Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marilyn Mazur was born on January 18, 1955 of Polish and African American descent in New York but grew up on Denmark from the age of six. Primarily a self-taught percussionist and drummer, she got a degree in percussion at the Royal Danish Academy of Music.
From 1975, Mazur has worked as a percussionist with various groups, among others, the group Six Winds with Alex Riel. She has performed with such notables as Niels-Henning Orsted Pederson, Jan Garbarek, Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Wayne Shorter Jeanne Lee and Palle Mikkelborg to mention a few.
By 1989, Marilyn founded her band Future Song, a sextet with her husband Klavs Hovman. A second project, Percussion Paradise, brought together percussionists Benita Haastrup, Lisbeth Diers and Birgit Løkke.
Marilyn Mazur is also a composer, pianist, dancer and bandleader and has been selected by Down Beat in 1989, 1990 and 1995 as a “percussion talent deserving wider recognition”. In 2001, she was awarded the Jazzpar Prize, the world’s largest international jazz prize. She continues to record, perform and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cyrus Chestnut was born January 17, 1963 in Baltimore, Maryland. He started his musical career at the age of six, playing piano at Mount Calvary Baptist Church. By age nine, he was studying classical music at Peabody Institute and in 1985 earned a degree in jazz composition and arranging from Berklee College of Music where he was awarded the Eubie Blake Fellowship, the Quincy Jones Scholarship and the Oscar Peterson Scholarship.
A year after graduating his prolific career began with a tour with Jon Hendricks, followed by two-year stints with Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison, Wynton Marsalis and Betty Carter. Under Betty’s tutelage, Cyrus was advised to take chances and play things she had never heard.
Signing with Atlantic Records in 1993 he released the critically acclaimed Revelation followed by The Dark Before The Dawn the next year, debuting at #6 on the Billboard charts. He has performed and/or recorded with Freddy Cole, Bette Midler, Freddie Hubbard, Jimmy Scott, Chick Corea, Isaac Hayes, Kevin Mahogany, Dizzy Gillespie, Manhattan Transfer, Vanessa L. Williams, Brian McKnight, Christian McBride, Lewis Nash, James Carter, Wycliffe Gordon and the list continues.
Never straying far from his church roots he collaborated and toured with soprano opera diva Kathleen Battle, recording the notable “So Many Stars” in 1996. Later that same year came Blessed Quietness: A Collection of Hymns, Spirituals and Carols.
Chestnut’s leadership and prowess as a soloist has also led him to be a first call for the piano chair in many big bands including the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie Big Band and the Carnegie Jazz Orchestra. He has amassed a further string of critically acclaimed albums while continually touring with his trio, playing jazz festivals around the world as well as clubs and concert halls.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wilbert Granville Thodore Hogan Jr., better known as G. T., was born January 16, 1929 in Galveston, Texas. He started out playing saxophone into high school but then switched to the drums. He started playing professionally with Earl Bostic from 1953-55 prior to his move to New York City.
During this period G. T. worked with Randy Weston, recorded with Elmo Hope and was closely associated with Bud Powell during his Parisian sojourn. Over the course of his career he worked with Kenny Drew, Walter Bishop Jr., Ray Charles, Kenny Dorham, Cecil Payne, Wilbur Ware, Julian Priester and Hank Crawford.
A brilliant drummer whose backbeat personified the kind of rhythmic approach that easily made Hogan recognizable as a Texas drummer and whose magnificence shone when teamed with an individualistic pianist. By the 70s he became less active in music but continued into the 90s when he began to suffer from emphysema. Recording on more than 50 albums and credited in a variety of ways as Granville Hogan, Wilbert Hogan, G. T. Hogan, W. T. Hogan and Wilbert G. T. Hogan, the drummer passed away on August 7, 2004 in San Antonio, Texas.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Onzy Matthews was born in Fort Worth, Texas on January 15, 1936, grew up in Dallas until he was 14, when his mother pulled up stakes and moved to Los Angeles for a better job. He graduated from high school at 16 and had already decided he wanted to sing. Nearly every day he walked to a nearby park, where he could play piano for hours in the recreation building.
Augmenting his early gospel roots with healthy doses of smooth California jazz and big band music, Matthews taught himself to accompany his singing on piano until he realized he needed arrangements.
He attended Westlake College of Music, studied ear training and harmony, started singing with a dance band and learning about arranging. After several years of performing, attending concerts and asking questions he had 21 original songs arranged for big band.
His musical career sprang from eight bars of music. As an aspiring singer, pianist and composer in 1963, a young Mr. Matthews gave his first professional arrangement to Les Brown for a tryout with the Band of Renown. Out of the arrangement came 8 bars that sounded good to Onzy and Les Brown advised him to take those 8 bars and start from there. Doing so he went on to become one of the most sought-after arrangers in jazz and pop music. It was later through Dexter Gordon that these first twenty-one were played by the best musicians in Hollywood that turned into a regular Wednesday night jam session. The word spread and he started getting courted by record labels to work with their artists.
Onzy’s first major arranging job was on Lou Rawls’ album Black & Blue, followed by his debut as a leader in 1964 on “Blues With A Touch Of Elegance” for Capitol. About a year later, with his career in full swing, he held a guest spot on a New York radio show hosted by mercer Ellington who introduced him to his dad, friendship was struck and four years later became collaborators, filling the void from Billy Strayhorn’s death.
Matthews tailors the arrangements according to the empathy of the artist by listening to the artist and arranging to bring out things in them they weren’t aware of. This was his magic. After Ellington death in ’74, he moved to Seattle, formed a big band for three years moved between Texas and New York and finally moved to Paris in ’79, put together another big band, played with Miles Davis and finally moved back to Dallas in 1994.
Onzy D. Matthews, whose 35-year career had him working with some of jazz’s most notables, was discovered in his Dallas apartment passed away at his typewriter by jazz singer Jeanette Brantley and her husband Hans Wango on November 15, 1997. He was 67.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Grady Tate was born January 14, 1932 in Durham, North Carolina who began singing at age four, drums at five. However music was not in his immediate future as he earned a degree from North Carolina Central University with a degree in English literature/drama, a minor in psychology and taught English and speech in Washington, DC. Fortunately for the jazz world his desire to pursue an acting career lead him to New York City and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and once in New York his reputation as an outstanding musician resulted in work with Quincy Jones.
Grady Tate’s drumming helped to define a particular hard bop, soul jazz and organ trio sound during the mid 1960’s and beyond. His slick, layered and intense sound is instantly recognizable for its understated style in which he integrates his trademark subtle nuances with sharp, crisp “on top of the beat” timing (in comparison to playing slightly before, or slightly after the beat). The Grady Tate sound can be heard prominently on the many classic Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery albums recorded on the Verve label in the 1960s.
He has been a member of the New York Jazz Quartet, the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson for six years, and his most widely heard vocal performances are the songs “I Got Six”, “Naughty Number Nine”, and “Fireworks” from Multiplication Rock and America Rock part of the Schoolhouse Rock series.
Grady Tate’s popularity as choice sideman of accomplished musicians is due to his remarkable intuitiveness and ability to make any style of music swing tastefully, and his interpretation of many different genres of music, in which he creates his own unique style of jazz led him to work with a host of talent, the short list including Lionel Hampton, Sarah Vaughan, Jimmy Smith, Grant Green, Stanley Turrentine, Lena Horne, Astrud Gilberto, Ella Fitzgerald, Cal Tjader, Bill Evans and Stan Getz.
Grady Tate, baritone vocalist and drummer has been on the faculty of Howard University since 1989.