Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Grachan Moncur III was born June 3, 1937 in New York City, the son of bassist Grachan Moncur II, but was raised in Newark, New Jersey. He began playing cello at age nine but switched to trombone at eleven. In high school he attended Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina and began sitting in with touring musicians, establishing lasting friendships with Art Blakey and Jackie McLean.
After high school he toured with Ray Charles in 1959, gained membership into the Art Farmer/Benny Golson Jazztet in ’62, and then worked with Sonny Rollins. He took part in two classic McLean sessions in the early 1960s, One Step Beyond and Destination Out, to which he also contributed the bulk of compositions that led to two influential albums of his own for Blue Note Records – Evolution with McLean and Lee Morgan and Some Other Stuff with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.
Moncur joined Archie Shepp’s ensemble and recorded with other avant-garde players such as Marion Brown, Beaver Harris and Roswell Rudd. In 1969 while in Paris he recorded two albums as a leader for the BYG Actuel label, New Africa and Aco Dei de Madrugada, as well as appearing as a sideman on numerous other releases of the label. In 1974, the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra commissioned him to write a jazz symphony, Echoes of Prayer, and he has gone on to work with Cassandra Wilson, Frank Lowe, John Patton, Mark Masters, Joe Henderson, Tim Hagans, Gary Bartz and perform occasionally with the Paris Reunion Band.
The prolific composer and trombonist continued to perform, tour and record until he died from cardiac arrest on his 85th birthday in Newark, New Jersey on June 3, 2022.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ian Shaw was born June 2, 1962 in St. Asaph, Wales and received his music degree from the University of London. He began his professional career singing in the 1980s on the Alternative Cabaret Circuit, while playing in piano bars and at festivals in London and throughout Europe.
In 1990 he began touring Europe and recording with fellow singer Carol Grimes, ultimately collaborating with Claire Martin, Linda Lewis, Liane Carroll and Sarah Jane Morris. By mid-decade he was a regular performing at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and two albums on the club’s Jazzhouse label – Ghosthouse and a Rodgers & Hart tribute Taking It To Hart.
In 1996, Shaw led his own “Very Big Band” on a UK tour and by the late 90s he was performing regularly in USA. In 1999 he released In A New York Minute the first of two albums on the Milestone label, followed by Soho Stories in 2001. He has worked with Cedar Walton, Lew Soloff and Eric Alexander. His next release in 2003, A World Still Turning saw him working with Billy Childs, Peter Washington and Mark Murphy.
Ian continues to work regularly with Claire Martin, co-hosting the 2004 BBC Jazz Awards and appearing on the BBC’s Big Band Special. He won in the Best Jazz Vocalist category at the BBC Jazz Awards in 2004 and 2007. He has cut three more albums – Drawn To All Things, Lifejacket and Somewhere Towards Love. In 2011 Splashpoint Records released The Abbey Road Sessions where Shaw backed by a band. Shaw continues to perform regularly at festivals and jazz clubs in the UK and around the world, has delved into film acting and mounting a one-man show.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nelson Riddle was born Nelson Smock Riddle, Jr. on June 1, 1921 in Oradell, New Jersey and later moved with his family to Ridgewood. He began taking piano lessons at age eight and trombone lessons by age fourteen. After his graduation from high school Nelson spent his late teens and early 20s playing trombone in and occasionally arranging for various local dance bands, culminating in his association with the Charlie Spivak Orchestra.
In 1943, Riddle joined the Merchant Marines, studied orchestration under Alan Shuman, joined Tommy Dorsey in 1941, drafted into WWII shortly before the end of the war. Upon discharge he moved to Hollywood and started his arranging career for radio and record projects.
In 1950, Riddle was hired by composer Les Baxter to write arrangements for a recording session with Nat King Cole, becoming his first association with Capitol Records. He would go on to work with Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Kate Smith, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Keely Smith, Sue Raney, Linda Ronstadt, Johnny Mathis, Rosemary Clooney, Ed Townsend and Frank Sinatra, who reluctantly but successfully re-launched his career with the Riddle arrangement of “I’ve Got The World On A String”.
Riddle would arrange for such films as High Society with Bing Crosby and Paint Your Wagon with Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and Jean Seberg, in conjunction to leading his successful orchestra.
Arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator Nelson Riddle, whose career spanned over four decades, passed away on October 6, 1985 of cardiac and kidney failure at age 64.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paulinho da Costa was born Paulo Roberto da Costa on May 31, 1948 in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. Learning to play percussion as a child of five by exploring the different sounds of everything he could get his hands on. While still in his early teens, he joined several musical groups, traveling extensively throughout the world. Upon arriving in the United States, the multi-versed percussionist carved a sizable niche in the music community,
Over the course of five decades Paulinho has participated in thousands of recording sessions, performed on the soundtracks of nearly two hundred films and television shows, recorded seven albums as a leader for A&M, Concord and Pablo record labels, and has been a part of several Grammy winning albums.
He playing has crossed over to work in a variety of music genres including Brazilian, blues, Christian, country, disco, gospel, hip hop, jazz, Latin, pop, R & B, rock, soul and world.
He has performed, collaborated and recorded with an impressive list of musicians and vocalists from A to Z not limited to Bill Cunliffe, Chico Freeman, Chicago, Miles Davis, Earth Wind and Fire, Ricky Martin, Eliane Elias, Toots Thielemans, Sammy Nestico, Dizzy Gillespie, Cher, The Gap Band, Bobby McFerrin, Michael Jackson, Ramsey Lewis, Chet Atkins, Sadao Watanabe, Tori Amos, Stix Hooper and Quincy Jones to name just a few.
Percussionist Paulinho Da Costa is currently proficient on more than two hundred percussion instruments and is considered one of the most recorded musicians of modern times.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Darrell Grant was born on May 30, 1962 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania but his family moved to Denver, Colorado while still a young child. He started piano lessons before his teens and was considered enough of a prodigy to join and tour for two years with the Boulder-based Pearl Street Jazz Band, from the age of fifteen.
At 17 Grant won a scholarship to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York and while at Eastman focused on performance studies over theory, which he covered in his graduate studies in jazz theory and composition at the University of Miami.
Relocating to New York in the mid-’80s, Grant concentrated on a series of low-profile sideman gigs with the likes of Betty Carter, Chico Freeman and Greg Osby before finally stepping out as a bandleader for the first time. His 1994 Black Art was well received and reviewed and sold respectably, and his sophomore project The New Bop was an even bigger critical success.
He has recorded for 32 Jazz, Criss Cross, Monarch, Lair Hill and Origin record labels, has relocated to the Pacific Northwest and has added teaching credits to his resume of performance, composition and bandleader and sideman in Tony Williams’ quintet as he continues in the tradition of bop and post-bop jazz.
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