Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Red Nichols was born Ernest Loring Nichols on May 8, 1905 in Ogden, Utah. A child prodigy, he learned to play the cornet and by the age of twelve he was playing difficult set pieces for his father’s brass band. Hearing the early recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and later those of Bix Beiderbecke, they had a strong influence and his style became polished, clean and incisive.
In the early 1920s, Nichols moved to the Midwest and joined a band called The Syncopating Seven, then joined the Johnny Johnson Orchestra and went with it to New York City in 1923. In New York he met and teamed up with trombonist Miff Mole and the two of them were inseparable for the next decade.
Nichols had good technique, could read music, and easily got session and studio work. In 1926 he and Miff Mole began a prodigious stint of recording over 100 sides for the Brunswick label, with a variety of bands, most of them known as “Red Nichols and His Five Pennies”. Very few of these groups were actually quintets; the name was simply a pun on “Nickel”, since there were “five pennies” in a nickel
He also recorded under a number of other names, employing Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jack Teagarden, Pee Wee Russell, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang and Gene Krupa among others. He would go on to record for Edison, Victor, Bluebird, Variety and Okeh record labels.
By the time the Swing Era arrived his recording career stalled even though he formed his own band. The transition from Dixieland to swing was not easy for him and the critics who once lauded him now trashed his output. During the Depression he played in show bands and pit orchestras, moved out to California and led Bob Hopes orchestra and during WWII gave up music for an Army commission. After the war he returned to music playing small clubs, hosting jam sessions and getting better engagements at the top clubs in the city – Zebra room, Tudor room in San Francisco’s palace Hotel and Pasadena’s Sheraton.
He toured Europe as a goodwill ambassador for the State Department, performed in Mickey Rooney film Quicksand, and was the subject of This Is Your Life. By 1965 he was in Las Vegas with his band playing the Mint Hotel. Only a few days into the date, he was sleeping in his suite and was awakened by paralyzing chest pains. He managed to call the front desk and an ambulance was summoned, but it arrived too late.
On June 28, 1965, cornetist, composer, and bandleader Red Nichols, rumored to have appeared on over 4000 recordings during the 1920s alone, passed away. That night the band went on as scheduled, but at the center of the band a spotlight pointed down at an empty chair in Nichols’ customary spot. He has been the subject of a film biography portrayed by Danny Kaye, had a cameo in the biopic the Gene Krupa Story and in 1986 was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ella Gahnt was born Ella M. Hilton on May 7, 1949 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She studied piano, voice, guitar, saxophone and music theory at the Granoff and Settlement Music schools, the PCPA which is now the University of The Arts.
Turning professional at age 18, she has worked as vocalist and music copyist on recordings with Grover Washington, Jr., The Stylistics, Pieces of a Dream, Sam Reed, Roger Prieto, Tony Williams, Sam Dockery, Butch Ballard, Gerald Smith, and her own E.G. Trio/Quartet. She is the featured vocalist with the Philadelphia Legends of Jazz Orchestra and the Clef Club Big Jazz Band as well as being a founding member of the group Instruments & Voices
Jazz vocalist and arranger Ella Gahnt continues private instruction with her husband Leon Mitchell, musical director of The Philadelphia Legends of Jazz Orchestra, has been named a Jazz Ambassador in her hometown and performs at museums, clubs, colleges and jazz festivals throughout Philadelphia and the tri-state area.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kidd Jordan was born Edward Jordan on May 5, 1935 in Crowley, Louisiana and grew up listening to Zydeco and blues. His first instruments were C-melody and alto saxophones and while in high school he began performing stock arrangements for three or four saxophones with some older musicians. He read transcribed solos in Down Beat magazine, credits Illinois Jacquet with the idea of free improvisation and the free jazz of Ornette Coleman.
Kidd majored in music education and after completing his degree at Southern University in Baton Rouge, he relocated to New Orleans and began playing R&B gigs with Guitar Slim, Ray Charles, Big Maybelle, Big Je Turner, Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, Little Esther, Lena Horne and others. He taught at Southern University New Orleans from 1974 to 2006.
Jordan performs on tenor, baritone, soprano, alto, C-melody and sopranino saxophones as well as contrabass and bass clarinets. He has recorded with a wide selection of musicians in styles ranging from R&B to avant-garde jazz, including Stevie Wonder, Archie Shepp, Fred Anderson, Ellis Marsalis, Ornette Coleman, Cannonball Adderley, Ed Blackwell and Cecil Taylor on the short list.
Jordan taught Donald Harrison and Branford Marsalis, and Charles Joseph the co-founder of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. He was an instructor at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, and suffered the loss of his home and possessions during Hurricane Katrina. He recorded his album Palm of Soul shortly afterwards, that has had a track featured on the TV series Treme as well as making a guest appearance. The multi-instrumentalist continues to perform and teach.
