Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Palle Mikkelborg was born on March 6, 1941 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Self-taught on trumpet in his youth, he started playing professionally in 1960 and in 1963 joined the Danish Radio Jazz Group, leading it from 1967-1972.
Performing at the Newport Jazz Festival with a quintet helped solidify Palle as a dominant figure on the Danish and international progressive jazz scenes. He has recorded as a leader for Debut, Metronome, Sonet, Storyville, and ECM.
Releasing several solo records, Mikkelborg has also recorded with various co-founded groups, as well as performing sideman duties or arranger on numerous international records.
His most notable international collaborations include the Gil Evans Big Band, the George Russell Big Band, George Gruntz’s Concert Jazz Band, Abdullah Ibrahim, Dexter Gordon, Karin Krog, Gary Peacock, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, Terje Rypdal, Thomas Clausen, Jan Garbarek and many others. With Miles Davis, he composed a suite and produced the 1989 album release Aura.
In 2001 he was awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize. Avant-garde and post-bop trumpeter, composer, arranger and producer Palle Mikkelborg has continued to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Carol Sloane was born on March 5, 1937 in Providence, Rhode Island. She has been singing professionally since she the age of 14. Between September 1967 and May 1968, she occasionally wrote album reviews for Down Beat and for a time in the 1970s she worked as a legal secretary in Raleigh, North Carolina
One of her early efforts was working with the Les and Larry Elgart orchestra. Later she filled in for Annie Ross of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. But by 1961, with success at the Newport Jazz Festival Carol landed a multi-album contract with Columbia Records.
In the 70s her career stalled for a time, but Sloane was able to resume live performance and recording by the 1980s. She later signed with Concord Records and found some successes touring Japan.
She has worked with Tim Horner, George Duvivier, Art Davis, Barry Galbraith Clark Terry, Nick Travis, Bob Brookmeyer, Richie Pratt, Art Farmer, Clifford Jordan, Kenny Burrell, Kenny Barron, Rufus Reid, Grady Tate and Ken Peplowski, just to names a few. Vocalist Carol Sloane continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cy Touff was born Cyril James Touff on March 4, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois. He started on piano at age 6 and went on to play xylophone and saxophone before settling on trumpet.
Serving in the Army from 1944 to 1946, while in the military Touff played trombone. After the war he switched to bass trumpet and worked with Woody Herman and Sandy Mosse among others. He joined Herman’s band in 1953 and in 1954-55 played with a reduced version of the band that also included Richie Kamuca.
Touff and Mosse co-led an octet called Pieces of Eight from the late 1950s into the next decade. He also recorded as a leader for Pacific Jazz, Argo and Mercury record labels. Though he spent most of his life in Chicago, he was also well associated with West Coast jazz.
One of the few jazz musicians known as a bass trumpeter, Cy Touff passed away in Evanston, Illinois on January 24, 2003.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Pierre Michelot was born on March 3, 1928 in Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris, France. He studied piano from 1936 until 1938 when he switched to bass at the age of sixteen.
Throughout his career he performed and recorded with Rex Stewart, Coleman Hawkins, Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli, Don Byas, Thelonious Monk, Lester Young, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, Zoot Sims, Dizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker and numerous others.
Michelot was a member of the Jacques Loussier Trio, known for the Play Bach album series. In 1957 he recorded the landmark album Afternoon In Paris with John Lewis and Sacha Distel Septet. As a leader he recorded Round About A Bass with an orchestra on the Uni Jazz France label.
Together with Miles Davis, he was responsible for the critically acclaimed soundtrack of Louis Malle’s film Ascenseur pour l’echafaud and also appeared as an unnamed bass player in the movie Round Midnight.
In later life, bebop and hard bop double bassist Pierre Michelot suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and passed away on July 3, 2005.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Red Saunders was born Theodore Dudley Saunders on March 2, 1912 in Memphis, Tennessee. Early in his career he played in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Chicago, Illinois playing with Stomp King. For a time, he worked with Tiny Parham at the Savoy Ballroom in Chicago.
In 1937, the Club DeLisa gave Saunders control of the house band, where he remained almost uninterrupted until the club’s closure in 1958. Among his sidemen were Leon Washington, Porter Kilbert, Earl Washington, Sonny Cohn, Ike Perkins, Riley Hampton, singer Joe Williams and Mac Easton.
Among the arrangers he employed were Johnny Pate and Sun Ra. Despite his regular gig and disinclination to go on the road, Red played with Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman, and recorded with Big Joe Turner.
He continued to lead a band at Chicago’s Regal Theater into the Sixties, and played with Little Brother Montgomery and Art Hodes at the New Orleans Jazz Festival in the 1970s. Drummer and bandleader Red Saunders, who also played vibraphone and timpani, passed away on March 5, 1981 in Chicago.
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