Daily Dose Of Jazz…

David Friedrich Dallwitz was born on October 25, 1914 in Freeling, South Australia. He studied violin as a child and after moving with his family to Adelaide, South Australia in 1930, he developed an aptitude for jazz piano. Beginning in 1933 for two years he studied concurrently at the South Australian School of Art and the North Adelaide School of Fine Art.

He led the Southern Jazz Group, a Dixieland band that performed at the first Australian Jazz Convention. Abandoning jazz for a period, he studied at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, composing symphonic and chamber music and taking up bassoon and cello. He became involved in composing and arranging music for revues, leading to the formation of the Flinders Street Revue Company, for which he also directed and played piano.

Returning to jazz in 1970, he resumed recording. He worked with Australian progressive musicians such as John Sangster, Bob Barnard, and Len Barnard. He led the Dave Dallwitz Ragtime Ensemble.

Pianist, bandleader, composer, and arranger, painter, and art teacher Dave Dallwitz, who led jazz, Dixieland and ragtime bands, passed away on March 24, 2003 in Adelaide after finishing the artwork for his album The Dave Dallwitz Big Band live at Wollongong, December 1984.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

James Theodore Powell was born on October 24, 1914. He played on two recording dates with Billie Holiday for Columbia Records, the first in 1940, was with a band comprising of trumpeter Roy Eldridge, alto saxophonists Carl Frye and Powell, tenor saxophonist Kermit Scott, pianist Sonny White, guitarist Lawrence Lucie, bassist John Williams, and Hal West on drums. The second recording session was in 1941, again with Eldridge, Lester Boone, Ernie Powell, and Jimmy Powell on alto saxophones, Eddie Heywood on piano, Paul Chapman on guitar, Grachan Moncur on bass, and drummer Herbert Cowans.

1944 had Jimmy recording with Billy Eckstine and His Orchestra, with Oscar Pettiford, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Gene Ammons, Thomas Crump, Wardell Gray, Dizzy Gillespie, Chippy Outcalt, and Trummie Young, among others. The album was released in 1960 as Mr. B. In 1945, he recorded in New York with Don Byas and Hal Singer.

At the beginning of 1947, Powell was with Illinois Jacquet and his Orchestra, which featured Miles Davis, Marion Hazel, Fats Navarro and Joe Newman on trumpets, Gus Chapwell, Ted Kelly, Eli Robinson and Dickie Wells on trombones, Ray Perry and Powell on alto saxes, Jacquet and Big Nick Nicholas on tenor saxes, Leo Parker on baritone sax, Bill Doggett and Leonard Feather on piano, Al Lucas on bass and Shadow Wilson on drums, together with Tadd Dameron and Jimmy Mundi as arrangers. And again, in April the same year, with a slightly different line-up, this time featuring Russell Jacquet, Navarro and Newman on trumpets, J.J. Johnson on trombone, Powell or Ray Perry on alto, Illinois Jacquet on tenor, Leo Parker on baritone, Sir Charles Thompson on piano, Freddie Green on guitar, Al Lucas on bass and Shadow Wilson on drums.

In 1956, Powell was a member of the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band that recorded Groovin’ High live at Birdland with Walter Bishop on piano, Nelson Boyd on bass, Marty Flax on baritone, Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Carl Warwick and Joe Gordon on trumpets, Benny Golson and Ernie Wilkins on tenor, Ernie Henry and Phil Woods on alto saxes, Roy Levitt and Melba Liston on trombones. He went on to record several albums with Gillespie.

Alto saxophonist Jimmy Powell, who never recorded as a leader but as a sideman was part of nine recording sessions, passed away on February 16, 1994.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Frank Hewitt was born on October 23, 1935 in Queens, New York, living most of his life in Harlem. His mother was a church pianist, and he initially studied classical and gospel music but switched to jazz after hearing a Charlie Parker record. He took the bop pianists Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, and Elmo Hope as his role models.

In the 1950s and 1960s, he worked with Howard McGhee, Cecil Payne, John Coltrane, Dinah Washington, and Billie Holiday, among others. 1961 saw him participating in the Living Theater’s production of Jack Gelber’s The Connection. He became a regular figure in the circle of the pianist Barry Harris. In the 1990s Hewitt became a central figure at New York’s Smalls Jazz Club; aside from playing there several nights a week, he sometimes also ended up using the walk-in refrigerator as a place to bunk when times were rough.