Put A Dose In Your Pocket
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Maynard Ferguson was born Walter Maynard Ferguson on May 4, 1928 in Verdun, Quebec, Canada. Encouraged by his musician parents he was playing piano and by the age of four. A child prodigy violinist, at nine he heard a cornet and ask for one. By thirteen, he was heard soloing regularly with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra, featured on “Serenade for Trumpet in Jazz, and won a scholarship to the Conservatoire de Musique du Quebec a Montreal where he studied from 1943 through 1948.
Dropping out of Montreal High School at 15 to pursue his music career ore actively, Ferguson began playing in various dance bands and then took over his saxophonist brother Percy’s band. He played around Montreal and became an opening act for touring bands. This brought him to the attention of many bandleaders in the U.S. and he started getting offers to cross the border.
Maynard eventually relocated to the United States in 1948, intent on joining Stan Kenton’s organization. However, it had just disbanded so he started playing with Boyd Raeburn, Jimmy Dorsey and Charlie Barnet’s bands. When Barnet retired he went to work with Stan Kenton’s newly formed 40-piece Innovations Orchestra in 1950. For three years running, 1950, 1951, and 1952, he won the Down Beat Readers’ Poll as best trumpeter. In 1953, become a session player for Paramount Pictures, soon becoming the first-call player and appeared on 46 soundtracks, and to get around the studio contract that prevented him from playing jazz clubs he would appear under aliases Tiger Brown, Foxy Corby and others.
By 1956, Ferguson became the leader of the Birdland Dream Band, a 14-piece all-star big band formed by Birdland’s owner Morris Levy. He has played with Slide Hampton, Don Ellis, Don Sebesky, John Bunch, Joe Zawinul, Joe Farrell, Jaki Byard, Nino Tempo and others as well as arrangers Bob Brookmeyer, Jimmy Guiffre, Bill Holman and Marty Paich to name a few.
He went on to guest with the New York Philharmonic, then moved to the Hitchcock estate with Timothy Leary, Ram Dass and their Harvard community in 1963 and experimented with LSD, psilocybin and other psychedelic drugs for spiritual awakening. After three years he moved to India, engaged with a guru and established the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning Boys Brass Band and taught for several years.
By 1969, Maynard was in England, signed with CBS Records, formed a big band with British musicians and performed on television then returned to debut his new band in New York. He would recruit young talent from jazz programs from institutions like Berklee College of Music, North Texas State University and the University of Miami and targeting young audiences.
For the next couple of decades he would play the Olympics, work with large ensembles, formed the Big Bop Nouveau, backed vocalists such as Diane Schuur and Michael Feinstein, performed, toured and recorded big band albums. Ferguson has been an influence in the worlds of big band, swing, bebop, cool jazz, Latin, jazz-rock, fusion classical and opera. As an educator he has conducted scores of master classes with amateurs and professional trumpeters over the course of his career. In addition to trumpet he plays the flugelhorn, valve trombone, baritone horn and French horn.
He has been inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame, is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi, honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha’s Xi Chi Chapter, received Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Charles E. Lutton man of Music Award, has an honorary doctorate from and The Maynard Ferguson Institute of Jazz Studies at Rowan University, and his extensive memorabilia is housed at the Sherman Jazz Museum in Texas. He passed away on August 23, 2006 at age 78 in Ventura, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Andrea Brachfeld was born on May 3, 1955 and grew up in a household where it was mandatory to take the piano. She began her study at age six for seven years but at age 10 she discovered she could I found out of class if she took flute. Adding the instrument to her lessons she entered the High School of Music and Art in 1969, majoring in the flute. There she met and played with, Noel Pointer, Nat Adderley Jr., Dave Valentín, as well as Angie Bofill, Kenny Kirkland, Fred Hersch and Rodney Jones among many other musicians. But it was Noel who taught her how to write music down.
She went on to attend the Manhattan School of Music and study with Hubert Laws, Jimmy Heath, George Coleman, and Mike Longo, who helped her develop her own improvisational style. She began her professional career as a musician at age 16, composing music for the quartet she put together. Her breakthrough moment came in performance as the flutist for the popular Latin band Charanga ’76, catapulted her into Salsa history and fame as the first female flutist to play this music in the United States.
Andrea has performed and recorded jazz, Latin jazz, Charanga, funk, country western, and devotional music. She received the Louis Armstrong Award, Chico O’Farrill Lifetime Achievement Award, the Pionero Award, and the Tribute to the Charanga Flutes. She has six CDs out as a leader, another 17 as a side woman and is a member of the Wallace Roney, “Universe” Orchestra playing Wayne Shorter’s long lost music originally written for Miles Davis.
She has presented her flute and composition workshops and has performed with Hubert Laws, Rufus Reid, Winard Harper, Paquito D’Rivera, Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, Nestor Torres, Wallace Roney, Dave Valentín, Wycliffe Gordon, Hilton Ruiz, Steve Turre and Wayne Wallace. Flutist, piccolo player, composer and educator Andrea Brachfeld continues to perform and record.
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