Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mimi Fox was born on August 24, 1956 in New York City and started playing drums at nine and guitar when she was ten. She was inspired by the wide variety of music enjoyed by her family – show tunes, classical, Dixieland, Motown – and her own youthful inclination towards pop, folk, and R&B. By the time she was fourteen, she bought her first jazz album, John Coltrane’s classic Giant Steps, changing the course of her musical life. She began touring right out of high school and eventually settled in the San Francisco Bay area where she became a sought after player.
Mimi has released seven albums but her “Perpetually Hip” released in 2006 reached #23 on the Billboard “Top Jazz Albums” chart. This two-disc set contains standards and new tunes written by Fox, with one disc featuring solo recordings while the other is with a band composed of bassist Harvie S, drummer Billy Hart and pianist Xavier Davis.
As a composer, Mimi has received numerous grants, writing and performing original scores for orchestras, documentary films and dance projects. A dedicated educator and clinician, she is Chair of the Guitar Department, a faculty advisor and instructor at The Jazzschool for Musical Study and Performance in Berkeley, California and an Adjunct Professor at New York University. Guitarist Mimi Fox continues to compose, perform and tour.
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New Music
Cheryl Bentyne’s latest offering – “Let’s Misbehave: Cole Porter Songbook – is another release in a long series of solo albums from this reigning soprano of The Manhattan Transfer. Cheryl connects with Porter’s ability to “cover the human condition” and invite one’s ear out for delightful listening to fourteen of his most memorable tunes, such as Begin The Beguine, Night and Day, Love For Sale and I Love Paris. If you like Cole Porter then you’ll enjoy Ms. Bentyne misbehaving!
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gil Coggins was born Alvin Gilbert Coggins on August 23, 1928 in New York City of West Indian heritage and started playing piano at an early age. He attended The High School of Music and Art in Harlem and also school in Barbados.
In 1946, Coggins met Miles Davis while stationed in Missouri and after his discharge he began playing piano professionally, working with Davis on several of his Blue Note and Prestige releases. He also recorded with John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Ray Draper and Jackie McLean.
Coggins gave up playing jazz professionally in 1954 and took up a career in real estate, playing music only occasionally. He did not record as a leader until 1990, when Interplay Records released “Gil’s Mood”. He continued performing through the 190s and into the new millennium. On February 15, 2004 pianist Gil Coggins passed away from complications sustained in a car crash eight months earlier in Forest Hills, New York. His second album recorded as a leader, “Better Late Than Never”, was released posthumously in 2007 on the Smalls Records label.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Malachi Favors was born August 22, 1927 in Lexington, Mississippi. He began playing double bass at age fifteen and began performing professionally upon graduating high school. His early performances included work with Dizzy Gillespie and Freddie Hubbard. But by 1965, he was a founding member of the AACM – Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and a member of Muhal Richard Abrams’ Experimental Band.
Malachi was a protégé of Chicago bassist Wilbur Ware. His first known recording was a 1953 session with tenor saxophonist Paul Bascomb and four years later recorded with pianist Andrew Hill. He began working with Roscoe Mitchell in 1966 and this group eventually became the Art Ensemble of Chicago, for which he is most prominently known. Favors also worked outside the group, with artists including Sunny Murray, Archie Shepp and Dewey Redman.
Favors’ most notable records include “Natural and the Spiritual”, “Sightsong” andthe 1994 Roman Bunka collaboration and recording at the Berlin Jazz Fest of the German Critics Poll Winner album “Color Me Cairo”.
At some point in his career Malachi added the word “Maghostut” to his name and because of this he is commonly listed on recordings as Malachi Favors Maghostut.
Most associated musically with bebop, hard bop and particularly free jazz, Favors not only plays the double bass but electric bass, guitar, banjo, zither, gong and other instruments. Malachi Favors died of pancreatic cancer in Chicago, Illinois on January 30, 2004 at the age of 76.
From Broadway To 52nd Street
Beginning Saturday, September 1, 2012, Notorious Jazz will present its latest documentary – “From Broadway To 52nd Street” – the history of the compositions written for the musical stages of Broadway that have become jazz standards.
You’ll get historical insight into the era, the composers, the play, the lyricists, the streets, theatres, clubs and the people who made the songs famous on both performance stages. To the present day, the music continues to celebrate perpetual encores through the interpretive talents of great jazz musicians and vocalists.
So join Notorious Jazz on Saturday, September 1st as we present the first installment, and then each successive Saturday for a new series element to the history of this timeless music.
Sponsored By
www.whatissuitetabu.com
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