Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Denis Charles was born in St. Croix, Virgin Islands on December 4, 1933 and first played bongos at age seven with local ensembles in the Virgin Islands. Moving to New York City in 1945, he gigged frequently around town and in 1954 began working with Cecil Taylor, and the pair collaborated for the next four years. Following his work with Taylor, he played with Steve Lacy, Gil Evans, and Jimmy Giuffre. He befriended Ed Blackwell, and the two influenced each other.
Recording with Sonny Rollins on a calypso-tinged set, Denis then returned to play with Lacy until 1964. He worked with Archie Shepp and Don Cherry in ‘67 and then disappeared from the jazz scene until 1971. In the 1970s and 1980s he played regularly on the New York jazz scene with Frank Lowe, David Murray, Charles Tyler, Billy Bang, and others, and also played funk, rock, and traditional Caribbean music.
Between 1989~1992 drummer Denis Charles released three albums as a leader before passing away of pneumonia in his sleep on March 26, 1998 in New York City in 1998, four days after a five-week European tour with the Borgmann/Morris/Charles (BMC) Trio, with Wilber Morris and Thomas Borgmann. In 2002 Veronique N. Doumbe released a film documentary Denis A. Charles: An Interrupted Conversation about his life.
More Posts: bandleader,composer,drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bob Cranshaw was born Melbourne Robert Cranshaw on December 3, 1932 in Chicago, Illinois. His career spanned the heyday of Blue Note Records to his recent involvement with the Musicians Union. He is perhaps best known for his long association with Sonny Rollins. Cranshaw performed in Rollins’s working band on and off for over five decades, starting with a live appearance at the 1959 Playboy Jazz Festival in Chicago and on record with the 1962 album The Bridge.
He recorded on over 3000 sessions as a sideman with Mary Lou Williams, Pepper Adams, Nat Adderley, Eric Alexander, Hank Mobley, Mose Allison, Granchan Moncur III, Gene Ammons, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Barron, James Moody, George Benson, Shirley Scott, Wayne Shorter, Horace Silver, Walter Bishop Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Lee Morgan, Oliver Nelson, Duke Pearson, Paul Bley, Jaki Byard, Johnny Coles, Donald Byrd, Hank Crawford, Sonny Criss, Houston Person, Frank Foster, and Sonny Red, and the list goes on and on.
Bassist Bob Cranshaw, who was a session bassist for the iconic PBS children’s programs Sesame Street and The Electric Company and played bass in the Saturday Night Live house band, passed away at the age of 83 on November 2, 2016 in Manhattan, New York from stage four cancer.
More Posts: bass,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ronald Mathews was born on December 2, 1935 in New York City and in his twenties, he toured internationally and recorded with Max Roach, Freddie Hubbard and Roy Haynes. He was a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the late Fifties through the 1960s. By age thirty, he was teaching jazz piano and leading workshops, clinics and master classes at Long Island University in New York City.
During the 1970s Ronnie recorded with Dexter Gordon and Clark Terry, toured and recorded on two Louis Hayes projects, the Louis Hayes~Woody Shaw Quintet and the Louis Hayes~Junior Cook Quintet. One of his longest associations and a highlight of his career was with the Johnny Griffin Quartet. For almost five years, from 1978~1982, he was an integral part of this band, forging lasting relationships with Griffin, drummer Kenny Washington, and bassist Ray Drummond.
The Eighties saw Mathews honing his role as a frontman, performing as a leader in duo, trio, and quartet configurations around the world. He again toured with Freddie Hubbard and Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nations Band, was the pianist for the Tony Award~winning Broadway musical, Black and Blue in 1989, and, in 1990, he was one of the artists who recorded for Spike Lee’s movie, Mo’ Better Blues.
After a stint touring and recording with the Clifford Jordan Big Band in the early 1990s, Mathews joined T.S. Monk for eight years of touring and recording three albums with the band. In 1998, Hal Leonard Books published his collection of student arrangements: Easy Piano of Thelonious Monk.
As both a mentor and musician with Generations, a group of jazz musicians headed by veteran drummer Jimmy Cobb, he contributed two new compositions for the album that was released posthumously to his death by San Francisco State University’s International Center for the Arts on September 15, 2008.
Pianist Ronnie Matthews recorded 14 albums as a leader and more than three dozen as a sideman during his career, passing away on June 28, 2008 in Brooklyn, New York.
More Posts: bandleader,composer,educator,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dick Johnson was born Richard Brown Johnson on December 1, 1925 in Brockton, Massachusetts. His primary instrument was clarinet, however, he also played the alto saxophone and flute.
He began his professional career as a musician while serving in the U.S. Navy in 1944-1946 and played with the navy band on the USS Pasadena during World War II. He often credited his stint in the Navy for kicking off his career in jazz. After the war, Johnson toured with the big bands of Charlie Spivak and Buddy Morrow.
Eventually, after several years on the road, he settled in his hometown of Brockton, Mass. It was there in Brockton where he and his close friend, Lou Colombo formed a jazz sextet. The group lasted 10 years, but the friendship and musical kinship lasted for the rest of his life. In addition, Dick formed his septet, Swing Shift, which was a staple on the Boston music scene for many years.
Like Herb Pomeroy, Johnson managed a double career as a performer and an educator, teaching jazz at nearby Berklee School of Music, where he mentored many younger jazz musicians.
Between 1956 and 2006 he recorded ten albums as a leader. He worked with Frank Sinatra, the Swing Shift Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie, and Tony Bennett.
Clarinetist, alto saxophonist, and flutist Dick Johnson, who also played in the free jazz genre, passed away on January 10, 2010 in Boston, Massachusetts after a short illness, aged 84.
</ahref=”http:>
More Posts: bandleader,clarinet,educator,flute,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Stanley Ernest Sulzmann was born November 30, 1948 in London, England and began on saxophone at age 13, playing in Bill Ashton’s London Youth Jazz Orchestra, later the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music from 1969-1972.
In the 1970s he played with the Clarke-Boland Big Band, Mike Gibbs, John Taylor, Kenny Wheeler, Volker Kriegel, Eberhard Weber, Zbigniew Seifert, Phil Woods, Clark Terry, and Gordon Beck. The 1980s saw him working with Gil Evans, Paul McCartney, the European Jazz Ensemble, the James Last Orchestra, the Hilversum Radio Orchestra, the NDR Big Band, and the London Jazz Orchestra.
Collaborations in the 1990s include with Allan Botschinsky, David Murray, Paul Clarvis, and Bruno Castellucci. Television audiences around the world have heard him as the saxophone soloist in The Belgian Detective, the theme music to ITV’s Poirot, composed by Christopher Gunning.
Saxophonist Stan Sulzmann has held teaching positions at the Guildhall School of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, and Trinity College of Music, and continues to teach, perform and record.
More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone