Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jerzy “Duduś” Matuszkiewicz was born on April 10, 1928 in Jasło, Poland and began playing jazz as a youth. He founded a jazz club at the YMCA in Kraków, Poland at age 20. and played with the orchestra of Kazimierz Turewicz.
A music enthusiasts club, Melomani, was founded in 1947 at the Łódź YMCA, a hang-out of nonconformist thinkers during the late 1940s. Moving to Łódź, Poland to study at the new Łódź Film School, he became part of the club and joined the sessions. After only a few concerts, the YMCA was closed due to promoting imperialist ideology using jazz music.
Jerzy founded and led a band in 1950, playing saxophones and clarinet with Marek Szczerbiński-Sart, trumpeter Andrzej “Idon” Wojciechowski, drummer Witold “Dentox” Sobociński, Marian and Tadeusz Suchocki and pianist Andrzej Trzaskowski and bassist Witold Kujawsk. Being separated from Western jazz by the Stalinist regime, they played a repertoire that did not compare to Western standards.
The band was offered space to practise at the Film School, performed informal concerts at the Film School, as well as in bars and private events, once a week. When they received an invitation to play a concert in Warsaw, Poland at the Academy of Fine Arts, they named themselves Melomani.
In 1952, pianist Krzysztof Komeda joined the band and expanded their performance reach. They played at the first jazz festival in Sopot, Poland in 1956. 1958 saw them as the first Polish jazz band invited to perform at the National Philharmonic in Warsaw. The group disbanded that same year.
Until 1964 he performed both in Poland and abroad. The following year he began to mainly compose and conduct music for movies and commercials. Moving to Warsaw with his wife, Grażyna, saxophonist, pianist, composer and bandleader Jerzy Matuszkiewicz died on July 31, 2021 at 93.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael James Hashim was born on April 9, 1956 in Geneva, New York. He began playing saxophone while in elementary school, then played with Phil Flanigan and Chris Flory as a high schooler. He worked with both into the middle 1970s.
In 1976 he toured with Muddy Waters and played with the Widespread Depression Orchestra, which he would later lead. Michael formed his own quartet in 1979, which has included Dennis Irwin, Kenny Washington, and Mike LeDonne as sidemen. In 1980 he toured with Clarence Gatemouth Brown.
Hashim played in New York City in the early 1980s with Roy Eldridge, Jo Jones, Brooks Kerr, Sonny Greer, and Jimmie Rowles. From 1987 he worked often with Judy Carmichael. The Nineties saw him touring China in 1992, and was one of the first jazz musicians ever to do so.
He worked with Flory through the 1990s, and toured North America and Europe regularly. In 1990 with his quartet he recorded Lotus Blossom, an album of Billy Strayhorn songs. In 1998 expanded this ensemble into 11 members as the Billy Strayhorn Orchestra.
Alto and soprano saxophonist Michael Hashim has been a member of the Raymond Scott Orchestra, a mainstay in the George Gee Orchestra, performs with The Microscopic Septet and continues to record as a leader and sideman..
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Mesterhazy was born April 8, 1954 in Hungary and came to the United States with his family when they fled Hungary following their country’s 1956 revolution. Settling first in upstate New York, they later moved to Atlantic City, New Jersey where he first played guitar and trumpet.
Switching to piano he became a professional musician, relocated to Los Angeles, California but eventually became well known in the area of Cape May, New Jersey.
Mesterhazy had recently released a new album with singer Paula West, Live at Jazz Standard, and the pair was scheduled to play the New York club together in May.
He was nominated for a Grammy for his arranging work on Shirley Horn’s 1997’s Loving You album, on which he also played. George also played with Les Paul, Bernadette Peters and others.
At Rowan University he ran the jazz piano program, taught privately and managed Cape May’s Merion Inn. Pianist and composer George Mesterhazy died quietly in his sleep at his home in Cape May on April 11, 2019 of natural causes. He was 59.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Simmen was born Hans Georg Simmen on April 7, 1918 in Brugg, Switzerland. He learned to play the piano for seven years, but never performed publicly. After a Louis Armstrong concert at the Zurich Tonhalle in 1934, he became fascinated with jazz. In 1935, he founded the first jazz club in Zurich, Switzerland where jazz enthusiasts could meet, where recording evenings were held, and lectures were given.
As early as the start of the Forties, Simmen was reporting from Switzerland for the American magazine Down Beat. Since he felt his high school English skills were inadequate, he took lessons and obtained the Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in 1942, enabling him to be fully effective as a Swiss correspondent . He was able to resume his work for Down Beat in the first two years after the war.
He published numerous articles in journals such as the Bulletin du Hot Club de France, the British Melody Maker, Down Beat and the Canadian Coda. He lectured internationally on jazz and was friends with Bill Coleman, Teddy Wilson, Joe Turner and Horace Silver. He was considered one of the most knowledgeable jazz writers, specializing in musicians of the pre-bop era. Johnny’s knowledge of piano technique made his articles on jazz pianists very concise.
Simmen wrote liner notes for new editions, beginning with the prestige album Benny Carter in 1933. Starting in 1979, he produced recordings with important musicians of the 1930s. Most notably, in 1994, he released a whole series of recordings on Best of Jazz .
Holding down several day jobs, Johnny was a civil servant for the city of Zurich from 1943. Three years later Johnny joined Swissair, where as the exclusive designer of the in-flight jazz programs to entertain Swissair passengers until 1987. He delivered programs every two months, initially lasting one hour, later one and a half hours, and finally two hours.
Author and music producer Johnny Simmen died on September 23, 2004 in Zurich, Switzerland.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gene J. Bertoncini, born April 6, 1937 in New York City and grew up in a musical family. His father played guitar and harmonica, his brother played accordion and keyboards. He began playing guitar at age seven and by age sixteen was appearing on television.
After high school he attended the University of Notre Dame, where, in 1959, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Architectural Engineering. During his matriculation he played clarinet in the Notre Dame marching band. His first guitar teacher was Johnny Smith.
Gene entered the Marines, then moved to Chicago, Illinois where he became immersed in the jazz scene, working with Carmen McRae. Returning to New York City, Gene played with vibraphonist Mike Mainieri and then in one of Buddy Rich’s ensembles. He was a member of the Tonight Show band.
He has worked with Burt Bacharach, Tony Bennett, Paul Desmond, Benny Goodman, Lena Horne, Hubert Laws, Michel Legrand, Charles McPherson, Wayne Shorter, Clark Terry, Nancy Wilson and bassist Michael Moore.
At the advice of his teacher Chuck Wayne, he began studying classical guitar and using the instrument for jazz, Latin and Brazilian music styles. Back in New York City, from 1990 to 2008, Bertoncini played solo guitar on Sunday and Monday evenings at the Bistro La Madeleine on West 43rd Street. He recorded two albums of solo guitar arrangements, Body and Soul and Quiet Now, and published ten of these arrangements in Gene Bertoncini Plays Jazz Standards.
Bertoncini has been on the faculties of William Paterson University, New York University, Eastman School of Music, New England Conservatory, the Banff School of Fine Arts in Alberta, Canada and on the staff of the Tritone Jazz Fantasy Camps.
Guitarist, arranger, and educator Gene Bertoncini continues to perform, arrange, record and educate.
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