Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edward Simon was born July 27, 1969 in Punta Cardón, Venezuela into a musical family as both his brothers, Marlon and Michael Simon are also noted professional musicians. Sent to the United States by his father at the age of fifteen to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, he studied classical piano with Susan Starr. After that, beginning in 1989 he studied with Harold Danko at the Manhattan School of Music and played with Kevin Eubanks and Greg Osby.
His stay in New York City saw Simon playing with Herbie Mann, Paquito D’Rivera, Bobby Hutcherson, Jerry Gonzalez, John Patitucci, Arturo Sandoval, Manny Oquendo, and Don Byron. He was a member of Bobby Watson’s band Horizon from 1989 to 1994, and since 2002 has been a member of the Terence Blanchard Group.
Recording his debut album as a bandleader in 1994, that same year Edward was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition. The following year he composed his Rumba Neurotica for the Relache Ensemble and composed his Venezuelan Suite on behalf of Chamber Music America.
He has since performed on several Grammy-nominated jazz albums. Besides his trio he also leads the Sexteto Venezuela, the Afinidad Quartet, and the group Simon, Simon & Simon, with his brothers, he teaches at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York. Pianist Edward Simon is currently an artist in residence at Western Michigan University and continues to compose, record and perform.
Sponsored By
#preserving genius
More Posts: piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Natsuki Tamura 田村 夏 樹 was born on July 26, 1951 in Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. He played in a wind band during his school days and after his graduation he became a professional musician performing with the World Sharps Orchestra, Consolation, the Skyliners Orchestra, the New Herd Orchestra, the Music Magic Orchestra and in different band configurations with his future wife, pianist Satoko Fujii .
He appeared in various Japanese television shows from 1973 to 1982, such as The Best Ten, Music Fair and Kirameku Rhythm. In 1986 he moved to the United States to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. After returning to Japan, Tamura taught at the Yamaha Music School and gave at private trumpet studios in Tokyo and Saitama.
Back in the United States, he worked with among others, the improvisation quartet Gato Libre, led his own groups, performed in the duo with his wife and as a soloist. Signed to Leo Records he released four albums, A Song for Jyaki, Buzz, Libra and NatSat. He also worked with Masahiko Satō, the Roca Saxophone Quartet, Larry Ochs, the Juggernaut Jug Band, Misha Mengelberg, Angelo Verploegen, Chris Brown, Jimmy Weinstein, Elliott Sharp, Paul Bley, Takayuki Katō, Takaaki Masuko, Ryōjirō Furusawa and the band Junk Box.
Trumpeter and composer Natsuki Tamura, whose influences have been Hugh Ragin, Roy Campbell, Wadada Leo Smith, Toshinori Kondo, Don Cherry and Lester Bowie, continues to perform, record and compose.
More Posts: trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Fletcher Allen was born on July 25, 1905 in Cleveland, Ohio and began his career in the mid-’20s as a member of Lloyd Scott’s Band in New York City. In 1927, he was off to Europe for the first time in a group under the direction of Leon Abbey, a bandleader whose pioneering efforts with jazz eventually led to a 1936 tour of India which he also participated in. In between, he went to Budapest with the Benny Peyton group in 1929 and hung out in Europe the following decade. While in Europe he performed on several collaborations with guitarist Django Reinhardt, among others.
Reinhardt recorded some of his arrangements and compositions, including the intoxicating Viper’s Dream. Allen also took advantage of the European base to take part in several tours involving top American performers such as Louis Armstrong, Freddy Taylor and Leon Abbey in the ’30s. It was during this time that he began leading his own band.
By 1938, he began performing with Benny Carter, something of a doppelgänger in that both men played alto saxophone and clarinet and had excellent reputations as arrangers and shows up several times in the extensive Carter discography. He went on to Later that year, Allen went to Egypt as a member of the Harlem Rhythmakers group during an era when American jazz musicians held court at swank Cairo hotels, a situation that would be quite inconceivable in modern times.
As World War II escalated Fletcher returned home to the States and at first found little work but eventually left the docks when he found that his new skills on baritone sax meant work filling in the sections of various New York big bands. His last job of any notoriety began in the early 70s with the big band of Fred “Taxi” Mitchell, meaning he was one New Yorker who always managed to find a taxi.
Saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Fletcher Allen, whose composition Viper’s Dream has become a jazz staple, passed away on August 5, 1995.
Sponsored By
#preserving genius
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Delano Zollar was born July 24, 1959 in Kansas City, Missouri and studied after high school at San Diego City College, then at the University of California, San Diego . At the same time, he played in various radio and jazz bands and conducted his own quintet. By 1972 he had moved to San Francisco, California to study improvisation with Woody Shaw.
In 1984, he moved to New York City, played in the Cecil McBee band, and was involved in several big band projects by David Murray in the 1990s. During the decade he worked in the big band of Joe Haider & Bert Joris, recorded with Sam Rivers on his Inspiration album, played with JM Rhythm Four of Jürg Morgenthaler in Zurich and played in the Tom Harrell big band on Time’s Mirror.
By the turn of the century he was working on several projects with clarinetist Don Byron such as Bug Music and You Are # 6. He released his debut recording as a leader, Souring with Bird, on the Naxos Jazz label. James worked with Jon Faddis and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra and with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.
Zollar appeared in Robert Altman’s film Kansas City and is known for his use of the plunger effect of the early trumpeters of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, in whose successor bands he also played. He also performed in Madonna’s music video My Baby’s Got a Secret and in Malcolm D. Lee’s film The Best Man. Trumpeter and pianist James Zollar continues to perform and record.
Daily Dose of Jazz…
James Edward Weidman, Jr. was born in Youngstown, Ohio on July 23, 1953 to a saxophonist father who led his own band. He began playing piano when he was eight years old and eventually became the electric organist in his father’s group.
Attending Youngstown State University after graduating James spent two years playing locally before he moved to New York City in 1978. There he worked with Pepper Adams, Cecil Payne, Sonny Stitt and Bobby Watson, then became Abbey Lincoln’s pianist in 1982. This association continued into the early Nineties.
He went on to work with Steve Coleman, from 1987 to 1992 replacing Geri Allen in his Five Elements band, and with Jay Hoggard later in the 1980s. Throughout the 1990s he worked with Cassandra Wilson, Talib Kibwe, Kevin Mahogany, Belden Bullock, Max Roach, Woody Herman, Gloria Lynne, Archie Shepp, James Moody, Greg Osby, Slide Hampton, Dakota Staton and Marvin “Smitty” Smith.
Pianist and organist James Weidman who has released several albums as a leader in is a member of Joe Lovano’s Us Five band, continues to perform, tour and record.
Sponsored By
Voices From The Community
#preserving genius