Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jon Ballantyne was born on October 8, 1963 in Saskatchewan, Canada and started playing piano at a very early age with formal study at the age of six. His father Fred a pianist and both parents jazz enthusiasts, he was listening to Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans and Duke Ellington records from the time he was born. His mother also took him to see Oscar Peterson when he was five.
After the early years of trying to understand his father’s blues-based approach to piano, classical piano studies, and a stint in a garage rock band as a young teenager, Jon decided to immerse himself in jazz and won a scholarship to North Texas State University. As an honors student there, he was asked to play in small group formats with visiting artists Elvin Jones, Ron Carter, Joe Henderson, Nat Adderley, Michael Brecker, Emily Remler, Bob Mintzer and Peter Erskine.
He went on to study at the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada with Dave Holland, Dave Liebman, Ed Blackwell, Lee Konitz, Cecil Taylor, Kenny Wheeler, John Abercrombie, Don Thompson, Julian Priester, Karl Berger, Eddie Marshall and Steve Coleman. He also studied in New York with Barry Harris, Kenny Barron, Richie Beirach, Hal Galper and JoAnn Brackeen.
This led to a performance career sharing the stage and studio with Joe Henderosn, Roy Haynes, Dewey Redman, Pepper Adams, Billy Hart, Paul Bley, Phil Woods, Bill Goodwin, Drew Gress, Don Braden, Joe LaBarbera, Ray Drummond, Bennie Wallace, Avishai Cohen, Clark Terry, Jimmy Guiffre, P. J. Perry and a host of others.
An educator, Jon has conducted clinics at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Northern Colorado, McGill University, University of Toronto and Concordia University in Montreal. He has recorded nine jazz albums and received two Juno Awards. Based in Manhattan, pianist Jon Ballantyne continues to perform, record and lead a quartet featuring bassist Boris Kozlov, drummer Jeff Hirshfield and saxophonist/bass clarinetist Douglas Yates.
Give A Gift Of Jazz – Share
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Aaron Parks was born on October 7, 1983 in Seattle, Washington. He studied piano at the University of Washington at the age of 14 through the Transition School and Early Entrance Program as a double major in computer science and music. At 15 he was selected to participate in the GRAMMY High School Jazz Ensembles, which inspired him to move to New York City and transfer to the Manhattan School of Music.
During his final year in school Aaron began touring with Terence Blanchard’s band and recorded three albums with him for Blue Note Records, including the Grammy-winning A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina). He went on to tour with Kurt Rosenwinkel, and he has recorded for Blue Note as a leader. He is a member of James Farm, a quartet with saxophonist Joshua Redman, bassist Matt Penman and drummer Eric Harland.
Parks has seven albums to his credit as a leader, and more the two-dozen as a sideman working with Daisuke Abe, Amanda Baisinger, Walter Smith III, Kendrick Scott, Christian Scott, Gretchen Parlato, Lage Lund and many others. He can be heard on the soundtracks to Their Eyes Were Watching God and Spike Lee films Inside Man, She Hate Me and When The Levees Broke.
He won first place as a Cole Porter Fellow of the American Pianists Association, and third place at the Jas Hennessy Piano Solo Competition at Montreux and in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition. Pianist Aaron Parks continues to compose, record, perform and tour.
Inspire A Young Mind
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Norman Simmons was born October 6, 1929 in Chicago, Illinois. His childhood was filled with the sound of the big band era and he was captivated by the Duke Ellington Orchestra broadcasts he listened to over a neighbor’s radio. He started teaching himself at the family piano, progressing quickly and by age 16 enrolled in the Chicago School of Music, where he completed his studies in four years.
Simmons kept a steady gig leading the house trio at Chicago’s hottest jazz club, The Beehive, where his group would back touring greats like saxophonists Wardell Gray, Lester Young and Charlie Parker. He formed his own group in 1949 and began recording in 1952. Norman’s composition Jan was a hit for tenor saxophonist Paul Bascomb in 1953. In 1966 his arrangement of Ramsey Lewis’ Wade In The Water became a huge commercial success. Later, after leading a nonet at the C & C Lounge, Simmons began accompanying jazz singers in 1958 and quickly earned a reputation as an exceptional accompanist.
Norman became widely known for his work with vocalists Helen Humes, Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Anita O’Day, Dakota Staton, Ernestine Anderson, Betty Carter, and Joe Williams, Norman has also performed and recorded nearly two-dozen albums as a sideman with Johnny Griffin, Red Holloway, Roy Eldridge, Harold Ousley, Warren Vache, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Scott Hamilton, Clifford Jordan, Von Freeman, Cy Touff, Victor Sproles, Wilbur Campbell, Al Grey and Bjarne Nerem.
Simmons’ arrangements have been heard through his work with Johnny Griffin on his White Gardenia and The Little Giant albums as well as Teri Thornton’s Devil May Care sessions. His personal catalogue is small only having five albums as a leader or co-leader.
As an educator he has taught at Paterson State College in New Jersey since 1982 and also participated in the Jazzmobile program for 20 years, fostering music education at New York’s public schools. Arranger, composer, educator, and pianist Norman Simmons continues to perform, record and tour and has been a member of the Ellington Legacy Band since 2002.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Donald Ayler was born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio on October 5, 1942, the younger brother of saxophonist Albert Ayler. He took up the trumpet as a child and went on to work with his brother in the mid-1960s but in 1967 had a nervous breakdown, which affected his brother’s life as well.
In 1970 his brother’s death affected him deeply. After that he worked with a septet in Florence but never led a recording session of his own. To this day, Donald remains best known for his jazz performance and recordings with his brother Albert.
