Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Carla Ruth White was born on September 15, 1951 in Oakland, California but was raised in Bellport, New York. She grew up studying jazz dance and singing her way through her parents’ classical and pop records, from Stravinsky to Sinatra. At 13, she discovered jazz and responded with a passion that became a lifelong commitment to her singing. While in high school she took up acting and singing, then studied at the Webbe-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London from 1969 to 1971. She then traveled throughout Europe and North Africa for nearly a year singing on the street, living in a cave and exploring other cultures.
Returning to New York City in the early 70’s White began studies with jazz pianist and teacher Lennie Tristano, building her jazz vocabulary and learning hundreds of songs by ear singing along with Lester Young, Clifford Brown, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday and many others. Next she studied with saxophonist Warne Marsh and concentrated on wordless improvising, or “scat” singing. This led to her first band, a bebop quintet with trumpeter Manny Duran.
Late in the 1970s Carla and Manny co-led the band and in 1984 they released the album Andruline for Stash Records. In 1985 she launched her critically acclaimed career as a solo artist and two years later she produced her first album for Milestone Records, Orient Express, named one of the best albums of the year by JAZZIZ magazine. She has been recognized in Downbeat Magazine’s 37th Annual International Critics Poll as Talent Deserving Wider Recognition.
She released Listen Here in 1995 on the Evidence Music label and then recorded Carla White Live at Vartan Jazz, followed by Carla White In Mexico. She has performed in a wide variety of venues from clubs to concerts, festivals to television, nationally and internationally. As an educator she has conducted seminars, workshops and master classes for The New School, Vermont Jazz Center, University of Northern Colorado and at the Music Conservatory of Ghent while on tour in Belgium and The Netherlands.
Carla also has an active career as a voice-over artist, has several commercials on TV and radio and provided the vocals to the ending-theme Can’t Say Goodbye To Yesterday for the video game Metal Gear Solid @: Sons of Liberty. Vocalist Carla White, noted for her scat singing, passed away on May 9, 2007 after a long battle with cancer.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jeffery Smith was born on September 14, 1955 in Queens, New York. He began honing his voice at a very early age, under the influence of his mother, Ramona, who was a classical singer. At the age of 18, he moved to Los Angeles, California for a decade and found work as a singer, actor and artist, landing several bit parts in television and film while performing in the local clubs.
In 1980 he starred in the bi-coastal production of Hollywood & Highland, produced by Lee Strasberg and Robert Greenhut. For his work on the show he was awarded the 1981 Drama Critic’s Award, from Drama Logue Magazine. Smith returned to New York in 1985, co-starred on stage in productions of Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair and Capitol Cakewalk in between performing in the city’s major clubs through 1991.
In the fall of 1991, what originally began as a Paris vacation for Jeffery, ended up being a 7-year stay and within 7 months, he met and was signed by Claude Bolling as the voice of his big band. Over the six years he recorded four albums, performed two world tours with Bolling’s Big Band throughout Europe and Asia and was the voice of numerous jingles for French commercials.
In the summer of 1995, Smith signed a 3-album contract with Universal/Verve and all three albums garnered international critical acclaim. His debut album he dedicated and titled Ramona, which was produced and accompanied by the legendary pianist Shirley Horn for the Gitanes/Verve label. His debut was followed by his sophomore project A Little Sweeter was praised in TIME Magazine as being “the most vital album of the year, and culminating with his 1999 Down Here Below.
He starred in and narrated the recording of Duke Ellington’s A Drum is a Woman in Paris, co-starred with Dee Dee Bridgewater in Cabaret and in her Peace & Love music video, as well as 3 sold out concerts at the Paris Olympia, establishing him as one of the most revered male jazz vocalists in the industry.
Jeffery has performed with Wynton Marsalis and Jazz At Lincoln Center, Regina Carter, Kenny Barron, Ray Drummond, Ben Riley, Dianne Reeves, Joe Lovano, TK Blue, Ernie Watts, Pete Levin, Winard Harper, and Chanda Rule among others.
