz musician father and grew up on Long Island. She made her debut at the Apollo Theater at age four and had a contract with RCA Records when she was five. Quincy Jones and Dinah Washington have proclaimed themselves as her godparents. But it was a reluctant outing as a teenager to hear one of Judy Garland’s last concerts and the experience-helped focus her career, giving her the desire to interpret a lyric like that.
By the late 1960s Austin was a session musician and commercial jingle singer. During the 1980s, she was signed to Jones’s Qwest Records and began her most prolific hit-making period. By this time she was both one of the leading background session vocalists and also was known as Queen of The Jingles for such companies as Burger King, Almay, KFC, McDonald’s, Avon, Stouffers, Maxwell House and the US Army.
Charting twenty R&B songs between 1969 and 1991, hitting #1 for her hits “Do You Love Me?” / “The Genie”, Baby Come To Me” – a duet with James Ingram, and also hits with “How Do you Keep The Music Playing”, again teaming with Ingram and “It’s Gonna Be Special”. She would sing background for Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are” along with Luther Vandross, Jocelyn Brown and Chaka Khan. She would be enlisted to sing duets with Michal Jackson, George Benson, Luther, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Narada Michael Walden and Johnny Mathis.
Austin would be seen leading a new group of Raelettes for the 2006 album “Ray Charles + Count Basie Orchestra = Genius”; participating in the AVO Session Basel tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, and after nine nominations, winning her first Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album for her 2008 album Avant Gershwin.
Patti co-produced and was one of over 70 artists singing on “We Are The World: 25 for Haiti” to raise awareness and aid for those affected by the 2010 earthquake. In 2011 she released a mostly covers album project titled “Sound Advice” re-working Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Brenda Russell, Bill Withers and Don McLean songs and a female take on “My Way” among others.
No to be idle Austin co-wrote and sings in the star-studded L.O.V.E. – Let One Voice Emerge, encouraging especially younger Americans to get out there and exercise their right to vote; has been seen in the Bridges/Coppola film “Ticker: The Man And His Dream, and appears in the Academy Award-winning documentary film “20 Feet From Stardom” in 2013. She continues to perform, compose and tour.
Inspire A Young Mind
More Posts: vocal
Hollywood On 52nd Street
The Second Time Around is a song with words by Sammy Cahn and music by Jimmy Van Heusen. It was introduced in the 1960 film High Time, sung by Bing Crosby with Henry Mancini conducting his orchestra. The song was nominated for and Oscar for Best Original Song.
The Story: High Time is a comedy film directed by Blake and starred Bing Crosby, Fabian and Tuesday Weld. The film is told from the perspective of a middle-aged man who enters the world of a new generation of postwar youth. In the years since its release, the film has come to be viewed as a comedic study of the slowly emerging generation gap between the music and mores of an older generation and postwar youth, as well as an inadvertent time capsule of American adolescents and lifestyles in 1960.
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www.whatissuitetabu.com