Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mark Helias was born on October 1, 1950 in New Brunswick, New Jersey and did not begin playing the double bass until the age of 20. He graduated from Yale University’s School of Music with a Masters degree in 1976 and went on to study at Rutgers University. In the late Seventies he, along with Gerry Hemingway on drums, put together BassDrumBone, and continuing to play together. The 80s saw him again with Hemingway and trombonist Ray Anderson where he led the avant-funk band Slickaphonics.
Helias performed with the previous members of Ornette Colemans original band, Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, and Ed Blackwell. Mark also performed with AACM affiliates Anthony Braxton, Anthony Davis, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Julius Hemphill. Furthermore, he played with Cecil Taylor, Marilyn Crispell, Simon Nabatov, and reed players Oliver Lake, Carlos Ward, Arthur Blythe, Don Byron, and Marty Ehrlich, among others. He also had performances with Abbey Lincoln, Mose Allison, and J.B. Horns.
Since 1984 he has released six recordings under his own name and further six albums leading the archetypal improvising trio Open Loose since 1996. The group comprises Helias on bass, first Ellery Eskelin, then Tony Malaby on tenor saxophone and Tom Rainey on drums.
Bassist Mark Helias has received six NEA Grants in Jazz Performance, two NYFA Grant in Music Composition, teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, The New School, and SIM (School for Improvised Music) when not performing, composing or recording.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Mudele also Joe Muddel was born on September 30, 1920 in Downham in the south-east of London, England. His father died in 1931 following the consequences of a war and after leaving school at the age of 14, he worked as a singer in a cinema and soon played in local bands. He served in the RAF during the Second World War where he had lessons with James Merritt, contrabassist at the Philharmonia Orchestra.
1946 saw Mudele beginning to work as a professional musician, initially as a member of the Tito Burns Sextet. He met Ronnie Scott and John Dankworth and with them he belonged to the group of musicians who held the first bebop sessions as Club Eleven. To listen to Charlie Parker he attended the Festival International 1949 de Jazz and had the opportunity to play two numbers with Parker and his drummer Max Roach.
At the beginning of the 1950s, Mudele was a member of the Club Eleven Johnny Dankworth Seven but he soon left for family reasons to work the Coconut Grove nightclub in London’s West End. He toured with musicians like Hoagy Carmichael, Sophie Tucker, Judy Garland and Billy Eckstine. In 1951, he formed his own band with saxophonist Joe Harriott.
In the 1940s and 1950s, Alan Dean, Ralph Sharon, Larry Adler, Humphrey Lyttelton, Tommy Whittle, the Melody Maker All Stars in 1952 and 1955, and George Chisholm and Sid Phillips. In the 1960s, he recorded with Johnnie Spence and Alan Branscombe while his last recordings under his own name were made with pianist Robin Aspland and Geoff Gascoyne on drums.
Between 1948 and 2010 he performed on radio and television with Mantovani, Cilla Black, Yehudi Menuhin, Stéphane Grappelli, and the Big Ben Banjo Band, and the Sing Something Simple radio program. He also played regularly at the Bexley Jazz Club.
He recorded some 52 jazz recording sessions, however, outside the jazz he also played on recordings with Johnny Mercer, Barry Gray, John Williams and the Cliff Adams Singers. Bassist Joe Mudele, one of the pioneers of bebop in England, passed away on March 7, 2014.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charles Davis was born on September 29, 1946 in Sydney, Australia and started playing flute during his youth. After a short period of studying classical guitar in Sydney, he started playing jazz, rock and folk in groups after moving to Brighton. Hearing a lot of music in a rock music context, I was so fascinated.
A move to Germany in the Seventies saw him playing the flute and later for a short period of time, the saxophone in jazz rock groups. By 1980 he started playing guitar and piano. Being inspired by the various saxophone groups that appeared in the 70s, by the 90s Davis formed one of the first jazz groups composed solely of flutes. This ground breaking group required that the various members compose for this unique formation taking into account the different types of flutes. Later in the decade, after meeting bansuri player Joachim Hübner, his interest turned to the classical north indian music and became a student of the Chanchala and Duo Bubachala.
Charles has attended workshops and masterclasses conducted by James Newton, Robert Dick and Dieter Bihlmeier, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Jeremy Steig, Hossein Omoumi and Herbie Mann. Alto, bass and double bass flautist Charles Davis currently resides in Germany and continues to compose, record and perform.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sirone was born Norris Jones on September 28, 1940 in Atlanta, Georgia. In the late Fifties and early 1960s he worked with The Group alongside George Adams while also recording with R&B musicians such as Sam Cooke and Smokey Robinson.
Moving to New York City in the middle of the 1960s, he co-founded the Untraditional Jazz Improvisational Team with Dave Burrell. He also worked with Marion Brown, Gato Barbieri, Pharoah Sanders, Noah Howard, Sonny Sharrock, Sunny Murray, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Billy Bang, and Sun Ra.
He co-founded the Revolutionary Ensemble with Leroy Jenkins and Frank Clayton in 1971; Jerome Cooper later replaced Clayton in the ensemble, which was active for much of the decade. In the 1970s and early 1980s Sirone recorded with Clifford Thornton, Roswell Rudd, Dewey Redman, Cecil Taylor, Zusaan Kali Fasteau, Charles Gayle and Walt Dickerson.
In the 1980s, he was member of Phalanx, a group with guitarist James “Blood” Ulmer, drummer Rashied Ali, and tenor saxophonist George Adams. From 1989 he lived in Berlin, Germany where he was active with his group Concord with Ben Abarbanel-Wolff and Ulli Bartel. Bassist and composer Sirone, who was involved in theater and film, passed away on October 21, 2009.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Matt Wilson was born Matthew Edward Wilson on September 27, 1964 in Knoxville, Illinois. After studying percussion at Wichita State University he moved to New York City in 1992. Since hismove he has performed and/or recorded with Lee Konitz, Cecil McBee, and Dewey Redman, Joe Lovano, John Scofield, Charlie Haden, Bob Stewart, Denny Zeitlin, Ron Miles, Marty Ehrlich, Ted Nash, Jane Ira Bloom, Bobby Hutcherson, Wynton Marsalis, Hank Jones, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Michael Becker, Kenny Barron and Dena DeRose, among others.
He leads the Matt Wilson Quartet, Arts and Crafts, Christmas Tree-O and the Carl Sandburg Project. Wilson has has performed in concert at the White House hosted by President Obama along with Herbie Hancock, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dianne Reeves, Chris Botti, Randy Brecker, Antonio Hart and James Genus. He was the artist in residence at the Litchfield Jazz Festival and conducted over 250 outreach programs promoting jazz and the Jazz for Young Peoples concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Drummer, composer, bandleader, producer, and educator Matt Wilson has been nominated for a Grammy, was for 5 consecutive years voted #1 Rising Star Drummer in the Downbeat Critic’s Poll, voted Drummer of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association, recorded sixteen albums as a leader, and continues to perform, tour and record.
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