Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Elissa Lala was born on April 30, 1958 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of a professional trombonist. She began singing professionally at the age of five and by the time she was in her early teens she was doing background vocal sessions at Philadelphia’s Sigma Sound Studios. Although heavily influenced by R&B, she would be quietly singing Michel Legrand’s You Must Believe in Spring while walking to that all girl Italian high school.
Struggling with a hearing impairment never affected her pitch and falling in love with jazz guitarist John Valentino made the jazz thing stick. The couple performed together at every major venue on the east coast, eventually marrying and moving to Los Angeles, California. While singing at a Burbank studios jazz club, Aaron Spellings’ music supervisor heard Lala and hired her to sing All the Things You Are for the ABC miniseries Crossings.
More film and TV studio work came her way and her credits multiplied. A bout with tinnitus led to more hearing loss and learning about hearing loss. Elissa became trained in hearing instrument fitting and helped hundreds of hearing-impaired children and adults hear better through the use of digital hearing instruments.
As a lyricist she wrote for Ralph Towner’s I Knew It Was You. She has written and/or recorded with Blue Note recording artists Pat Martino, Narada Michael Walden, Michel Legrand, Alex Acuna, Tommy Tedesco, and Bennie Maupin. Her approach to improvisation is fresh, moving, and very in the moment, or documented, recorded or live.
Vocalist Elissa Lala continues to perform, work in film and television, and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Andrea Ventriglia was born in Capua, Italy on April 29, 1953 and studied the saxophone with the masters Franco Florio in Salerno and Eraclio Sallustio at the GB Martini Conservatory in Bologna, Italy. He later studied the flute with Aldo Ferrantini.
His professional career began while he was still a music student around the end of the 1960s, following the rhythm & blues and soul of James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Joe Cocker in fashion at that time and still today. At a very young age he was part of the best and
As a soldier Andrea was part of the National Band of the Italian Army. He moved to Verona, Italy in the mid 1970s and began playing in small bands in night clubs. He was invited to join the Big Band Citta’ di Verona directed by Maestro Mario Pezzotta, in the first tenor saxophone. At the same time he performed in Fernando Brusco’s small orchestra as an arranger and saxophonist.
Moving to the United States he initially played in small bands that performed on cruise ships where he met among others Count Basie, Mercer Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Harry James and Bob Crosby. Settling first in San Francisco, then in Los Angeles, California he played on the road with small bands collaborating with Harry James and Bob Crosby in the latter city.
Back in Italy he gained membership into Franco Rosselli’s orchestra and did the night club circuit in Florence, San Remo and Riviera Romagnola. Leaving Roselli he toured with Bobby Solo throughout Italy. His passion for jazz and big band led him to the Luciano Fineschi Orchestra, again sitting in the first tenor saxophone and flute chair.
After the orchestra disbanded Ventriglia went on to play in other big bands, duos, artistic partnerships, and guest appearances. For a decade he was a professor of saxophone at the Giuseppe Martucci Music High School in his hometown. He trained musicians currently working with famous artists or with their own groups and some of whom practice the profession of musician in the USA.
By the Eighties the public became more sensitive towards jazz, so Andrea led quartets performing in various Italian jazz clubs. that sprung up a bit everywhere in Italy. During his career and for professional reasons, saxophonist and flutist Andrea Ventriglia has performed on nearly every continent and continues to perform, tour and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Ewing Lee was born April 28, 1896 in Boonville, Missouri, and was the older brother of pianist and singer Julia Lee. They performed with their father’s string trio at neighborhood house parties and church socials. He played in a band while serving in the Army in 1917, and following this period, he sang in a vocal quartet.
In 1920 he formed and led George E. Lee Novelty Singing Orchestra and with his sister as one of the group’s members, he was a regular performer at Lyric Hall in Kansas City, Missouri through much of the 1920s.
Though he played many instruments, singing was his forte and he had a powerful voice and a penchant for ballads and novelty songs. Through the 1920s no group in Kansas City could compete vocally with the Lee Orchestra.
In 1927 they recorded as an octet with Jesse Stone on piano, for Meritt Records. Among the tunes was Down Home Syncopated Blues, and was the earliest recording of Julia Lee’s voice. They recorded six tunes for Brunswick in 1929.
In 1933, his group was absorbed into the Bennie Moten Orchestra. By 1935 he continued to perform with smaller ensembles through the decade. In 1937, at a resort in the Ozarks, Lee fronted a small group that included 17 year-old saxophonist Charlie Parker. Two years later he struck out on his own again, moved to Jackson, Michigan in 1940 and retired from music in 1941. He began
By the 1940s, he moved to San Diego, California. Vocalist and bandleader George E. Lee, who was sometimes billed as the Cab Calloway of the Middle West, died on October 2, 1958.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Scott Robinson was born on April 27, 1959 in Pompton Plains, New Jersey and was the son of a piano teacher and National Geographic book editor. Graduating from the Berklee College of Music in 1981, the following year he joined the college’s staff, becoming its youngest faculty member.
Robinson has appeared on more than 275 LP and CD releases, including twenty under his leadership, with musicians Frank Wess, Roscoe Mitchell, Ruby Braff, Joe Lovano, Ron Carter, Paquito D’Rivera, David Bowie, Maria Schneider, Rufus Reid, Buck Clayton, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Four of these recordings won a Grammy Award. He has received four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 2000, the U.S. State Department named him a jazz ambassador for the year 2001, funding a tour of West Africa in which he played the early works of Louis Armstrong. Material from these appearances was released on the album Jazz Ambassador: Scott Robinson Plays the Compositions of Louis Armstrong by Arbors Records.
Throughout his career, Scott has worked to keep unusual and obscure instruments in the public view. His main instrument is a C-melody saxophone, however he has recorded with the ophicleide, and the rare contrabass saxophone.
Saxophonist Scott Robinson has operated his record label, ScienSonic Laboratories since 2009, in addition to his performing and recording.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Axel Dörner was born on April 26, 1964 in Cologne, Germany and studied piano in the Dutch town Arnhem, Netherlands and at the Music Academy in Cologne. From 1991 he studied trumpet with Malte Burba, and during his studies collaborated with trumpeter Bruno Light as the Street Fighters Duo.
The duo expanded to form the Street Fighters Quartet and the Street Fighters Double Quartet, with members including Matthias Schubert, Bruno Leicht, and Claudio Puntin. He formed the Axel Dörner Quartet with Frank Gratkowski, Hans Schneider, and Martin Blume, and played with saxophonist Matthias Petzold on the albums Lifelines and Psalmen Und Lobgesänge.
Living in Berlin, Germany since 1994 and is an integral part of the city’s scene of new improvisational and experimental music. Besides playing solo and in his trio TOOT with Phil Minton and Thomas Lehn, he has played with Otomo Yoshihide, and in the groups Die Anreicherung, Ig Henneman Sextet, Ken Vandermark’s Territory-Band, Hedros, and the London Jazz Composers’ Orchestra.
A versatile musician, he has worked in the idiom of bebop, playing on pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach’s album Monk’s Casino, featuring interpretations of the complete compositions of Thelonious Monk.
Trumpeter and pianist Axel Dörner continues to perform and record.
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