Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sofia Ribeiro was born on March 18, 1978 in Lisboa, Portugal. She graduated with a degree in jazz performance from “Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espectáculo do Porto”, did a one year exchange program in Barcelona at “Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya”, and another one on scholarship at Berklee College of Music. She also received a master’s degree in jazz performance from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, and went on to study for one year at the “Conservatoire National Superieur de Paris”.
Ribeiro has recorded five CDs in duo and quartet settings, performed children’s music written for books, has toured throughout Europe performing at the Sunset Jazz Club, Jamboree, Silesian Jazz Festival as well as the Kennedy Center and Berklee Performance Center among others.,
Sofia has taken 1st prize at the international competitions “Crest Jazz Vocal” in France, 1st prize at the international competition for singing musicians “Voicingers” in Poland, and 2nd prize at the “Brussels International Young Jazz Singers Competition”, and was a part of the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead program at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
Vocalist and composer Sofia Ribeiro has developed strong and emotional performances blending elements of jazz, Brazilian and Portuguese music within her charming and powerful sound. She continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nat King Cole was born Nathaniel Adams Coles on March 17, 1919 in Montgomery, Alabama, one of four brothers and a half sister. His brothers Ike and Freddy would follow in his footsteps and pursue careers in music. When he was four years old his family moved to Chicago, Illinois where his father became a Baptist minister and where the young lad learned to play the organ from his mother. His first performance was at age four and he began formal lessons at 12, eventually learning jazz, gospel and Western classical. He went to DuSable High School and studied in the music program under Walter Dyeth.
Sneaking out of the house and to hang around outside the clubs, he listening to artists such as Louis Armstrong, Jimmy Noone and Earl Hines, the latter who inspired him. Cole began his performing career in the mid-1930s while still a teenager, adopting the name Nat Cole. His older brother, Eddie, a bass player, joined Cole’s band playing clubs and made their first recording in 1936 under Eddie’s name. They also were regular performers at clubs. He got his nickname, “King”, presumably reinforced by the nursery rhyme “Old King Cole”.
Nat went on to be the pianist in the national tour of Shuffle Along revue about theatre legend Eubie Blake. When it closed in Long Beach, he decided to stay in California. He formed Cole and two other musicians formed the “King Cole Swingsters” that eventual became the King Cole Trio. Their first radio broadcast on NBC’s Blue Network in 1938 led to their Swing Soiree, the Old Gold, Chesterfield Supper Club, Kraft Music Hall and The Orson Welles Almanac.
Cole frequently sang in between instrumental numbers. Noticing that people started to request more vocal numbers, he obliged. There was a customer who requested a certain song one night, but it was a song that Cole did not know, so instead he sang “Sweet Lorraine”. The King Cole Trio signed with the fledgling Capitol Records, known as the “House That Nat Built” in 1943. Revenues from Cole’s record sales fueled much of the label’s success during this period including the construction of the circular building.
Nat would perform in the first Jazz At The Philharmonic, have his revolutionary lineup of piano, guitar, and bass was emulated by many musicians, among them Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, Charles Brown and Ray Charles. He played with Lester Young, Red Callender and Lionel Hampton.
Cole’s first mainstream vocal hit was his 1943 recording of one of his compositions, “Straighten Up And Fly Right”, selling over 500,000 copies.
In 1946, the King Cole Trio Time program was on the air, recorded with a string orchestra and his pop stature came with his recording of “The Christmas Song” followed by a string of hits such as Nature Boy, Route 66, Mona Lisa, Too Young and Unforgettable. While this shift to pop music led some jazz critics and fans to accuse Cole of selling out, he never completely abandoned his jazz roots and in 1956 he recorded an all-jazz album After Midnight. He had one of his last major hits in 1963, two years before his death, with “Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer”, which reached #6 on the Pop chart.
He would go on to have a variety show on NBC without national sponsorship despite appearances of Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, Frankie Laine, Peggy Lee and Eartha Kitt. He would record Cole Espanol in Havana, Cuba, retool his final Nelson Riddle arranged album Wild Is Love into an Off-Broadway show titled “I’m With You”. Cole performed in many short films, sitcoms, and television shows such as St, Louis Blues, The Blue Gardenia, the Nat King Cole Story and on of his final appearances in Cat Ballou.
