Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ari Hoenig was born on November 13, 1973 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was exposed to music very young, being his father is a conductor and classical vocalist, his mother a violinist and pianist. He began studying the violin and piano at age four, playing the drums by twelve and by fourteen was honing his skill with young jazz musicians in Philadelphia clubs.
He would go on to matriculate through the University of North Texas, become a member of the One O’Clock Lab Band, then wanting to be closer to the action in New York City, he transferred to William Patterson University in northern New Jersey. It wasn’t long before Ari began playing with fellow Philadelphia native Shirley Scott and gigging around the City.
Moving to Brooklyn found him playing with Jean Michel Pilc, Kenny Werner, Chris Potter, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Joshua Redman, Wayne Krantz, Mike Stern, Richard Bona, Pat Martino, Bojan Z, Dave Liebman, Tigran Hamasyan, Ethan Iverson, Mark Turner and Fred Hersch.
He has shared the stage with Herbie hancock, Ivan Lins, Wynton Marsalis, Toots Thielemans, Dave Holland, Joe Lovano and Gerry Mulligan. In 2005 Hoenig appeared with his group at the Dominican Republic Jazz Festival.
He released his debut album Jazzheads as a leader in 1999, followed up by Time Travels in 2000 and The Life of a Day in 2002. He has nine albums out to date and has had several articles and reviews written in about him in Drummerworld, Down Beat, All About Jazz and other publications.
As an educator he teaches privately and is on the faculty of New York University, the New School for Social Research, and has released several educational and instructional manuals and videos about drumming. Drummer, composer and educator Ari Hoenig continues to perform, record and tour, leading a quintet, nonet and trio.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Audrey Morris was born in Chicago. Illinois on November 12, 1928 and developed her piano and vocal skills growing up in the Windy City. She got her start in the music business in the early to mid-’50s during which time she recorded her first two albums. Her debut album Bistro Ballads was released in 1954 followed up by her sophomore project The Voice of Audrey Morris two years later in 1956.
Opting to work her hometown Audrey’s delicate piano and forceful voice played to any intimate Chicago club or bistro crowd well into the wee hours of the morning. Her reputation grew for bucking the current taste for bawdy chanteuses and she cultivated a repertoire of obscure, understated material.
Not much was heard from Morris throughout the 1960s and ’70s, but she returned in the Eighties, this time with her own record label, Fancy Faire. She began releasing albums once more from 1984’s to 1997 that included Afterthoughts, Film Noir, Look at Me Now and Round About.
During her career she worked with bassist Johnny Pate, drummer Charles Walton, conductor, arranger and pianist Marty Paich, trumpeter Stu Williamson and guitarist Bill Pitman. Audrey has been touted as one of the great female saloon singers, ranked alongside Chris Connor and Jeri Sothern.
Pianist and vocalist Audrey Morris continued to perform well into the new millennium and has indelibly left her mark on that Windy City by the lake.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Lloyd Morrison was born on November 11, 1962 in Boorowa, New South Wales, Australia. Though his father was a Methodist minister, he comes from a musical family with his mother playing alto saxophone, piano and organ, his sister is a trumpeter, and his older brother a jazz drummer. Due to his father’s ministry the family relocated to various locales in New South Wales before settling in Pittwater.
From the age of seven Morrison practiced on his brother’s cornet, attended Mona Vale Primary School and Pittwater High School, then he enrolled at Sydney Conservatorium of Music where he completed a jazz course. While there he met Don Burrows, who became his mentor.
In 1983 Morrison joined his brother John’s 13-piece group, Morrison Brothers Big Bad Band and a year later he was playing trumpet, trombone and piano, his brother on drums, Warwick Alder on trumpet, Paul Andrews on alto saxophone, Tom Baker on alto and baritone saxophones, Peter Cross on trumpet, Glenn Henrich on vibraphone, Jason Morphett on tenor saxophone, and Craig Scott on bass. The group released their debut album, A Night in Tunisia, in 1984 on the ABC Records label.
Morrison has performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Don Burrows, Ray Charles, B. B. King, Ray Brown, Wynton Marsalis, Graeme Lyall, Frank Sinatra, Cab Calloway, Jon Faddis, Woody Shaw, Whitney Houston, Arturo Sandoval, Phil Stack, George Benson, Mark Nightingale, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Gina Jeffreys and Red Rodney, just to name a few. His long association with composer and pianist Lalo Schifrin has led James to record a number of CDs for Schifrin’s Jazz Meets the Symphony series, with the London and the Czech National symphony orchestras.
