Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Miriam Klein was born on March 27, 1937 in Basel, Switzerland and gained fame as a singer for the first time when she appeared on the scene in Paris, France with Pierre Michelot, Don Byas and Art Simmons in the 1950s. After education at the music school in Vienna, Austria she returned to Switzerland and has sung in the group of her husband Oscar Klein since 1963.
In the 1960s and 1970s, she gained international fame when she released her 1973 album Lady Like. The album was dedicated to Billie Holiday and performed with Roy Eldridge, Dexter Gordon and Slide Hampton. She also recorded music with Albert Nicholas in 1971 and Wild Bill Davison in 1976.
In 1977, Miriam worked with Fritz Pauer’s trio and in 1978 with Roland Hanna and George Mraz in her album By Myself. In 1981/82, she toured with Kenny Clarke, Hanna and Isla Eckinger. In 2001, she took part in My Marlin, the album of her son David Klein. Vocalist Miriam Klein remains active.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Maurice James Simon was born March 26, 1929 in Houston, Texas. Studying the saxophone in high school he was a classmate of Eric Dolphy during the 1945-46 school year. He appeared on an early 1945 Los Angeles, California recording led by Russell Jacquet along with Teddy Edwards, Charles Mingus, Bill Davis and Chico Hamilton.
1948 saw him again with Jacquet as leader, in an all-star band recording in Detroit, Michigan along with Sonny Stitt, Leo Parker, Sir Charles Thompson, Al Lucas and Shadow Wilson.
He went on to join the Gerald Wilson Orchestra that also had Snooky Young, Red Kelly and Melba Liston as members. In 1950 he recorded for Savoy Records backing Helen Humes in a big band with Dexter Gordon, Ernie Freeman, Red Callender and J.C. Heard.
He also played with Fats Domino, Papa John Creach, Big Maybelle, Faye Adams, Bumble Bee Slim, Percy Mayfield and B. B. King. In the 1970s he worked with the Duke Ellington orchestra. Baritone and tenor saxophonist Maurice Simon passed away on August 6, 2019.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Austin Percy Brice Jr. was born on March 25, 1923 in New York City. He started his professional career began around the end of World War II, when he played with Benny Carter, Mercer Ellington, Luis Russell, and Eddie Cleanhead Vinson. Playing frequently in Harlem during the early 1950s he worked with Tiny Grimes, Oscar Pettiford, Tab Smith, Lucky Thompson, and Cootie Williams. In addition to leading sessions at Minton’s Playhouse, he also played with Billy Taylor from 1954 to 1956, George Shearing between 1956 to 1958, sharing screen time in the film The Big Beat, and Kenny Burrell 1958–59.
He played behind Sarah Vaughan on tour from 1959 to 1961, then became Harry Belafonte’s drummer for most of the 1960s, but he also worked with Ahmad Jamal, Carmen McRae and Mary Lou Williams in that decade. He led a group called the New Sounds in the early 1970s, and worked with Sy Oliver and Illinois Jacquet.
Though he led a group that was active in the ’70s, the somewhat anti-jazz vibe lent to the drummer’s decision to concentrate on Broadway orchestra work, settling in for long runs on two hot shows, Eubie and Bubbling Brown Sugar. He was also active accompanying the tap group the Copasetics. He was a first~ call musician for jazz festivals and recording sessions.
The repertoire of the Percy Brice Duo with Tom Smith features songcraft from the ’20s through the ’50s. Drummer and bandleader Percy Brice, also known by his nickname Big P, passed away in November 2020 at the age of 97.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dave Douglas was born on March 24, 1963 in Montclair, New Jersey and grew up in the New York City area, attending Phillips Exeter Academy, a private high school in New Hampshire. He was introduced to jazz by his father and as a young teen was shown jazz theory and harmony by pianist Tommy Gallant. He began performing jazz as a trumpeter during his junior year in high school while on an abroad program in Barcelona, Spain. After graduating from high school in 1981, he studied at the Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory, both located in Boston, Massachusetts.
A move to New York City in 1984 had him studying at New York University with Carmine Caruso, and finished a degree in music. Early gigs included the experimental rock band Dr. Nerve, Jack McDuff, Vincent Herring as well as street bands around New York City. He played with a variety of ensembles and came to the attention of the jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader, Horace Silver, with whom he toured the US and Europe in 1987.
During the late 1980s, Douglas began playing with bands led by Don Byron, Tim Berne, Marty Ehrlich, Walter Thompson, and others in New York. He also played in the composer collectives Mosaic Sextet and New and Used.
Trumpeter, composer, and educator Dave Douglas has more than fifty recordings as a leader and over 500 published compositions. Has led and co-led quintets and sextets as well as electronic ensembles, won a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Aaron Copland award, and received Grammy Award nominations. As a composer, has received several commissions from among others from the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Essen Philharmonie, The Library of Congress, Stanford University and Monash Art Ensemble, which premiered his chamber orchestra piece Fabliaux in 2014.
He has served as artistic director of the Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music at the Banff Centre in Canada, co-founded the Festival of New Trumpet Music in New York, serving as its director. He is on the faculty at the Mannes School of Music and is a guest coach for the Juilliard Jazz Composer’s Ensemble. In 2016, he accepted a four-year appointment as the artistic director of the Bergamo Jazz Festival.
In 2005 Douglas founded Greenleaf Music, a record label for his albums, sheet music, podcasts, as well as the music of other modern jazz musicians. Greenleaf has produced over 70 albums.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Albert Aarons was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on March 23, 1932 and graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He began to gain attention as a trumpeter by 1956 and started working with saxophonist Yusef Lateef and pianist Barry Harris in the latter part of that decade in Detroit.
After a period playing with jazz organist Wild Bill Davis, he played trumpet in the Count Basie Orchestra from 1961 to 1969. The 1970s saw Aarons working as a sideman for singers Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, and saxophonist Gene Ammons.
Contributing to jazz fusion, playing on School Days with Stanley Clarke, he appeared with Snooky Young on the classic 1976 album Bobby Bland and B. B. King Together Again…Live. Trumpeter Al Aarons passed away on November 17, 2015 at age 83 in Laguna Woods, California.