Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bruce Forman was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on May 14, 1956 and first took piano lessons at an early age before picking up the guitar at age thirteen. In 1971, his family moved to San Francisco, California where he led his own groups in the area and performed with local jazz musicians, such as Eddie Duran, Vince Lateano, and Eddie Marshall.
He would go on to perform and record with nationally renowned musicians, such as Ray Brown, George Cables, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, and Woody Shaw.
He performed regularly at the Monterey Jazz Festival and played with Richie Cole from 1978 to 1982. Bruce recorded his first of sixteen albums to date, Coast To Coast, in 1981. His most successful album as a leader was 1992’s Forman on the Job, which hit #14 on the U.S. Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart.
As a sideman he has recorded with Richie Cole, Clint Eastwood, Dan Hicks, Roger Kellaway, Mark Murphy, Charlie Shoemake, Lanny Morgan, Tom Harrell, Rare Silk, Dave Eshelman, Lorez Alexandria, Geoff Muldaur, Les DeMerle, Tony Monaco, Molly Ringwald, Chuck Deardorf. Guitarist Bruce Forman continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Squire Gersh was born William Girsback on May 13, 1913 in Astoria, Oregon. In the Thirties, he played in San Francisco, California with Lu Watters, Bob Scobey, Turk Murphy, and Mutt Carey. He went on to record with Watters in 1942 and with Murphy multiple times between 1950 and 1966.
Gersh’s agile double bass playing may be heard on Some Of These Days, recorded by Darnell Howard’s Frisco Footwarmers in San Francisco in 1950. He replaced bassist Arvell Shaw and accompanied Louis Armstrong on recording sessions with is All-Stars in “The Edsel Show” on October 13, 1957 and went on a tour of South America with Armstrong between 1956–58.
He then went on to play in Europe with Kid Ory and Red Allen in 1959, along with drummer Alton Redd and pianist Cedric Haywood making up the rhythm section. Never leading his own recordings, little is known about the musician from the Sixties until his death. Tubist and double-bassist Squire Gersh, who played in the traditional jazz genre, passed away on April 27, 1983 in San Francisco.
Three Wishes
Dick Katz told Nica if given that his three wishes would be:
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“There would have to be new Steinways in all the clubs.”
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“Drummers would not be allowed to play as loud as this one.”
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“I’d like to have time to think about number three.”
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*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Trevor Ramsey Tomkins was born May 12, 1941 in London, England. As a young teenager, he first took up the trombone before switching to the drums on which he made his first professional appearance. Although he studied extensively, mostly in the classical vein, he was deeply interested in jazz, studied harmony and music theory, and in the early 60s moved permanently into this field.
Trevor worked and recorded several albums in small groups with trumpeter Ian Carr, as well as pianist Michael Garrick and saxophonist Don Rendell in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the Seventies, he was a member of the jazz-fusion group Gilgamesh that was part of the Canterbury scene in Kent, England. He also performed and recorded with saxophonist Barbara Thompson, pianist Mike Westbrook, and others.
After spending some time in the United States, he returned to England and became one of the most sought after jazz drummers in the UK. Tomkins worked with Ian Carr’s Nucleus, Giles Farnaby’s Dream Band, David Becker, and Henry Lowther’s Quaternity. He appears on the 1971 album First Wind by Frank Ricotti and Mike de Albuquerque and on Tony Coe’s 1978 album Coe-Existence. He is also in demand as accompanist to American jazzmen visiting the UK, amongst them Lee Konitz.
Mainstream and bop drummer Trevor Tomkins, who has never been a leader and was a member of various trios and other line-ups with Roy Budd, remains a first call drummer and much-respected teacher on the jazz scene.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Oscar Valdambrini was born on May 11, 1924 in Turin, Italy and his professional career didn’t begin until the late 1940s when he played with Rex Stewart. Soon afterward he co-led a small ensemble with Gianni Basso and his association with Basso would continue through the early 1960s.
He also arranged and played as a sideman for Armando Trovajoli toward the end of the Fifties. During the 1960s he played with Gil Cuppini, Duke Ellington, and Giorgio Gaslini, and by the early Seventies, he was working with Maynard Ferguson.
Joining forces once again with Basso the two performed together from 1972 to 1974. He went on to also play with Franco Ambrosetti, Conte Candoli, Dusko Goykovich, Freddie Hubbard, Mel Lewis, Frank Rosolino, Ernie Wilkins, and Kai Winding in the 1970s.
Growing increasingly sick from the middle of the 1980s, trumpeter and flugelhornist Oscar Valdambrini, had a central role in the emergence of a modern jazz movement in Italy, receded from active performance and passed away on December 26, 1996 in Rome, Italy.
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