Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Blaise Siwula was born in Detroit, Michigan on February 19, 1950. Growing up in a working/middle-class black neighborhood. His next-door neighbor practiced saxophone in the afternoon and occasionally allowed him inside to watch him play. He began studying the alto sax at the age of 14, playing in the middle school concert band.
Hearing the John Coltrane album Om in 1969 compelled him to take up the tenor saxophone. He was also influenced by hearing Art Pepper in San Francisco, as well as Ornette Coleman, Sonny Stitt, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, Blue Mitchell, Elvin Jones, and Miles Davis in live performances in Detroit in the 1970s. Cecil Taylor’s recordings with Jimmy Lyons were inspirational in a later period along with Ravi Shankar and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in the Seventies.
At college on and off for an extended period from 1968 to 1980, he studied theory and composition at Wayne State University, and earned a BFA. His first personal encounter with jazz musicians came around 1971 while living in a hotel near the downtown campus like drummer Doc Watson. Moving to San Francisco, he started playing free improvised music in coffeehouses and writing poetry. After four years in Northern California, he returned to Detroit before heading for Europe in 1989. Working and traveling as a street musician for three months, then returning to the States and settling in New York City.
After periodic explorations of drama, poetry, architecture, and visual art, and quite unable to secure a recording contract initially, he recorded independently produced cassette tapes. He played with Amica Bunker, the Improvisers Collective, and the Citizens Ontological Music Agenda (COMA) series.
During the decade of the 2000s, Blaise composed music scores, played a number of saxophones, clarinets, flutes, percussion and string instruments, and computer-altered sound files as background for improvisation. His many collaborators have included Doug Walker’s Alien Planetscapes, Cecil Taylor’s Ptonagas, William Hooker’s ensembles, Judy Dunaway’s Balloon Trio, Dialing Privileges with Dom Minasi and John Bollinger, Ken Simon, Karen Borca, Jackson Krall, Tatsuya Nakatani, and William Parker, among others.
Avant-garde alto saxophonist, composer and bandleader Blaise Siwula, who has been a part of New York City’s underground jazz scene, continues to performa and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Emile Barnes was born on February 18, 1892 in New Orleans, Louisiana. His first instrument was a toy fife. He soon moved on to the flute, and then the clarinet, which was given to him by the great Bunk Johnson. He studied under Lorenzo Tio Jr., Alphonse Picou, George Baquet, and Big Eye Louis Nelson Delisle. By 1908, at sixteen, he became active professionally in New Orleans, Lousiana by 1908, he was long well regarded locally for his bluesy and distinctively individualistic style.
He played with the Chris Kelly band from the late 1910s through the 1920s. He never became widely known to jazz fans outside of New Orleans until he made recordings during the revival era for American Music Records. He performed at the opening night of Preservation Hall and also in his later years.
In the 1930s he played with Wooden Joe Nicholas, and in the 1940s with Kid Howard. During this time, Barnes also had standing gigs with Lawrence Toca at the Harmony Inn, a New Orleans venue, and with Billie and DeDe Pierce at Luthjen’s dancehall. As a brass band musician, he performed with the Superior and Olympia Brass Bands, among others.
Emile was featured on several Folkways Records New Orleans compilation albums during the 1950s, and again in the early 60s as a solo artist. When British trumpeter Ken Colyer jumped ship and visited New Orleans in 1953, he recorded with a pick-up band including Barnes.
Clarinetist Emile Barnes, ragtime and brass band player, passed away on March 2, 1970 in his hometown.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ade Monsbourgh was born on Febrauary 17, 1917 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He studied piano first before taking up reeds, valve trombone, trumpet and even recorder. He met pianist Graeme Bell early on and was part of his band regularly during 1944 to 1952. During his tenure with the band he recorded several times with Bell’s freewheeling band and toured Europe and Czechoslovakia.
He had occasional opportunities to lead his own dates, in addition to playing with groups led by Roger Bell, Dave Dallwitz, Len Barnard and Frank Traynor. His band, the Late Hour Boys, recorded prolifically for Swaggie through 1971.
During the 1992 Australia Day Honours, Monsbourgh was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for service to music, particularly jazz as a performer and composer.
Retiring from fulltime playing in the 1970’s, clarinetist Ade Monsbourgh, known as Lazy Ade or Father Ade, and who also played alto and tenor saxophone, trumpet, trombone and recorder, passed away on July 19, 2006 in Nathalia, Victoria, Australia.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
William Ballard Doggett was born February 16, 1916 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the 1930s and early 1940s he worked for Lucky Millinder, Frank Fairfax and arranger Jimmy Mundy. In 1942 he was hired as the Ink Spots’ pianist and arranger.
By 1951 Doggett had organized his own trio and began recording for King Records. He also arranged for many bandleaders and performers, including Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lionel Hampton. He also recorded with Fitzgerald, as well as Coleman Hawkins, Helen Humes, Willis Jackson, Illinois Jacquet, Louis Jordan, Lucky Millinder, Paul Quinichette, Buddy Tate, Lucky Thompson
Crossing over to rhythm & blues his best known recording is Honky Tonk, a rhythm and blues hit of 1956, which sold four million copies (reaching No. 1 R&B and No. 2 Pop), and which he co-wrote with Billy Butler. The track topped the US Billboard R&B chart for over two months. He also worked with the Ink Spots, Johnny Otis, and Wynonie Harris.
Pianist and organist Bill Doggett continued to play and arrange until passing away of a heart attack on November 13, 1996 in New York City. He was 80.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nathan Tate Davis ws born February 15, 1937 in Kansas City, Kansas. He apprenticed in the Jay McShann band before heading off to college to receive his degree in Music Education. After being discharged from military service post World War II, he traveled extensively around Europe before settling in Paris, France in 1962.
Moving back to the States he went on to attain a Ph.D in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University and was a professor of music and director of jazz studies at the University of Pittsburgh from 1969, an academic program that he helped initiate. During his tenure he was founder and director of the University of Pittsburgh Annual Jazz Seminar and Concert, the first academic jazz event of its kind in the United States.
Nathan helped to found the university’s William Robinson Recording Studio as well as establish the International Academy of Jazz Hall of Fame located in the school’s William Pitt Union and the University of Pittsburgh-Sonny Rollins International Jazz Archives.
Retiring as director of the Jazz Studies Program at Pitt in 2013, Davis also served as the editor of the International Jazz Archives Journal. One of Davis’ best known musical associations was heading the Paris Reunion Band from 1985 to 1989, which at different times included Nat Adderley, Kenny Drew, Johnny Griffin, Slide Hampton, Joe Henderson, Idris Muhammad, Dizzy Reece, Woody Shaw, and Jimmy Woode.
Over the course of his career he worked with Eric Dolphy, Kenny Clarke, Ray Charles, Slide Hampton, Kenny “Klook” Clarke and Art Blakey. He toured and recorded with the post-bop ensemble leading Roots which he formed in 1991. As a composer, Nathan created various pieces, including a 2004 opera entitled Just Above My Head.
Tenor and soprano saxophonist, bass clarinetist and flutist Nathan Davis, who recorded eighteen albums as a leader, passed away on April 8, 2018 in Palm Beach, Florida, at the age of 81.
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