Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Christian Scott, also known as Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah was born March 31, 1983 in New Orleans, Louisiana. A twin to brother Kiel, at the age of 13 he was given the chance to play with his uncle, jazz alto saxophonist Donald Harrison. A year later he was accepted into the New Orleans Center of Creative Arts where he studied jazz under the guidance of program directors, Clyde Kerr, Jr. and Kent Jordan.
After graduating NOCCA, Christian received a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, graduating in 2004. While matriculating his last year he was member of the Berklee Monterey Quartet and recorded as part of the Art:21 student cooperative quintet. He studied under the direction of Charlie Lewis, Dave Santoro, and Gary Burton. He majored in professional music with a concentration in film scoring.
Scott has worked across musical genres with Stefon Harris, David Sanchez, Donald Harrison, Karin Williams, Nnenna Freelon, Grace Kelly, Erin Boheme, X Clan, Prince, Mike Clark, David Benoit, Global Noize, Ledisi, Marcus Miller and Esperanza Spaulding, to name a few.
His debut album Rewind That on the Concord Record label garnered him a Grammy nomination and received the Edison Award in 2010 and 2012. Since 2002, he has released eight studio albums, and two live recordings. Trumpeter, composer and producer Christian Scott continues performing with his eight-piece ensemble his legacy in jazz.
More Posts: trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lanny Morgan was born March 30, 1934 in Des Moines, Iowa and raised in Los Angeles, California. In the 1950s he played with Charlie Barnet, Si Zentner, Terry Gibbs and Bob Florence.
He did a stint in the U.S. military and had to turn down an offer to play in the Stan Kenton orchestra. From 1960-65 he played in Maynard Ferguson’s orchestra after a few years in New York City Morgan returned to Los Angeles in 1969. There he did frequent studio work, performed sessions with Nancy Sinatra and Carmen McRae,
He was a member of Supersax and played in the big bands of Bill Berry, Bob Florence and Bill Holman. Alto saxophonist Lanny Morgan has chiefly been active on the West Coast jazz scene.
More Posts: saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sidney Arodin was born in Westwego, Louisiana on March 29, 1901. He went by Sidney Arnandan, Arnondrin or Arnondin. He began playing clarinet at age 15 and played local New Orleans gatherings and on the riverboats. He made his way to New York City in the early Twenties and played with Johnny Stein’s New Orleans Jazz Band from 1922.
He performed with Jimmy Durante in the middle of the decade, then returned to Louisiana to play with Wingy Manone and Sharkey Bonano. During the 1930s he worked with Louis Prima and with a reconstituted version of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, featuring Manone.
By 1941, Arodin’s poor health prevented him from playing frequently live, but before this time he recorded with Johnnie Miller, Albert Brunies, Monk Hazel and the Jones-Collins Astoria Hot Eight. Many of his performances are mistakenly credited on original recordings to Charlie Cordella.
Clarinetist and composer Sidney Arodin, who co-wrote the standard Lazy River with Hoagy Carmichael, passed away in New Orleans, Louisiana on February 6, 1948.
More Posts: clarinet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tete Montoliu was born Vicenç Montoliu i Massana on March 28, 1933 in the Eixample district of Barcelona, Spain. Born blind, he was the only son of Vicenç Montoliu, a professional musician) and Àngela Massana, a jazz enthusiast, who encouraged her son to study piano. He first began piano lessons under Enric Mas at the private school for blind children that he attended from 1939 to 1944. By 1944, his mother arranged for Petri Palou to provide formal piano lessons.
From 1946 to 1953 Montoliu studied music at the Conservatori Superior de Música de Barcelona, where he also met jazz musicians and became familiar with the idiom in jam sessions. During the early stages of his career, Montoliu was particularly influenced by the music of pianist Art Tatum, although he soon developed a distinctive style.
He began playing professionally in Barcelona pubs where noticed by Lionel Hampton in 1956 he began touring with Hampton throughout Spain and France. After the tour Tete recorded Jazz Flamenco, setting off a prolific international career. In the 1960s, he played in various New York City concerts and established collaborations with drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Richard Davis.
The Seventies saw him traveling extensively throughout Europe, consolidating his reputation as a main referent in the hard bop movement. During the 1980s, he played numerous concerts, collaborating with Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Joe Henderson, Dizzy Gillespie, Chick Corea, Hank Jones, Roy Hargrove and Jess Davis, to name a few.
The man from Catalonia, pianist Tete Montoliu was given a public tribute by Spain in 1996 for his fifty-year career in jazz. He passed away the following year on August 24, 1997 in Barcelona. He left the jazz world an estimated catalogue of 52 albums as a leader and another 21 as a sideman with Anthony Braxton, Nuria Feliu, Dexter Gordon, Eddie Harris, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Charlie Mariano, Jordi Sabates, Archie Shepp, Lars Gullin, Buddy Tate, and Ben Webster.
More Posts: bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Hal Kemp was born March 27, 1904 in Marion, Alabama. He studied and learned to play the saxophone and clarinet and while at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill he formed his own campus jazz group, the Carolina Club Orchestra. They recorded for English Columbia and Perfect/Pathé Records in 1924 and toured Europe that same summer under the sponsorship of bandleader Paul Specht.
Kemp returned to UNC in 1925 and put together a new edition of the Carolina Club Orchestra, featuring classmates and future stars John Scott Trotter, Saxie Dowell and Skinnay Ennis. By 1927 he turned professional and turned over the orchestra to Kay Kyser.
Basing his band in New York City, Hal’s group included Trotter, Dowell, and Ennis, and later joined by trumpeters Bunny Berigan and Jack Purvis. The sound was 1920s collegiate jazz and in the Thirties he toured Europe again and recorded regularly for Brunswick, English Duophone, Okeh and Melotone record labels.
During the height of the Depression in 1932 Kemp changed the orchestra’s style to a dance band. He incorporated an early version of the echo effect using large megaphones for the clarinets, muted trumpets and a double-octave piano. Vocalists with the band during the 1930s included Ennis, Dowell, Bob Allen, Deane Janis, Maxine Gray, Judy Starr, Nan Wynn and Janet Blair.
Hal’s band was one of the most popular bands in the 1930s and was often featured performing on NBC and CBS radio shows. The band also appeared in numerous motion-picture short subjects and was featured in the 1938 RKO film Radio City Revels. He had hits with There’s A Small Hotel, Lamplight, I Got A Date With An Angel, You’re The Top, Lullaby Of Broadway and Where or When.
On December 19, 1940, alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, composer and arranger Hal Kemp while driving from Los Angeles to a booking in San Francisco, his car collided head-on with a truck. Breaking a leg and several ribs, one of which punctured a lung, he developed pneumonia while in the hospital and died two days later in Madera, California. He was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz hall of Fame in 1992.