Cole was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, the Alabama Jazz Hall Of Fame, the Down Beat Hall of Fame, the Hit Parade Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and has an official U.S. postage stamp in his honor.
Pianist, vocalist, composer and bandleader Nat King Cole, whose baritone voice performed in big band and jazz trio settings passed away on February 15, 1965 of lung cancer. He maintains worldwide popularity.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Brian Torff was born on March 16, 1954 in Chicago, Illinois. He began his professional career in 1974 when bassist Milt Hinton offered him the opportunity of touring with Cleo Laine. During the late 70’s, he recorded and performed with pianists Mary Lou Williams and Marian McPartland, and toured Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong with the jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli. He played in pianist Erroll Garner’s last group and worked in the big bands of Oliver Nelson, and The Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra.
In 1979, Brian joined pianist George Shearing in a duo setting and for 3.5 years they toured throughout the U.S., Europe, Brazil, and South Africa. They received worldwide acclaim and were played The Tonight Show, The Merv Griffin Show, had their own PBS special from the Cafe Carlyle in New York City and performed for President Reagan at the White House.
Torff has composed works for four albums as a leader, with George Shearing and Larry Coryell, has composed scores for the Boston Pops, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Pittsburgh Symphony, and has appeared as conductor, composer, and clinician for numerous high school and college jazz festivals. He penned the book In Love With Voices: A Jazz Memoir chronicles his early musical roots and provides portraits of musicians he has worked with, including Frank Sinatra, Mel Tormé, Erroll Garner, Benny Goodman, Mary Lou Williams, Marian McPartland, Stephane Grappelli, and George Shearing.
He is a professor of music and the director of the music program at Fairfield University in Connecticut, makes frequent appearances at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts, and lead the Fairfield University Jazz Ensemble along with guest jazz artists. Brian leads his own trio, and is the musical director for the Django Reinhardt New York Festival, has played Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Birdland and Carnegie Hall. He has with Mark O’Connor, Dave Grusin, Regina Carter, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, and Pinchas Zukerman. He continues to perform at jazz festivals and workshops around the United States.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ralph MacDonald was born on March 15, 1944 in Harlem, New York under the close mentorship of his Trinbagonian father, Patrick MacDonald, a calypsonian and bandleader known on stage as “Macbeth the Great”. He began showing his musical talent, particularly the steelpan and at 17 started playing pan for the Harry Belafonte show.
Remaining with the Belafonte band for a decade, he struck out on his own in 1967, together with Bill Eaton and William Salter, he formed Anisitia Music, based in Stamford, Connecticut.
MacDonald’s composition Where Is The Love written with Salter was recorded in 1971 by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway, won a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and received a gold record status. One of his best-known compositions, Just The Two Of Us” was recorded by Bill Withers with saxophone by Grover Washington, Jr reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has been sampled by many.
Ralph worked with Quincy Jones, Ron Carter, Milt Jackson, Paul Desmond, Max Roach, Don Sebesky, Shirley Scott, Arif Mardin, Hubert Laws, Bob James, David Sanborn, George Benson, Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway, Patti Austin, Bernard Purdie and Grover Washington as well as Burt Bacharach, Carle King, Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, Average White Band, Art Garfunkel, Ashford & Simpson and numerous others.
He travelled regularly back to Trinidad and Tobago, where he renewed his work in the steelpan, “beating iron” in “The Engine Room”, a steel band’s rhythm section is often called. At 12:50 AM on Sunday, December 18, 2011, songwriter, arranger, record producer, percussionist Ralph MacDonald passed away of lung cancer.
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Hollywood On 52nd Street
Stairway To Paradise was a tune composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin for the 1951 musical film An American in Paris. Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guétary and Nina Foch.
The Story: American World War II veteran Jerry Mulligan is now an exuberant expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend and neighbor, Adam Cook s a struggling concert pianist who is a longtime associate of a French singer, Henri Baurel At the ground-floor bar, Henri tells Adam about his cultured girlfriend. A lonely society woman and heiress, Milo Roberts, finds Jerry displaying his art on the street and takes in an interest in him and his art. And the fun begins with dancing and singing.
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