Trumpeter Donald Ayler, who played in the free, avant-garde and mainstream genres of jazz, suffered a sudden heart attack on Sunday October 21, 2007, and passed away at home in Northfield, Ohio.
Take A Dose On The Road
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NEW FALL SEASON ALBUMS & PERFORMANCES / NYC
AACM 50TH ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a groundbreaking institution for American experimental music, has been celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, with events both in and beyond Chicago, its city of origin. This concert series, presented by the association’s New York chapter on four consecutive Fridays in October, will feature avant-garde titans like the pianist Muhal Richard Abrams and the saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, in an improvised duet (Oct. 9); the trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, leading a quintet (Oct. 16); and the trombonist and electronic musician George Lewis, with an ensemble called Impromptus (Oct. 23).
AFRO-LATIN JAZZ ORCHESTRA Led by the pianist and composer Arturo O’Farrill, this powerhouse large ensemble has been focused on furthering a musical dialogue with Cuba in recent years, to excellent effect. The coordinates shift slightly for “Jazz Across the Americas: Venezuela,” which will inaugurate the orchestra’s fall season at Symphony Space Oct. 1-2. symphonyspace.org.
ALAN BERGMAN “Lyrically, the Songs of Alan and Marilyn Bergman”: The Hollywood songwriter may be his own best interpreter. Birdland, Oct. 12; birdlandjazz.com.
BRAD MEHLDAU In his justly celebrated solo concerts, the pianist Brad Mehldau often spirals outward from a theme, forming complex structures on the fly, with or without a clear tether to the given melody. This digressive, rhapsodic, trancelike approach illuminates the diverse body of music — originals, jazz standards and tunes by Radiohead, the Beatles and Brahms — on “10 Years Solo Live” (Oct. 16). It’s a boxed set culled from a decade of European concert recordings, to be released initially on eight LPs, and one month later in digital formats and on CDs. Nonesuch.
BRIC JAZZFEST The centerpiece of the first annual BRIC JazzFest, happening at the BRIC House complex in Downtown Brooklyn, is a two-day marathon of 16 overlapping sets, ranging from the vaulting ambitions of the tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington to the clockwork intricacies of Dawn of Midi. (You’ll want to buy tickets early, and use the same strategy with regard to your arrival on the scene.) A separate kickoff concert, on Oct. 11, will feature the august bassist Ron Carter with his Golden Striker Trio, in collaboration with the painter and poet Danny Simmons. And a free concert on Oct. 13 will spotlight Jaime Woods, an emerging singer-songwriter with a foothold in gospel and soul. Through Oct. 16; bricartsmedia.org.
CHRISTIAN SCOTT ATUNDE ADJUAH “Stretch Music” (Sept. 18) is the new album by this firebrand trumpeter from New Orleans, who now resides in Harlem. It’s also a set of aesthetic principles — at heart, involving the elasticity of genres, including the one most of us know as jazz — and a rallying cry for Mr. Adjuah’s fierce young band, which also appears Oct. 2-3 at Harlem Stage, harlemstage.org. Ropeadope.
FRED HERSCH On “Solo,” the album he just released, Fred Hersch works in a sumptuously familiar setting, engaging alone with a piano on a stage. He’ll turn 60 in October, around the time that he presents his ambitious new multimedia work — “Rooms of Light,” a song cycle inspired by the medium of photography, created with the poet Mary Jo Salter — at Montclair State University. Then Mr. Hersch will settle in for a week at the Village Vanguard with his working trio, featuring John Hébert on bass and Eric McPherson on drums. “Rooms of Light,” Oct. 15-18, Kasser Theater, Montclair, N.J. Village Vanguard, Oct. 20-25, villagevanguard.com.
JANE MONHEIT “The Songbook Sessions: The Music of Ella Fitzgerald”: From starting out as a jazz-pop vocal prodigy, Ms. Monheit has matured into a trouper and sensitive interpreter. Birdland, Oct. 13-17; birdlandjazz.com.
JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA PLAYS MONK Thelonious Monk has been the subject of more than one repertory tribute by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra over the years, but this program — one of the organization’s few marquee events in the coming season, because of a scheduled renovation of Frederick P. Rose Hall — holds promise. Jazz at Lincoln Center’s artistic director, Wynton Marsalis, will host a concert of new arrangements by members of the ensemble; the featured guest is Joey Alexander, a preteen piano virtuoso whose appreciation of Monk’s music has been widely documented. Oct. 23-24, Town Hall.
JOHN SCOFIELD “Past Present” (Sept. 25) is an album title with more than one connotation for the guitarist John Scofield. For one thing, it’s a welcome reunion of his quartet of the early-to-mid 1990s, an elastic, swinging group with Joe Lovano on tenor saxophone and Bill Stewart on drums. (Larry Grenadier is the bassist for this go-round.) The deeper meaning, mostly implicit, is an elegy for Mr. Scofield’s son, who died of cancer two years ago — and whose outlook can apparently be credited for this music’s resolute lightness of spirit. (The quartet reconvenes Oct. 13-18 at the Blue Note Jazz Club; bluenote.net.) Impulse!/Universal Music Classics.
KARRIN ALLYSON The album “Many a New Day: Karrin Allyson Sings Rodgers & Hammerstein” (Sept. 18) tells you the main thing you need to know about Ms. Allyson’s new album, her first nonholiday release in four years. You should know at least a couple of more things: first, that she aces the tightrope walk of songbook reverence and jazz-vocal breeziness that often proves elusive on such an album; and second, that her sterling accompanists are the bassist John Patitucci and the pianist Kenny Barron. (She’ll appear with different partners Oct. 6-10 at Birdland.) Motéma.
KURT ELLING The formidable jazz singer swings Sinatra. Café Carlyle, Oct. 13-17.
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