While still performing internationally Jeffery headed his Non-Profit Production Company Tri-Loxodonta, Inc., the Portuguese translated means 3 Modern African Elephants. Ernie Watts, Pete Levin, Winard Harper, and Chanda Rule. Baritone vocalist Jeffery Smith whose distinctive style set him apart from the cadre of male singers, passed away on July 5, 2012
Take A Dose On The Road
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NEW FALL SEASON ALBUMS & PERFORMANCES / NYC
SEPTEMBER ALBUM DROPS & PERFORMANCES
ORRIN EVANS The pianist Orrin Evans has lately been on a hot streak, advancing a pugnacious and exploratory brand of post-bop. “The Evolution of Oneself” deepens this agenda, featuring a trio with two smart, groove-literate peers: the drummer Karriem Riggins and the bassist Christian McBride. (Mr. Evans will celebrate the album’s September release, with different partners, Sept. 10 through Sept. 20 at Smoke Jazz Club; smokejazz.com.) Smoke Sessions. (Nate Chinen)
THE ROYAL BOPSTERS PROJECT In this multigenerational jazz vocal summit, renowned old-timers like Jon Hendricks, Annie Ross, Sheila Jordan, Andy Bey and Bob Dorough harmonize with the quartet London, Meader, Pramuk and Ross, younger keepers of the tradition. Birdland, Sept. 15 through Sept. 19, birdlandjazz.com. (S.H.)
KARRIN ALLYSON The album “Many a New Day: Karrin Allyson Sings Rodgers & Hammerstein” (Sept. 18) tells you the main thing you need to know about Ms. Allyson’s new album, her first nonholiday release in four years. You should know at least a couple of more things: first, that she aces the tightrope walk of songbook reverence and jazz-vocal breeziness that often proves elusive on such an album; and second, that her sterling accompanists are the bassist John Patitucci and the pianist Kenny Barron.
JOHN ELLIS & DOUBLE-WIDE A saxophonist and clarinetist fond of blending modern-jazz erudition with street-level grooves, John Ellis has long had a strong outlet in Double-Wide, featuring the New Orleans drummer Jason Marsalis along with Matt Perrine on sousaphone and Alan Ferber on trombone. “Charm” (Sept. 18), the group’s new album, also greatly benefits from the work of Gary Versace, on organ, accordion and piano. Parade Light. (N.C.)
PÉREZ PATITUCCI BLADE Since roughly the turn of this century, the pianist Danilo Pérez, the bassist John Patitucci and the drummer Brian Blade have been refining a sleek, ecstatic bond within the Wayne Shorter Quartet. They recently began working as a stand-alone trio, bringing an open-ended spirit of inquiry and deep reserves of collective intuition; “Children of the Light” is their debut album (Sept. 18).
LUCIANA SOUZA The Brazilian jazz vocalist Luciana Souza has carved a special niche out of lilting duologue, working one by one with a small stable of revered acoustic guitarists. But on “Speaking in Tongues” (Sept. 18) she’s at the center of a changeable and frisky band; its guitarist is Lionel Loueke, who has a taste for polyrhythmic density, and its star soloist is the harmonica whiz Grégoire Maret. The album’s title partly refers to all the nonverbal felicity in Ms. Souza’s tunes, though she also presents new musical settings for a pair of Leonard Cohen poems.
JOHN SCOFIELD “Past Present” (Sept. 25) is an album title with more than one connotation for the guitarist John Scofield. For one thing, it’s a welcome reunion of his quartet of the early-to-mid 1990s, an elastic, swinging group with Joe Lovano on tenor saxophone and Bill Stewart on drums. (Larry Grenadier is the bassist for this go-round.) The deeper meaning, mostly implicit, is an elegy for Mr. Scofield’s son, who died of cancer two years ago — and whose outlook can apparently be credited for this music’s resolute lightness of spirit.
CHRISTIAN SCOTT ATUNDE ADJUAH “Stretch Music” (Sept. 18) is the new album by this firebrand trumpeter from New Orleans, who now resides in Harlem. It’s also a set of aesthetic principles — at heart, involving the elasticity of genres, including the one most of us know as jazz.
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN AND THE 4TH DIMENSION Mr. McLaughlin, the English guitar virtuoso and jazz-fusion godhead, has an effervescent outlet in the 4th Dimension, the band with which he released his most recent album a few years ago. “Black Light” (Sept. 18) consists of all-new compositions for the band, including one piece Mr. McLaughlin wrote for a fallen brother in arms, the flamenco guitar legend Paco de Lucía. Abstract Logix. (N.C.)
