Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nancy Harrow was born October 3, 1930 in New York City, New York and studied classical piano beginning at age seven, then decided to pursue careers in dancing and singing.
In 1961 Nancy released her debut album Wild Women Don’t Have The Blues for Candid Records. It featured Kenny Burrell, Buck Clayton, Dickie Wells, and Milt Hinton. Her sophpomore album for Atlantic Records two years later titled You Never Know featured John Lewis, Dick Katz, Phil Woods, Jim Hall, Richard Davis, and Connie Kay. She then left music to raise a family.
Since her return in 1975 she has worked with Katz and Woods, Clark Terry, Roland Hanna, and Bob Brookmeyer. She recorded albums based on The Lost Lady by Willa Cather, The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Winter Dreams, based on the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Two of Harrow’s songs have been adapted, one to a puppet show and one to The Cat Who Went to Heaven, based on a story by Elizabeth Coatsworth. The latter had short New York City runs at the Mercer Street Theater, the Asia Society, the Harlem School of the Arts, the Kennedy Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Singer and songwriter Nancy Harrow, who has recorded eighteen albums as a leader on a collaboration with John Lewis, continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kobi Yakob Arad was born on October 2, 1981 and raised in Haifa, Israel. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Tel Aviv University and became the first musician to earn a doctorate in contemporary improvisation and third stream from the New England Conservatory of Music.
While living in Israel, Kobi participated as a keyboardist in a trio with Asaf Sirkis and Gabriel Mayer in the 1990s. He collaborated with Stevie Wonder and his manager Stephanie Andrews at the Berklee Performance Center in 2005.
Between 2009 and 2015 Arad released Sparks of Understanding, The Experience Project, Webern Re-Visioned, and Superflow which is a collaboration with Roy Ayers, featuring bassist Jonathan Levy.
He went on to record a tribute album Ellington Upside Down with the Kobi Arad Band. The album’s mashup of “Take The ‘A’ Train” and “It Ain’t Mean a Thing” was nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental at the 17th Independent Music Awards in 2019. His album Segments went on to win Best Jazz Instrumental in the album category at the same event.
In 2021 he won the Independent Music Artist award in Best Jazz for his performance of Thelonious Monk’s Bemsha Swing at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards. Pianist, vocalist, composer, and music producer Kobi Arad, who has collaborated with Stevie Wonder, Cindy and Carlos Santana, and Jack DeJohnette, continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Meijer was born Jan Cornelis Meijer on October 1, 1912 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Widely recognized as a virtuoso jazz accordionist not only did he play popular songs but also fast swing numbers. In 1974 he recorded the Dutch Swing College Band’s Johnny Goes Dixie LP, which went gold.
He will also be remembered for his proficiency with classical and folk music in his native city. was typically seen during performances with a cigar in his mouth. He was a major influence on French accordionist Richard Galliano.
Unfortunately, due to his short temper and drinking, during the last years of his life, Meijer was rarely invited to play large performances, mainly in connection with his short temper and his drinking, the King of the Accordion saw out his final days mostly in silence, occasionally playing weddings and parties.
The subject of a film, Amsterdam erected a statue to the musician. Accordionist Johnny Meijer, who celebrated his 75th birthday at the North Sea Jazz Festival, transitioned on January 8, 1992 in Amsterdam.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Thelma Terry was born Thelma Esther Combes on September 30, 1901 in Bangor, Michigan in 1901. After her parents divorced she moved with her mother and two sisters to Chicago, Illinois where she chose to study string bass. Her early years were spent on the road performing in Chautauqua assemblies. When she graduated from Austin Union High School, she earned first chair in the Chicago Women’s Symphony Orchestra. As this did not provide her with a living, she turned to jazz.
She found her way into Chicago nightlife, playing in and around the city with her all-women band, Thelma Combes and her Volcanic Orchestra, or her jazz string quartet, and was hired by Al Capone as the house band in his Colosimo’s Restaurant.
Withan article in Variety bringing national attention to her, the Music Corporation of America took notice of Combes and renamed her “Thelma Terry” and gave her an all-male band, Thelma Terry and Her Playboys, with a young Gene Krupa on drums.
MCA billed Terry as “The Beautiful Blonde Siren of Syncopation”, “The Jazz Princess”, and “The Female Paul Whiteman”. Bud Freeman was so enthusiastic about the band that he paid another musician to fill his seat in the Spike Hamilton Band so he could join the Playboys. The band toured nationally on the Eastern Seaboard and as far west as Kansas City. In 1929 she disbanded the Playboys, quit MCA to marry Willie Haar and settled in Savannah, Georgia.
After a failed comeback, and a divorce in 1936 she sold her string bass, turned her back on the music profession, and took a job as a knitting instructor. She spent her last years with family in her native Michigan.
Bandleader and bassist Thelma Tery, who was the first American woman to lead a notable jazz orchestra as an instrumentalist, transitioned on May 30, 1966 from esophageal cancer at the age of 64.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chris Abelen was born in Tilburg, Netherlands on September 29, 1959 and started out on trumpet at 11, switching to the bigger horn at 18. He studied classical trombone with Charles Toet and Henri Aarts, and then jazz and improvised music with Willem van Manen a member of Willem Breuker Kollektief, the band that first called global attention to Dutch improvised music.
Taking over van Manen’s chair in the Kollektief in 1984, they would tour and record extensively with that band until 1988. Abelen led his own groups and in 1992 led a pan-generational, pan-stylistic international tentet showcasing the players with mini-concertos that demonstrate Abelen’s preoccupations with color, texture, mood, and his wry indirect sense of humor.
His desire to lead his own band had him forming first a sextet that evolved into a quartet. He then put together a tentet, in which a quartet and quintet was produced. All the configurations went on to record several albums. Over the years Chris has toured and recorded with numerous Dutch jazz and new music ensembles, including Willem van Manen’s Contraband, I Compani, Paradise Regained Orchestra, Eric van der Westen Octet, and numerous others.
Taking his music in a new direction by 2016 he had released his sixth album, A Day At The Office, with a septet. Other new projects are still in the pipeline and trombonist Chris Abelen continues to perform and compose.
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