Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Muruga Booker was born Steven Bookvich on December 27, 1942 in Highland Park, Michigan at Highland Park General Hospital. His father played accordion ndfirst played the accordion before taking up drums as a preteen. He studied under Misha Bichkoff, a Russian music teacher and played drums professionally in 1961 with “The Low Rocks” in Detroit, Michigan as Steve Booker, achieving local recognition playing in 1962.

1964 saw him playing with folk-rock singers, psychedelic folk rock band and was a member of The Casuals to back up Brenda Lee. In 1968 he joined Paul Winter and The Winter Consort, and performed on their album Something in the Wind. In 1969,he played Woodstock, met Swami Satchidananda who gave him the name Muruga. He went on to play with Ted Nugent, record with Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan before joining Darius Brubeck, and forming the electronic experimental trio MBR. Then he toured as part of the Darius Brubeck Ensemble, and played with Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, Paul Desmond and Alan Dawson.

He recorded with Weather Report in the Seventies, moved to New York City and worked on several projects. Back in Detroit he left jazz and became a member of George Clinton’s P-Funk All-Stars. He move to Oakland, California in mid-1985 and formed Murunga UFM, with his next move being to Ann Arbor, Michigan where he established a recording studio called Sage Ct. Studio..

In 2003 Booker returned to playing and recording jazz as the Global Jazz Trio and as a five-piece group called The Global Jazz Project before creating a duo.

Drummer Muruga Booker, who won Outstanding World Music Instrumentalist and six Detroit Music Awards, continues to perform and record in a variety of music genres.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen was born in New York City, on December 26, 1921. As an only child and with his father dying when he was raised on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois largely by his mother’s Irish Catholic family. Running away from home at 16 he easily took to begging. A short stint in the Army was derailed by asthma and he was discharged.

He was a pianist and a prolific composer. By his own estimate, he wrote more than 8,500 songs, some of which were recorded by numerous leading singers. Allen won the 1964 Grammy Award for Best Original Jazz Composition for “Gravy Waltz, for which he wrote the lyrics.  His songs have been performed and/or recorded by Count Basie, Tony Bennett, Bobby Darin, Ella Fitzgerald, Mark Murphy, Judy Garland, Aretha Franklin, Lionel Hampton, Claire Martin, Oscar Peterson, the McGuire Sisters and Ray Brown among otheres.

He also wrote more than 50 books, including novels, children’s books, and books of opinions, including his final book, Vulgarians at the Gate: Trash TV and Raunch Radio published in 2001.

Pianist, composer, writer, actor, comedian, television and radio personality Steve Allen, who in 1954 co-created and was the first host of The Tonight Show, died due to a ruptured blood vessel on October 30, 2000 in Los Angeles, California. He was 78.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Herbert Anthony Charles Spanier was born in Cupar, Canada on December 25, 1928. He played guitar and harmonica at five, bugle in Regina, Canada cadet bands, and trumpet in high school. One of the first beboppers in Canada, and a figure of some legend on the Canadian jazz scene,

He played with Paul Perry and with his own band ‘Boptet’ in Regina before working in Chicago, Illinois from 1949-1950 and from 1950-1954 in Toronto, Canada. He was a sideman to Paul Bley in New York 1954-1955 and Los Angeles, California 1958-1959, and toured out of New York with the Claude Thornhill and Hal McIntyre orchestras in 1955.

He was an influential jazz musician in Montreal, Canada from 1956-1958 and between 1960-1971. Spanier taught briefly at Sir George Williams University, performed in various dance, hotel, and CBC orchestras, contributed music to NFB films. Herbie was the leader on the CBC’s ‘Jazz en Liberté’ and in various clubs. Returning to Toronto in 1971, he was a featured soloist for nine years with Nimmons ‘N’ Nine Plus Six.

For the next two and a half decades he led his own groups, won the Juno Awards, received a Special Recognition Award and recorded sessions in 1993-1994 in which he produced new works which combined with earlier recordings on compact discs.

Trumpeter, flugelhornist, pianist, and composer Herbie Spanier died in Toronto, Canada on December 13, 2001.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Tatsuya Takahashi was born December 24, 1931 in Tsuruoka, Yamagata, Japan.  He played on U.S. military bases in the early 1950s, and later in the decade moved to Tokyo, Japan.

He worked with Keiichiro Ebihara from 1961, but by 1966 was leading his own ensemble, Tokyo Union, which remained active until 1989. In the 1970s he played at the Monterey and Montreux Jazz Festivals.

After leaving Tokyo Union, Takahashi worked in jazz education, and in 1996 founded a new ensemble, Jazz Groovys.

Saxophonist Tatsuya Takahashi died on February 29, 2008 in Tokyo, Japan.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Edwin A. Finckel was born on December 23, 1917 in Washington, D.C. to musical parents and was the youngest of six children. Left to his own devices his artistic talents won him a scholarship at the Corcoran School of Art. Finding access to a piano within a year he had taught himself to play, albeit without the ability to read music. He took to jazz although he also showed skill as a tennis player while still a teenager.

Well regarded for his ability to improvise music he went on to arrange others and later composed over 200 of his own melodies. He appeared professionally as a teenager and he went on to introduce string instruments into his arrangement for big bands. His best known song may be Where Is The One, which was recorded by Frank Sinatra..

In the Forties he wrote songs for film, was chosen as a representative of a musical, then went into teaching in the music department at Far Brook School in New Jersey for 39 years. There he gave private lessons, conducted the choir and orchestra, and wrote much of the music that the children sing. He continued to perform jazz and in his forties he also wrote classical music.

Pianist, composer and arranger Edwin Finckel, who ran a summer camp with his wife for 17 years while performing jazz and composing classical music, died on 7 May 7, 2001 at 83 in Madison, Wisconsin.

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