Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bill Henderson was born William Randall Henderson on March 19, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois. He didn’t begin his musical career until 26 years later performing around his home city with Ramsey Lewis before moving to New
York in 1958. A singer of blues, ballads and swing, he follows in the tradition of Joe Williams and Ernie Andrews but clearly brings his own personality to each performance.
His early big hit was Senor Blues, recorded with Horace Silver and worked with the Jimmy Smith trio. During his tenure at Vee-Jay in which he recorded several fine albums he worked with Ramsey Lewis, Yusef Lateef, Booker Little and Eddie Harris. A move to MGM had him working with Oscar Peterson in 1963 and touring with Count Basie from 1965-66.
Settling in Los Angeles, Bill began working as an actor in film and television in the seventies, taking minor or supporting roles and one-time appearances in such movies as Trouble Man, Silver Streak, City Slickers, Hoodlum, and television with Happy Days, Hill Street Blues, The Jeffersons, MacGyver, Cold Case and My Name Is Earl.
The late nineties saw his participation on Charlie Haden’s album “The Art Of The Song” alongside Shirley Horn, followed by a Live at the Kennedy Center and Beautiful Memory: Live at The Vic releases. Still in great form at the age of 86, vocalist and actor Bill Henderson, who amassed some four-dozen albums and 45s over his career, continued to perform around Los Angeles until his death at age 90 on April 3, 2016 from Alzheimer’s Disease.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Courtney Pine, Commander of the British Empire (CBE), was born on March 18, 1964 in London, England. At school he studied clarinet, although he is known primarily for his saxophone. A product of Jamaican immigrants, as a child he wanted to be an astronaut but spent his childhood learning a host of instruments including flute, clarinet, tenor, soprano and baritone saxophones and keyboards.
Cutting his teeth with the hard bop group called Dwarf Steps, he went on to tour with Clint Eastwood and reggae star General Saint. This was followed with a return to jazz, studying Sonny Rollins and Coltrane’s improvisation and becoming a member of Charlie Watts’ band. Pine went on to tour with George Russell and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and recorded his debut album Urge Within for Antilles Records, garnering both critical and financial success.
His Modern Day Jazz Stories immersed him in tradition and the purest were pleased with Geri Allen, Mark Whitfield, Eddie Henderson, Charnett Moffett and Cassandra Wilson. But their zeal was soon diminished with the release of his ’97 hip-hop Underground that employed the talents of Jeff Watts, Mark Whitfield, Reginald Veal, Nicholas Payton and Cyrus Chestnut alongside some great DJs.
An adventurer in jazz, saxophonist Courtney Pine continually fascinates and frustrates critics with his musical vision that has brought the world within and outside the jazz tradition – pop, reggae, electronic, funk, soul and world music as he tackles new and uncharted territory.
Courtney Pine: 1964 / Saxophone
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Trombonist and bandleader Grover Curry Mitchell was born on March 17, 1930 in Whatley, Alabama. By age eight he was living in Pittsburgh where jazz took hold of him. During his teen years after an initial desire to play trumpet, the school took note of his long arms and trained him to play the trombone.
After high school he enlisted playing in the U.S. Marine Band, then went on to play with Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington. But his best-known association was with Count Basie from 1962 to 1978, when he founded his own band, the Jazz Chronicles.
In the seventies he started writing music for television and film including the 1972 Lady Sings The Blues. returned to the Count Basie Band in 1980 and continued to lead the band and served as the director from ’95 until his death, winning a Grammy for the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album twice.
The mellow-toned trombonist lost a quiet battle with cancer on August 6, 2003 in New York City’s Sloan Kettering Hospital. Grover Mitchell was inducted posthumously into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 2008.
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From Broadway To 52nd Street
The musical opened in pre-Broadway tryouts in New Haven and Philadelphia in October 1937. Two months later and three days before Christmas on December 22, 1937 Between The Devil opened at the Imperial Theatre. Though it only ran for 93 performances, the play produced by the Shuberts rendered two songs composed by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz that were destined to become jazz standards, By Myself and I See You Face Before Me. The play starred Jack Buchanan, Pierre Antoine, Evelyn Laye, Adele Dixon and Charles Walters.
The Story: The original plot had an English leading man, Peter Anthony, marrying two women at the same time. However, the plot was changed to have Peter Anthony marry the second wife only because he thought his first wife had died.
Broadway History: The Theater Works Project was placed in the hands of Hallie Flanagan, an instructor and creator of an experimental theater at Vassar. She had studied theater in Europe and Russia in the 20s on the first Guggenheim scholarship awarded to a woman, and was fully aware of what Le Gallienne had proposed. Flanagan differed, however, in that she was willing to oversee the development of a national program with chapters throughout the country. New York, with the greatest number of unemployed theater people, would develop six chapters, with other cities developing chapters relative to the number of displaced workers. In an unexpected moment of charity and good will, both George Bernard Shaw and Eugene O’Neill offered rights to their respective works to the Project for the nominal sum of $50.00 per week while they were in production.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tommy Flanagan was born Thomas Lee Flanagan on March 16, 1930 in Detroit, Michigan. He began playing clarinet at age six and switched to piano just five years later. By the ‘50s he had become a part of the fertile Detroit scene until moving to New York in 1956.
After his arrival and until his long association with Ella Fitzgerald beginning in 1963, Flanagan worked regularly as a sideman, cut leader sessions for New Jazz, Prestige, Savoy and Moodsville, worked with Oscar Pettiford, J. J. Johnson, Harry “Sweets” Edison and Coleman Hawkins.
It was in 1975 just three years prior to his leaving Ella Fitzgerald that he regained his soloist chops, leading superior recording sessions with his swinging and creative post-bop style.
Flanagan recorded for several American and Japanese labels but came to true prominence with his Sunset and The Mockingbird recording in 1998 followed a year later by Samba for Felix.
In his latter years Tommy Flanagan, known also for his flawless and tasteful playing, suffered from a heart condition. However, despite his health problems, the pianist continued to tour and perform until the end of his life when he passed away of an arterial aneurysm at age 71 on November 16, 2001 in Manhattan, New York.
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