The Jazz Voyager
The Jazz Voyager is heading off to the Big Apple once again to take another seat in the small uptown Manhattan West Side jazz club Smoke Jazz and Supper Club. This intimate space is located at the junction of 106th and Broadway, also known as Duke Ellington Boulevard, offering legends, modern masters and rising stars.
A new player for me to hear is trumpeter Marquis Hill, one of the leading trumpeters of our time. He will be leading an adventurous group featuring vibraphonist Joel Ross, pianist Michael King, bassist Junius Paul, and drummer Kendrick Scott. He won the International Trumpet Guild Jazz Competition and the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Trumpet Competition. Both wins helped launch his career.
Smoke is located at 2751 Broadway, New York City 10025. You can get more information at https://notoriousjazz.com/event/marquis-hill.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Aura Rully was born Aura Urziceanu in Bucharest, Romania on December 14, 1946. She grew up surrounded by classical music, as her father was a concertmaster with the symphony orchestra. Her vocal talent emerged very early and she sang from the time she was a little girl. She was a natural and a fast learner even though she didn’t take any formal lessons until her late teens. While she likes all kinds of music, jazz is her favourite. She was just over 13 years old when she recorded a big-band song.
She started scatting before she even knew what it was. She was just bored with the lyrics. She found out what scatting was when she heard Ella Fitzgerald do it. Her first appearance was as a guest on the Ray St. Germain Show. Sell-out performances at Club Morocco, the only jazz club in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada followed. It was there Ellington spotted her, taking some time out from a concert performance to drop by the club. After jamming together the next day, he sent her a ticket to New York and she performed with him full-time in the U.S. until his death two years later, in 1974. Over the course of her career, Aura has composed her own music and recorded four of her own albums.
She has toured and performed with Bill Evans, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Ahmad Jamal, Hank Jones, Thad Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Paul Desmond, Joe Pass and Mel Lewis.
Vocalist Aura Rully, who has performed as Urziceanu-Rully in America, continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Borah Bergman was born on December 13, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York. He took piano lessons as a child, changed to clarinet, then returned to piano after being discharged from the army. Determining right away that he wanted to develop an individual voice, the right-handed player worked for years in strengthening his left hand. He practiced playing left-handed almost exclusively and eventually as a pianist he became ambidextrous.
Early in his career comparisons arose and though he cited Tristano, Monk, and Powell as influences, his ability as an improvising pianist was so singular. Bergman had the most comprehensive technique of any jazz musician on any instrument. His facility is nonpareil with both hands. He improvised spontaneous free counterpoint at unfathomable speeds and with remarkable precision and no pianist in the history of jazz ever developed more speed and agility in his left hand.
Borah began recording late and his first four albums were solo efforts. His debut album Discovery was released in 1975 on the Chiaroscuro label. Three more would follow through 1984, and in 1992, he began a series of successful duo collaborations with free-bop altoist Thomas Chapin, drummer Andrew Cyrille, and soprano saxophonist Evan Parker. He would go on to record duo/trio albums with saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell and vocalist Thomas Buckner, saxophonists Peter Brotzman and Thomas Borgmann. At the end of the century his recorded output continued to rise substantially, as well as his profile as one of the music’s major contributors.
Pianist Borah Bergman, who performed in the free jazz idiom and recorded thirty albums as a leader or co-leader, transitioned on October 18, 2012 in New York City.
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Jazz Poems
OL’ BUNK’S BAND These are men! the gaunt, unfore- sold, the vocal, blatant, Stand up, stand up! the slap of a bass-string Pick, ping! The horn, the hollow horn long drawn out, a hound deep tone— Choking, choking! while the treble reed races–alone, ripples, screams slow to fast— to second to first! These are men! Drum, drum, drum, drum, drum drum, drum! the ancient cry, escaping crapulence eats through transcendent—torn, tears, term town, tense, turns and back off whole, leaps up, stomps down, rips through! These are men beneath whose force the melody limps— to proclaim—Run and lie down, in slow measures, to rest and not never need no more! These are men! Men!WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
from Jazz Poems | Selected and edited by Kevin Young
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Don Stovall was born on December 12, 1913 in St. Louis, Missouri. He began playing violin as a child before settling on the alto saxophone. He played around his hometown with Dewey Jackson and Fate Marable on riverboats in the 1920s, and then played with Eddie Johnson’s Crackerjacks in 1932-33.
During the 1930s he lived in Buffalo, New York where he led his own ensemble and played with Lil Armstrong. He moved to New York City in 1939, and played there with Sammy Price, Eddie Durham, and Cootie Williams.
Following this he recorded extensively with Red Allen, remaining with him until 1950. He also recorded with Pete Johnson and Snub Mosley over the course of his career, though he never recorded as a leader.
Retiring from the music industry in 1950 he spent the remainder of his life working for a telephone company. Alto saxophonist Don Stovall transitioned on November 20, 1970 in New York City.
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