Morrison sponsors yearly scholarships for young musicians, and is actively involved with several youth bands. He discovered his regular vocalist, Emma Pask, at a school concert when she was 16 and has since gone on to become an internationally renowned jazz singer. He is the chairman of Generations in Jazz, one of the largest youth jazz events in the world. He has been the hosts of the in-flight jazz radio station for Qantas Airways.
Morrison designed trumpets and trombones, built his own recording studio, recorded top Australian jazz musicians including Dan Clohesy, Jake Barden, Don Burrows, Liam Burrows, John Morrison, The Swing City Big Band, The Generations In Jazz Academy Big Band, Graeme Lyall and more. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, was nominated for Best Jazz Album, in 1992 for Manner Dangerous, 1993 for Two the Max, a collaboration with Ray Brown, and was inducted into the Graeme Bell Hall of Fame.
He has received an honorary Doctor of Music from the Edith Cowan University and from the University by Griffith University, Morrison is also an Adjunct Professor of the University of South Australia and a Vice Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow. He continues to perform, record and tour.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mark Turner was born November 10, 1965 in Fairborn, Ohio, and raised in the small Southern California town of Palos Verdes Estates. His original intent was to become a commercial artist but in elementary school he played the clarinet, followed by the alto and tenor saxophones in high school. He attended California State University, Long Beach in the 1980s playing in the jazz ensembles, and then transferred to and graduating from Berklee College of Music in 1990.
Moving to New York city, Turner worked at Tower Records for an extended period before working full-time as a jazz musician. His debut release Yam Yam on the Criss Cross label hit the airwaves in 1995 and since he has released seven more for Criss Cross, Waner, Fresh Sound and ECM record labels. He is a member of the trio Fly, with bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Jeff Ballard and have released three albums.
Late 2008 Mark was off the jazz scene when a power saw injury injured two fingers on one of his hands sidelined him. Fortunately by late February the next year he was performing again with the Edward Simon Quartet at the Village Vanguard. In 2014 he released his first album as a leader in thirteen years featuring the talents of trumpeter Avishai Cohen, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Marcus Gilmore.
He has worked with Gilad Hekselman’s Quartet, drummer Billy Hart‘s Quartet, recorded extensively with guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, saxophonist David Binney, and pianist Aaron Goldberg, as well as Ryan Kisor, Jonny King, Jimmy Smith, Jon Gordon, George Colligan, Seamus Blake, Lee Konitz, Joshua Redman, Matthias Lupri, Jaleel Shaw, Omer Avital, SF Jazz Collective, Yelena Eckemoff, George Mraz, Joe Locke and Tom Harrell among others. Considered one of the most influential tenor saxophonists of his generation, Mark Turner continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Muggsy Spanier was born Francis Joseph Julian Spanier on November 9, 1906 in Chicago, Illinois. He borrowed the nickname from the manager of the NY Giants, John “Muggsy” McGraw. In the early 1920s, he was playing cornet with The Bucktown Five in Chicago.
He led several traditional hot jazz bands, most notably Muggsy Spanier and His Ragtime Band, that actually played Dixieland. This band set the style for all later attempts to play traditional jazz with a swing rhythm section of key members George Brunies on trombone and vocals, clarinetist Rod Cless, pianists George Zack or Joe Bushkin, Ray McKinstry, Nick Ciazza or Bernie Billings playing tenor saxophone, and Bob Casey on bass.
Muggsy’s theme song was Relaxin’ at the Touro, named for the infirmary in the New Orleans, Louisiana hospital where Spanier was treated for a perforated ulcer in 1938. Saved by Dr. Alton Ochsner he homaged a song titled Oh Doctor Ochsner.
Spanier made numerous Dixieland recordings, co-led a quartet, the Big Four, with Sidney Bechet in 1940 and co-led a traditional band with pianist Earl Hines at the Club Hangover in San Francisco, California in the 1950s. He followed this engagement up playing with the Bob Crosby band. Winding down his career in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s by 1959 he was leading a small band at the College Inn in the Sherman Hotel, then appeared in the Blue Note, Jazz Ltd. and in the Empire Room of the Palmer House, all in Chicago. His last appearance was at the Newport Rhode Island Jazz Festival in 1964.
Cornetist, composer and bandleader Muggsy Spanier passed away on February 12, 1967.
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