Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Melissa Aldana was born on December 3, 1988 in Santiago, Chile and began playing the saxophone when she was six under the influence and tuition of her father Marcos Aldana, also a professional saxophonist. She began with alto, influenced by Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley and Michael Brecker. However, upon first hearing the music of Sonny Rollins, she switched to tenor, picking up her grandfather’s Selmer Mark VI.

Performing around hometown jazz clubs while in her early teens, in 2005 she was invited by pianist Danilo Pérez to play at the Panama Jazz Festival as well as auditions at music schools in the USA. This resulted in Melissa attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts studying under Joe Lovano, George Garzone, Frank Tiberi, Greg Osby, Hal Crook, Bill Pierce, and Ralph Peterson. After graduating she relocated to New York City to study with George Coleman.

Aldana recorded her debut album, Free Fall, released in 2010 on Greg Osby’s Inner Circle Music label. Two years later she released her sophomore project, Second Cycle, and by age 24, she was the first female and South American musician to win the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition, in which her father had been a semi-finalist in 1991. The prize was a $25,000 scholarship, and a recording contract with Concord Jazz.

Aldana has been awarded the Altazor National Arts Award of Chile, and the Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award. She has played concerts alongside artists such as Peter Bernstein, Kevin Hays, Christian McBride, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Jimmy Heath and Wynton Marsalis.

She has formed the group, Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio, with Cuban drummer Francisco Mela and Chilean bassist Pablo Menares, and in addition her most recent configuration in 2017, the Melissa Aldana Quartet includes Aldana on tenor saxophone, pianist Sam Harris or guitarist Lage Lund, bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Kush Abadey.

Tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana continues to explore and expand her vocabulary as she performs and records.

GRIOTS GALLERY

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Charlie Ventura was born Charles Venturo on December 2, 1916 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the 1940s, he played saxophone for the Gene Krupa and Teddy Powell bands. In 1945 he was named best tenor saxophonist by DownBeat magazine.

During the Forties he led big bands and led a band which included Conte Candoli, Bennie Green, Boots Mussulli, Ed Shaughnessy, Jackie Cain, and Roy Kral. By the 1950s he formed the Big Four with Buddy Rich, Marty Napoleon, and Chubby Jackson. He was a sideman with Krupa through the 1960s, then worked in Las Vegas with comedian Jackie Gleason. By the 1980s he slowed down until finally retiring from music.

Tenor saxophonist and bandleader Charlie Ventura transitioned from lung cancer on January 17, 1992 in Pleasantville, New Jersey at age 75.  was an American from

GRIOTS GALLERY

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The Jazz Voyager

This week I’m crossing the pond for the first time this year to La Ciotat, France to see my friend Delphine Nérot. She will perform at Chapelle des Minimes as a member of the Deene Trio, made up of accordion, bass and voice. The chapel is located in the southern part of the country on the Mediteranean Sea at Place Guibert, 13600.

The Protestant chapel is small, only 32 meters long and 6 meters wide. During the Revolution it was the headquarters of the Club des Antipolitiques, a popular 1791 society recognized as a subsidiary by the center of rue Thubaneau in Marseille. Adjoining the chapel is a synagogue on the left, open onto the car park Square Verdun, and on the right, a dance academy. The chapel boasts a beautifully crafted 300-year-old door. I know the acoustics will be fantastic.

This is my first time visiting this city and venue and I am so looking forward to this voyage. Although restrictions have been lifted, I am wary about the indoor air quality on planes and indoors with low ventilation, so this Jazz Voyager will still mask and social distance whenever possible. As always, for more information visit notoriousjazz.com/event or  06 09 49 03 24 | www.facebook.com/laciotatculture.

CALIFORNIA JAZZ FOUNDATION

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Lurlean Hunter was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi on December 1, 1919 and  was taken to Chicago, Illinois when she was two months old. She attended Englewood High School in Chicago.

Her first paid singing performance came when she appeared with Red Saunders and his orchestra at Club DeLisa on Chicago’s South Side. Hunter was signed by Discovery Records in 1950 and subsequently was a featured performer with George Shearing and his quintet at Birdland in New York City.

In 1951 Lurlean was among a group of rising young stars of jazz, that were presented at the Streamliner night club in Chicago. She performed at the Cloister Inn, where an initial four-week booking turned into a 2.5-year stay. She went on to work in New York and Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Leaving Discovery, she began recording for Atlantic Records in 1961, with Blue and Sentimental as her first album for that label. She later recorded for RCA Victor. By 1963, Hunter became the first Black performer hired by WBBM radio in Chicago. After a successful on-air audition, she became a member of the staff of the all-live Music Wagon Show. Five years later the National Educational Television jazz broadcast featured her, accompanied by the Vernel Fournier Trio.

In 1958, she sued RCA Record Division after it used her image and her name on the cover of its, not her Lonesome Gal record album. The suit alleged “unfair competition, infringement of trade name, unfair business practices, unjust enrichment and invasion of the right of privacy.” Though the court acknowledged that the album contained the song “Lonesome Gal”, and that the use of one song’s title for an album’s title was common practice in the recording industry, it  ruled in Hunter’s favor on the basis that she was the first person to “adopt and establish the name Lonesome Gal as a personality” and that name was exclusively associated with her. Damages of $22,500 were awarded to Hunter, and the company was ordered to destroy all material containing Hunter’s likeness in conjunction with “Lonesome Gal”.

Vocalist Lurlean Hunter, who was a contralto and made commercials for products such as peas and telephone directories, transitioned on March 11, 1983 in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

GRIOTS GALLERY

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