Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lynette Washington was born on December 11th in Brooklyn, New York and as a child listened to jazz, R&B and gospel of which can be heard in her vocal style. She began her early professional singing career performing in Russian nightclubs throughout New York City and Europe.
She has appeared with jazz drummers Buddy Williams and Anton Fig, and with Clifford Jordan, Gerry Neiwood, Alex Blake and Cameron Brown and recorded on the early GRP releases of jazz trumpeter Tom Browne. Lynette has taken her talent into the R&B/Dance world with her group Touche as well as working with Aretha Franklin, U2, Peter Gabriel, Lenny Kravitz. She has also lent her voice to national commercials for Roy Rogers, Mercedes Benz, Boy’s Town, Nescafeand Pizza Hut.
She has four projects under her belt beginning with her1999 debut solo project entitled Long, Long Ago (A Jazz Celebration of Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanzaa, Smoky Dawn, Kaleidoscope and a double CDLIVE! at Harlem’s Kennedy Center.Vocalist Lynette Washington sings in several international languages including Russian, Yiddish, French, Italian, Hebrew and Portuguese as she continues to perform, tour and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Billie Davies was born on December 10, 1955 in Bruges, West Flanders, Belgium. An autodidact and naturally talented she was surrounded by music from birth as her mother played the best in jazz and classical music. From the age of ten she was singing in choirs until her voice changed around the age of 22.
A few years later Davies would embark on learning to play the drums and became a professional jazz musician shortly after declining Max Roach’s invitation to attend Berklee College of Music. Her music is an improvisational conversation between musicians and musical instruments.
Billie has played with Leroy Vinnegar, John Handy, Joe Fuentes, Saul Kaye, Michael Godwin, Lee Elfenbein, Drew Waters, Pierre Swärd, Tom Bone Ralls, Manny Silvera, Oliver Steinberg, Daniel Coffeng, Adam Levy and has appeared all over the world.
Drummer, composer, director, arranger and bandleader Billie Davies has been honored as Jazz Artist of the Year at the Los Angeles Music Awards, drums in rhythms of jazz, cool jazz, Avant jazz and avant-garde and continues to mold it into her own neo-humanistic expressionist jazz.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Freddy Martin was born Frederick Alfred Martin on December 9, 1906 in Cleveland, Ohio and was raised mostly in an orphanage and by various relatives. He started out playing drums, then switched to C-melody saxophone, finally landing on the tenor saxophone.
Martin led his own band while he was in high school, then played in various local bands. Earning enough money through music to enter Ohio State University, he opted to perform and wound up becoming an accomplished musician. After working on a ship’s band, he joined the Mason-Dixon band, then joined Arnold Johnson and Jack Albin, with whom he made his first recordings in 1930.
Freddy’s career got started when he filled in one night for a date Guy Lombardo couldn’t make. Though the band did well, it broke up and he didn’t put another together until 1931 at the Bossert Hotel in Brooklyn, New York. Here he pioneered the “Tenor Band” style that swept the sweet-music industry and spawned imitators in hotels and ballrooms nationwide.
He would go on to make his debut for Columbia Records in 1932, then record for Brunswick, Bluebird, and Victor Record labels. He would play NBC radio’s Maybelline Penthouse Serenade and have his million copies gold record hit Tonight We Love with Clyde Rogers on vocals. Martin recorded A Lover’s Concerto two decades before The Toys made it popular as a R&B hit, as well as many other classical pieces were arranged for his jazz band.
Nicknamed “Mr. Silvertone” by saxophonist Johnny Hodges, Chu Berry named him his favorite saxophonist, and so did Eddie Miller. He had a good ear for singers and at one time or another employed Merv Griffin, Buddy Clark and Helen Ward. His popularity led him to Las Vegas, Hollywood performing in a handful of movies, while still playing hotels, radio and a tour of one-nighters called The Big Band Cavalcade.