During his lifetime only one track of Hewitt’s playing was released, a version of the Kenny Dorham tune Prince Albert on the compilation Jazz Underground: Live at Smalls on Impulse in 1998. After his death, however, recordings made by Luke Kaven began to surface on Kaven’s Smalls Records label: the trio discs We Loved You, Not Afraid To Live, Fresh From The Cooler, and Out Of The Clear Black Sky, and the quintet date Four Hundred Saturdays.

Hard bop pianist Frank Hewitt, whose reputation as a neglected jazz master has steadily grown among fans of bebop piano, on September 5, 2002.

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The Quarantined Jazz Voyager

As we approach November 3, VOTING in this very important election is this Quarantined Jazz Voyager’s top priority and I hope it is yours. Having received my absentee ballot, I will be delivering it this coming week. In the meantime, while remaining secluded and social distancing I’m pulling out an 2011 album by Pee Wee Ellis titled Tenoration.

It is a twelve-track jazz and funk double album by that is an all-instrumental album. Its subtitle, From Jazz to Funk and Back reflects Ellis’ affection to both jazz and funk music. On this production, he uses two different rhythm sections. CD1 emphasizes funk, and on CD 2 he’s bringing jazz.

The album was recorded in November 2010 and released the following year in April on the Art Of Groove label. The producer on the session was Joachim Becker.

1. Slanky P (Pee Wee “Alfred” Ellis / Jim Payne) ~ 7:15
2. Gittin’ A Little Hipper (James Brown /(Pee Wee “Alfred” Ellis / Bud Hobgood) ~ 3:01
3. Bon Bonn ((Pee Wee “Alfred” Ellis) ~ 7:00
4. Sticks (Cannonball Adderley) ~ 10:42
5. Zig Zag (Pee Wee “Alfred” Ellis / Paul Rusky / Jim Schneider) ~ 7:01
6. At Last (Mack Gordon / Harry Warren) ~ 6:04 #Out Of The Blue (Wright, Terry) ~ 2:15

1. You’ve Changed (Bill Carey / Carl Fischer) ~ 4:30
2. Sticks (Cannonball Adderley) ~ 4:11
3. Parlayin’ (Pee Wee “Alfred” Ellis) ~ 4:30
4. Sonnymoon For Two (Sonny Rollins) ~ 8:37
5. Now Go On (Pee Wee “Alfred” Ellis) ~ 6:01
6. Freedom Jazz Dance (Eddie Harris) ~ 4:47

• Guitar: Tony Remy (1-6)
• Keyboards: Dan Moore (1-6)
• Piano: Gareth Williams (7-12)
• Bass: Patrick Scales (1-6)
• Bass: Laurence Cottle (7-12)
• Drums: Guido May

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Giorgio Gaslini was born on October 22, 1929  in Milan, Italy and began performing aged 13 and recorded with his jazz trio at 16. In the 1950s and 1960s, Gaslini performed with his own quartet. He was the first Italian musician mentioned as a “new talent” in the Down Beat poll and the first Italian officially invited to the New Orleans Jazz Festival in 1976-77. He collaborated with leading American soloists, such as Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd, Max Roach, but also with the Argentinian Gato Barbieri and Frenchman Jean-Luc Ponty.

Adapting the compositions of Albert Ayler and Sun Ra for solo piano, issued on the  Soul Note label, he also composed the soundtrack of Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte, The Night, in 1961. In the early Seventies, he was the first holder of jazz courses at the Santa Cecilia Academy of Music in Rome.

As to contemporary music, he composed symphonic works, operas and ballets represented at the Scala Theatre in Milan and other Italian theatres. In addition from 1970 to 1977 he scored nine films, including Your Hands On My Body, Cross Current, and Kleinhoff Hotel. From 1991 to 1995, Gaslini composed works for Carlo Actis Dato’s Italian Instabile Orchestra.

Pianist, composer and conductor Giorgio Gaslini passed away on July 29, 2014 at age 84 in Borgo Val di Taro, Parma, Italy, where he had been living for years together with his longtime wife and fourteen dogs and cats.

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