Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gerald Beckett was born in Beaumont, Texas on May 2nd and started playing alto saxophone at the age of 11. As a freshman at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas he switched to playing the flute and during his years at UNT, he played with various local bands.
It wasn’t until a move in 1985 to San Francisco that he began immersing himself in the jazz scene. He started listening to various flutists such as Eric Dolphy, Frank Wess, Herbie Mann, Hubert Laws, Dave Valentin and Paul Horn, among others. For the next 8 years Gerald studied flute at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and privately under Esther Landau.
He has performed in several venues in San Francisco and New York, either as a leader and sideman, showcasing the many facets of the instrument and its uniqueness to the jazz genre. He has self-produced three CD’s to national recognition and airplay, and has been a Grammy Ballot nominee.
As an educator Beckett has conducted Jazz Flute master classes in San Francisco and Paris. Flautist Gerald Beckett continues to perform, tour and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Shirley Valerie Horn was born on May 1, 1934 in Washington, D.C. and was encouraged by her grandmother to begin piano lessons at age four. At twelve she studied piano and composition at Howard University and later majored there in classical music. Unable to afford to attend, Shirley was forced to decline an offered a place at the Juilliard School. Forming her first jazz piano trio when she was twenty, her early piano influences were Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson and Ahmad Jamal that moved away from her classical background.
She then became enamored with the famous U Street jazz area of Washington, sneaking into jazz clubs before she was of legal age. She was most noted for her ability to accompany herself with nearly incomparable independence and ability on the piano while singing, the rich, lush, smoky contralto gave an unprecedented expression to every song she sang. Although she could swing as strongly as any straight-ahead jazz artist, Horn’s reputation rode on her exquisite ballad work.
She recorded with Stuff Smith in 1959, and on small labels into the Sixties. Horn first achieved fame in 1960, when Miles Davis discovered her and his public praise was a rare commodity. She eventually landed on Mercury and Impulse and over the course of her career she recorded some four-dozen albums both as leader and sideman.
Following the arrival of the Beatles, Horn scaled down performances to her native D.C. clubs, raised her daughter and worked full time in an office. Recording sporadically from 1965 through the late 80s, by the early Nineties her resurgence came with “Here’s To Life” and the albums began to flow, nearly one a year until 2003.
The small setting performer, singer and pianist Shirley Horn kept her same trio for twenty-five years. In the early 200s due to health issues she cut back her schedule, and battling diabetes and breast cancer passed away on October 20, 2005. She was nominated for a Grammy 9 times and won for “I Remember Miles”, performed for several White House invites, received an honorary Doctorate from Berklee College of Music and was given a NEA Jazz Master Award.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Hayes Pillars was born on April 30, 1906 in North Little Rock, Arkansas and began playing tenor saxophone as a teenager. Playing locally around Little Rock and Jackson, Tennessee initially, Hayes joined the territory band of Alphonse Trent in 1927. A year later he was back freelancing until he united with his boyhood friend James Jeter and organized the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra in Cleveland, Ohio.
Pillars secured a six-week engagement in 1934 at the Club Plantation in St. Louis, becoming so popular that they stayed for eleven years. The band was so influential that some of its players who held tenure were Walter Page, Sid Catlett, Jo Jones, Kenny Clarke, Jimmy Forrest, Charlie Christian, Jimmy Blanton and an 18 year old Harry “Sweets” Edison, who all went on to make names for themselves.
The orchestra would play New York and Chicago prior to Pillars leaving the orchestra. He then became a mainstay on the St. Louis scene for nearly three decades from the 1950s till his retirement in the Eighties. He was honored for his contributions to jazz by the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers University and the Smithsonian Institute in 1981.
Tenor saxophonist and bandleader Hayes Pillars passed away on August 11, 1992 in Richmond Heights, Missouri.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ray Barretto was born on April 29, 1929 in New York City of Puerto Rican descent. Raised in Spanish Harlem he was influenced by his mother’s love of music and the jazz of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. At 17 he was in the Army, met Belgium vibist Fats Sadi and realized his true calling when hearing Chano Pozo and Dizzy Gillespie play Manteca.
After his return in 1949 Barretto started joining in on jam sessions perfecting his conga style, played with Charlie Parker, Jose Curbelo and Tito Puente, with whom he would play for four years. He was soon sought by other jazz bandleaders and as a result of Ray’s musical influence, Latin percussionists started to appear in jazz groups.
By 1960, Barretto was a house musician for the Prestige, Blue Note, and Riverside labels. He also recorded on Columbia Records with jazz flautist Herbie Mann. New York had become the center of Latin music in the U.S. from which “pachanga” arose as the Latin music craze of the time. In 1961, Barretto recorded his first hit, “El Watusi” that became the first Latin song to enter the Billboard charts. He would go on to record 41 records as a leader, 11 with the groups Guarare and New World Spirit and seven as a sideman working with Dizzy Gillespie, Yusef Lateef, Herbie Mann, Celia Cruz, Red Garland and Kenny Burrell.
Ray became musical director of Fania All Stars, played with the Rolling Stones, and Bee Gees, was nominated for three Grammys, won one for Ritmo en el Corazon was crowned Conga Player of the Year in 1980 and inducted into the International Music Hall Of Fame. On February 17, 2006 conguero and percussionist Ray Barretto passed away from heart failure.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Steve Khan was born April 28, 1947 in Los Angeles, California to lyricist Sammy Cahn. As a teenager he was a terrible drummer but grew a love for guitar and switched at around age 19. He would go on to matriculate through U.C.L.A. and move to New York, performing one of his first guitar duos with Larry Coryell in 1974.
During the 80s he was a member of the group Elements. Khan has worked with Jack DeJohnette, Maynard Ferguson, Billy Cobham, Hubert Laws, Steely Dan, Billy Joel, Michael Franks and Weather Report on his short list.
He toured with the CBS Jazz All Stars in Japan, led a band called Eyewitness, authored five jazz books, was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Latin Jazz Album category for his album “Borrowed Time” and recorded over thirty albums as a leader and sideman for such labels as Concord, Arista, Columbia, Flying Dutchman and Novus to name a few. He continues to perform, record and tour.
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