Returning to California he would lead Guy Lombardo’s band when he was hospitalized and led his own band until the early 1980s, although by then, he was semi-retired. Tenor saxophonist and bandleader Freddy Martin passed away at age 76 on September 30, 1983, in a Newport Beach hospital after a lingering illness.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tim Armacost was born on December 8, 1962 in Los Angeles, California. He began his musical training on clarinet in Tokyo at the age of eight but by sixteen he had switched to tenor saxophone, and was working in big bands around Washington. His turning point into a jazz career came at eighteen when he returned to Los Angeles and met his two primary teachers, Bobby Bradford and Charlie Shoemake. Through them he learned the fundamentals of melody and harmony, and was exposed to the giants of modern jazz, who would give shape to his early development.
Armacost graduated Magna Cum Laude from Pomona College in 1985, moved to Amsterdam later that year, established himself on the jazz scene, learned fluent Dutch and became the head of the Sweelinck Conservatory’s saxophone department. After seven years of performing, teaching and recording in Europe, he headed for India. There he studied under table master Vijay Ateet. He would go on to perform with Indian jazz and classical musicians and at festival.
Fluent in Japanese, Tim has studied as an exchange student at Waseda University, and has performed with Terumasa and Motohiko Hino, Fumio Karashima, Nobuyoshi Ino, Fumio Itabashi, Shingo Okudaira, Benisuke Sakai, Kiyoto Fujiwara, and Yutaka Shiina.
Moving to New York in 1993 he established himself and released his first two albums Fire and Live at Smalls. With his quartet, the cooperative group Hornz in the Hood with fellow saxophonists Craig Handy and Ravi Coltrane he continues to perform as well as with Ray Drummond’s “Excursion Band,” and co- leads the Brooklyn Big Band with Craig Bailey.
Tenor saxophonist Tim Armacost has performance and recording credits alongside Al Foster, Jimmy Cobb, Kenny Barron, Tom Harrell, Billy Hart, Victor Lewis, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Ray Drummond, Roy Hargrove, Paquito D’Rivera, Claudio Roditi, Bruce Barth, Dave Kikoski, Don Friedman, Lonnie Plaxico, Robin Eubanks, Charlie Shoemake, Pete Christlieb, Randy Brecker, Akira Tana, Valery Ponomarev, the Maria Schneider Orchestra, and the David Murray Big Band. He continues to tour throughout East and West Europe, Japan, India, and the United States.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Robby Ameen was born on December 7, 1960 in New Haven, Connecticut of Lebanese origins and studied drums with Ed Blackwell and classical percussion with Fred Hinger. He would go on to graduate from Yale with a degree in Literature.
In 1985 he became a member of Ruben Blades’ Seis del Solar band, winning a Latin Grammy for best Salsa record Todos Vuelven Live, Vol. 1 and 2. He would have long-term residencies with Dave Valentin, Conrad Herwig’s Latin Side of…All Stars, Kip Hanrahan, and Jack Bruce and the Cuicoland Express. As a sideman he has recorded on other Grammy winning records including Ruben Blades and Seis del Solar’s Escenas and Brian Lynch’s Simpatico.
Robby has played with Dizzy Gillespie, Eddie Palmieri, Paul Simon, Mongo Santamaria, Carly Simon, Hilton Ruiz, Kirsty MacColl and Steve Swallow among others. As a session musician Ameen has recorded numerous jingles, film scores, and TV music, including the popular HBO series Sex and the City. In 2012, Ameen was the subject on an episode of the Emmy Award-winning Detroit Public Television series Arab American Stories.
As an educator, he co-authored with bassist Lincoln Goines the best-selling instructional book Funkifying the Clave: Afro-Cuban drums for Bass and Drums. He is an international clinician, percussion/drum festival participant and is currently on the faculty at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Drummer and bandleader Robby Ameen is best known for the unique and powerful Afro-Cuban style he has created and is regarded as one of the world’s most prominent drummers in the area of Latin Jazz.
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