Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ron Rubin was born in Liverpool, London, England on July 8, 1933, to David and Louise Rubin. Music was important to the family and he learned piano from an early age. Becoming interested in jazz in his early teens while attending Liverpool College school, he was suspended for playing jazz on the school piano. Not being put off, he studied law under his uncle but it wasn’t for him and he signed up for the Royal Army Service Corps for a two year stint.
In the army he played piano with the Rhine River Jazz and Germany Rhine bands in Germany where he was stationed. After his service, in 1953 he picked up some gigs around Merseyside, London where he was playing guitar and clarinet at this time. Ron practiced hard on the piano and found solo work at clubs in London’s Soho. Taking up the double bass in 1955 and within a few weeks he was playing gigs with Ralph “Bags” Watmough and Tony Davis’s Gin Mill Four. In 1957 he played opening night at the Cavern Club with the Merseysippi and Watmough bands.
Moving to London in the 60s Ron played with a wide variety of bands on piano and double bass with Glyn Morgan, Dick Williams, Brian Leake, the Fairweather-Brown band, Mike Taylor, Group Sounds Five, the Ronnie Selby Trio, Fat John Cox and Bruce Turner. He accompanied visiting musicians Bill Coleman, Henry “Red” Allen and Ray Nance and with groups like those of Long John Baldry and the Hoochie-Coochie Men, and Manfred Mann.
Through the 1970s Rubin toured with the Lennie Best Quartet, Sandy Brown, Keith Ingham, Alex Welsh, Colin Purbrook, and accompanied Billy Eckstine. He had his own band at the Roundhouse Bar and was with the John Picard Band for three years and recorded regularly. The Eighties saw him touring with Wild Bill Davison and playing with Fatty George, Geoff Simkins, Keith Smith and Oscar Klein, George Howden, Brian Leake and Earl Okin.
By the end of the decade he was playing bass with the Bruce Turner Quartet before joining George Melly and John Chilton’s Feetwarmers. The following decades he played with Campbell Burnap’s band, then joined George Melly and John Chilton again and continued playing and touring. After surviving cancer in 2001 he slowed down to playing occasionally. In his later years Ron spent many happy hours writing his Jottings From A Jazzman’s Journal, a record of his life as a musician.
Pianist, bassist and poet Ron Rubin, who for many years was at the centre of the British jazz scene, transitioned on April 14, 2020 at the age of 86.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sue Evans was born on July 7, 1951 in New York, New York and played piano, violin and clarinet as a young child before switching to drums. She studied under Warren Smith and Sonny Igoe, and graduated in 1969 from The High School of Music & Art. She went on to earn a BA in Music from Columbia University, as well as a Master of Music and Doctorate from the Juilliard School.
Becoming one of the top recording percussionists in New York she has recorded jingles, movie scores, and numerous albums with many jazz, folk and pop artists. She was Judy Collins’s touring drummer from 1969 to 1973 and worked with Gil Evans from 1969 to 1982. During the Seventies she worked with Steve Kuhn, Art Farmer, Bobby Jones, George Benson, Urbie Green, Yusef Lateef, Idris Muhammad, Lalo Schifrin, Jeremy Steig and Roswell Rudd’s Jazz Composers Orchestra. In addition Sue played with The New York Pops, the New York Philharmonic, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
The 1980s saw her working with Michael Franks, Mark Murphy, Suzanne Vega, Tony Bennett, and Morgana King. Other associations include touring or recording with Aretha Franklin, Sting, Spike Lee, James Brown, Billy Cobham, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Philip Glass, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Don Sebesky, Sadao Watanabe, Hubert Laws, Randy Brecker, David Sanborn and Terence Blanchard.
For several years she played at the Tony Awards and the Grammy Awards. She won National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Most Valuable Awards in 1984, 1987 and 1989. Drummer and percussionist Sue Evans continues to perform and record.
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The Jazz Voyager
The Jazz Voyager is departing Europe for the Dark Continent as his next stop and Ghana is the destination. The venue is Marabi Club that is located in the Maboneng Precinct at 54 Siemert Road, New Doornfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa.
In the 1920s and Thirties, the rise of the Doornfontein slumyards, created in the wake of one of the world’s richest gold rushes, gave rise to an urban culture known as “marabi”. As the foundation of this new culture, the music was energetic and improvisational. It was a lifestyle prompted by the need to escape the hardships of the working week, defined by illegal shebeens, where the fierce talk of politics was accompanied by the equally disruptive soundtrack of jazz.
Tucked in the basement of Hallmark House, the Marabi Club evokes this history through the many careful details of the club’s interior. With an excellent menu and bar with jauntily dressed waitrons offering friendly and slick service, add live jazz and your visit to this landmark will leave you captivated by the atmosphere.
This week the adventure continues as this Jazz Voyager is stepping into this Joburg venue without knowing who will be performing. Nothing like a surprise. For those who need to know, their phone number is +27 (0)10 591 2879.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Luciano Troja was born in Messina, Italy on July 6, 1963. Self-taught from the age of 6, he studied for several years with the pianist-composer Salvatore Bonafede. In New York City, for a brief and intensive time, he studied with Richie Beirach. He attended several jazz courses and clinics such as Siena Jazz, Berklee Clinics in Umbria, Aebersold School in London, and piano courses with Shirley Scott, James Williams and Franco D’Andrea.
Luciano has performed at festivals and jazz clubs in Europe and the United States. He is the pianist of the Mahanada Quartet, an original combination of free improvisation and written music. He released three CDs with Mahanada that garnered extremely good reviews and recognitions. He released two CDs in duo with the guitarist Giancarlo Mazzù, Seven Tales About Standards and Seven Tales About Standards Vol. 2, both considered as a creative and original approach to the standards.
He along with Salvatore Bonafede of Double Piano Orchestra have recorded Double Rainbow and My Funny Valentine (Wide Sound, 2008).
He has been named Talent of the Year, Pianist of the Year, Group of the Year and CD of the Year in Top Jazz Poll of Musica Jazz magazine. He has since released At Home With Zindars a piano solo project. Pianist Luciano Troja continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Baird was born Lusaka, Zambia on July 5, 1954 and moved to the Netherlands at an early age, where he learned to play drums. Since the mid-1970s he has worked with several Dutch jazz groups and from 1975-83 he played and recorded with Gijs Hendriks, Slide Hampton, Kenny Drew, Raul Burnet, Sonny Grey, Siggi Kessler, Michel Herr, Michel Grailler, Joe Diorio, Jan Akkerman, Wim Overgaauw, Stan Tracey, and Kenny Wheeler.
He founded his own label SWP Records in 1986, led his group Sharp Wood for a decade beginning in 1986 and the octet Utrecht Deep Artment for two years. In 2000 he put together a quintet CapeAbility, followed by sextet Trendy 3D Junk and by 2002 was performing solo concerts along with various other projects and composition commissions.
He has compiled and produced a 22 Cd series “Historical Recordings by Hugh Tracey” of African music from the 40s and 50s, made his own field recordings in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and released both on SWP Records.
Drummer, percussionist and keyboardist Michael Baird continues to perform, record and push the boundaries of jazz.
More Posts: bandleader,drums,history,instrumental,jazz,keyboards,music,percussion