CARLOS HENRIQUEZ Mr. Henriquez, the bassist in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, hails from a Puerto Rican family in the Bronx, and his background deeply informs his work. “The Bronx Pyramid,” Mr. Henriquez’s debut album, is due out on Blue Engine Records on Sept. 18. (N.C.)
KENDRICK SCOTT ORACLE “We Are the Drum” is the fourth album (and first for Blue Note) as bandleader by Mr. Scott, a drummer with Terence Blanchard, Herbie Hancock and others, and a composer making jazz that’s as central to contemporary practice as it comes: rhythmic and interactive, complex and precise and empathetic. Blue Note. Sept. 25. (The band performs at Jazz Standard Sept. 22-23.) (B.R.)
CHICK COREA AND BÉLA FLECK Jazz is to Mr. Corea, the celebrated pianist, as bluegrass is to Mr. Fleck, the estimable banjoist: a formative discipline and a continuing fascination, but hardly the whole picture. Their new double album, “Two,” (out Sept. 11) is a document culled from extensive touring over the eight years since their first duo album. Concord Jazz. They’ll perform on Sept. 27 at Town Hall. (N.C.)
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Richard Benjamin “Dick” Haymes was born on September 13, 1918 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His mother was a well-known vocal coach and instructor and he became a vocalist in a number of big bands, worked in Hollywood, on radio, and in films throughout the 1940s and1950s.
Though never achieving the immensely popular status of fellow baritone crooners like Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra or Perry Como was nonetheless just as respected for his musical ability. In 1942, Sinatra introduced him on the radio as his replacement in the Tommy Dorsey band, but prior to joining Dorsey’s group, he sang with the Harry James Orchestra.
Teaming with female vocalist Helen Forrest, they made numeroous hit duets during World War II, including Together, I’ll Buy That Dream, and Long Ago and Far Away, and he sang with Judy Garland on two Decca recordings of songs from the film The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, in which he appeared with Betty Grable. Haymes paired with the Andrew Sisters on a dozen or so Decca collaborations, including Teresa, Great Day, My Sin and Here In My Heart, backed by Nelson Riddle’s lush strings.
He joined Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters for 1947 session that produced the Billboard hit There’s No Business Like Show Business as well as Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better). Between 1949 and 1950 Dick hosted Club Fifteen with the sisters.
In 1953, he nearly got deported for traveling to Hawaii, then a territory, without notifying the authorities, but eventually won his case to stay in the States. Falling on hard times financially by the 1960s he declared bankruptcy with a half million in debt. He appeared as unscrupulous doctor Elroy Gantman in a 1974 episode of the TV show Adam-12. Vocalist Dick Haymes, passed away from kung cancer in Los Angeles, California on March 28, 1980. He was 61 years old.
Give The Gift Of Knowledge
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Papa John DeFrancesco was born John Jasper DeFrancesco on September 12, 1940 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Growing up with a father who played reeds in swing bands including the Dorsey Brothers, he began plaing trumpet at six and did not start playing organ until his wife bought him an organ for his 23rd birthday. After a few months of nearly nonstop practicing, he was ready to perform in clubs.
By 1967 he was a part of the Philadelphia jazz scene. However, in 1979 when his son Joey turned eight and started playing professionally, he temporarily gave up his career in order to supervise his son. Johnny, his other son, has also developed into a fine guitarist.
In the 90s Papa John returned to a more active playing career and recorded two sessions for Muse Records featuring Joey on trumpet, titled Doodlin’ and Comin’ Home. Both records gained him a national reputation of his own. His organ playing is in an infectious hard bop style that compliments his sons playing and it was while working with Joey that his career was revived
Between 2001 and 2006 he released four albums, took a five-year hiatus, and then returned to release A Philadelphia Story performed by a classic Hammond B-3 trio featuring John Jr. on guitar, drummer Glenn Ferracone with guest appearances by Joey and tenor saxophonist Joe Fortunato.
Organist and vocalist Papa John DeFranceso continues to perform, tour and record.
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