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Anthony Davis was born in Paterson, New Jersey on February 20, 1951. He has received acclaim as a free-jazz pianist, having co-leader or been a sideman with various ensembles, playing with Wadada Leo Smith from 1974 to 1977. He has worked with Anthony Braxton, Barry Altshul, Marion Brown, Chico Freeman, Jay Hoggard, Leroy Jenkins, George Lewis, David Murray, to name a few.
In 1981, Davis formed an octet called Episteme, wrote incidental music for the Broadway version of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, and has incorporated into his music jazz, rhythm and blues, gospel, non-Western, African, European classical, Indonesian and experimental styles.
Davis is best known for his operas including X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, Amistasd, Wakonda’s Dream, and Lilith, all composed between 1986 and 2009 and appeared at the New York City Opera, the Lyric Opera in Chicago, Opera Omaha, and Conrad Prebys Music Center at University of California, San Diego, respectively.
As an educator, he has taught at Yale and Harvard Universities, and is currently professor of music at the University of California, San Diego. In between teaching and performing, pianist and composer Anthony Davis has two orchestral works, seven for stage, and nineteen albums as a leader or co-leader.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ron Mathewson was born 19 February 1944 Lerwick, Shetland Isles, Scotland into an unusually musical household. At eight years old he was studying classical piano, continuing his studies and performing classical piano until he reached sixteen. A year earlier he started playing bass guitar and his talent was noted and encouraged by Shetland musician, Peerie Willie Johnson.
In 1962, Mathewson was in Germany playing professionally with a Scottish Dixieland band, then in London he also performed with various jazz and R&B bands through to the middle of the decade. Around this time he was also a member of the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band.
By1966 Ron became a member of the Tubby Hayes band, with which he performed until 1973. From 1975 on in to the 1990s, he was frequently a participant in various Ronnie Scott recordings and concerts.
In 1983, he appeared on Dick Morrissey’s solo album After Dark with Jim Mullen, John Critchenson, Martin Drew and Barry Whitworth. In 2007 a benefit concert was held for him after he had an accident that left him recovering from two broken hips, a broken wrist and a burst artery.
Best known for his years spent with Scott, the double bassist and bass guitarist has recorded with Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Ben Webster, John Taylor, Gordon Beck, Philly Joe Jones, Roy Eldridge, Tony Oxley, Kenny Wheeler, Oscar Peterson, John Stevens, Terry Smith, Bill Evans, Phil Woods and His European Rhythm Machine, Acoustic Alchemy, Ian Carr, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Ray Nance and Charles Tolliver, among numerous others.
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Frank Butler was born on February 18, 1928 in Kansas City, Missouri. A drummer from childhood he later moved west, becoming associated in large way with the West Coast school.
Never becoming well known or publicly popular Butler was highly regarded by fellow musicians. He performed and recorded with Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane and Art Pepper in the decades of the Fifties and Sixties.
In the mid-to-late 1950s, he was a member of the Curtis Counce Quintet and recorded with Joyce Collins, Ben Webster, Hampton Hawes, Elmo Hope, Fred Katz and Harold Land. By the Sixties he was co-leading a group with Curtis Amy, and recording with Phineas Newborn, Miles Davis on Seven Steps To Heaven.
However, sidelined for many years by his heroin addiction, he did not record an album under his own name until the 1970s. During this period he also recorded with Dolo Coker, Kenny Drew and Teddy Edwards. Drummer Frank Butler passed away on July 24, 1984 in Ventura, California at the age of 56.
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Spike Heatley was born February 17, 1933 in North London, England. Studying the bass as a child by the time he was twenty-five he was playing with the Vic Ash Sextet along with Ian Hamer, Johnny Scott and Alan Bascombe. He went on to join The Jazz Couriers just before they disbanded, then played briefly with the Tubby Hayes Quartet with Terry Shannon and Phil Seaman.
Heatley then joined pianist Eddie Thompson’s house trio for the opening year at the original Ronnie Scott’s on Gerrard Street. During this period he also played with John Dankworth staying with him until 1962, then joining the Tony Coe Quintet, and touring with trumpeter Kenny Baker. In 1963 he was with the Bill Le Sage and Ronnie Ross Quartet, with Allan Ganley.
It was around this time that Spike stretched out and began session work in the same rhythm section as Jimmy page and John McLaughlin. He was an early member of Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated and between 1970 and 1974 he was part of successful jazz-rock fusion group CCS, and played on recording sessions for Rod Stewart.
In the 1970s he was in the house band for the children’s TV show Play Away. During the 1980s and early 90s, he was with the American all star group the Great Guitars featuring Herb Ellis, Charlie Byrd and Barney Kessel which also sometimes featured British player, Martin Taylor.
He went on to play in Kessel’s trio with Malcolm Mortimore and then with Canadian pianist Oliver Jones. These days, bassist Spike Heatley spends most of his time in France.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alec Wilder was born Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder in Rochester, New York on February 16, 1907 into a prominent family that now has a building bearing the family name. As a young boy, he traveled to New York City with his mother and stayed at the Algonquin Hotel that would later become his home for the last 40 or so years of his life. Unhappily attending several prep schools as a teenager, he hired a lawyer and essentially “divorced” himself from his family, gaining for himself some portion of the family fortune.
Wilder was largely self-taught as a composer; he studied privately with the composers Herman Inch and Edward Royce, who taught at the Eastman School of Music in the 1920s, but never registered for classes, never received his degree but eventually was awarded an honorary degree in 1973. While there, he edited a humor magazine and scored music for short films directed by James Sibley Watson.
Alec would eventually become good friends with Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett and others in the American pop canon. He wrote hits like his most famous song “I’ll Be Around” (lyrics also), as well as “While We’re Young”, “Where Do You Go” and “Trouble Is A Man”.
Over the years Alec worked with lyricists Loonis McGlohon, William Engvick, Fran Landesman and Johnny Mercer. Not tied to popular song, Wilder composed classical pieces, operas, jazz influenced numbers for television, songs for a theme park and arranged a series of Christmas carols. He wrote the definitive book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950.
His love of puzzles led him to create his own cryptic crosswords and spend hours on jigsaw puzzles. He would compose music for twelve operas, four musicals, six films, two large ensembles, and twenty-two songs. His octet, that included Eastman classmate Mitch Miller, would record many of his compositions.
Composer Alec Wilder passed away on December 24, 1980 at age 73 in Gainesville, Florida and is buried in Avon, New York, outside his hometown of Rochester.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
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