Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Reginald Volney Johnson was born December 13, 1940 in Owensboro, Kentucky. After playing trombone with school orchestras and army bands, he switched to double bass and started working with musicians such as Bill Barron and recording with Archie Shepp in the mid–1960s, before joining Art Blakey’s band for a month-long residency at the Five Spot Café in 1965.
In 1966 Johnson traveled with the Blakey band to The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California and recorded Buttercorn Lady alongside Frank Mitchell, Chuck Mangione and Keith Jarrett.
Reggie’s playing and/or recording in America reads like a who’s who list not limited to Bill Dixon, Sun Ra, Burton Greene, Lonnie Liston Smith, Stanley Cowell, Bobby Hutcherson,, Harold Land, Blue Mitchell, Walter Bishop Jr., Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Art Pepper, Clark Terry, The Crusaders, Charles Mingus, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Johnny Coles, and Frank Wess.
Equally so is his mid–1980s he move to Europe working with Johnny Griffin, Horace Parlan, Monty Alexander, Kenny Barron, Tom Harrell, Phil Woods, Cedar Walton, Alvin Queen, Jesse Davis, Freddie Redd and Alvin Queen.
As a leader double-bassist Reggie Johnson released one album titled First Edition in 1985 on the JR Record label and he continues to be the consummate sideman performing all over the world.
Discography[edit]
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Toshiko Akiyoshi was born 12 December 1929 in Liaoyang, Manchuria in the Republic of China to Japanese emigrants. Losing their home after WWII her family returned to Japan where a local record collector introduced her to jazz through Teddy Wilson playing Sweet Lorraine. Immediately loving the sound she began to study jazz
In 1952, during a tour of Japan, pianist Oscar Peterson discovered Akiyoshi playing in a club on the Ginza. So impressed he convinced record producer Norman Granz to record her and in 1953 she dropped her debut album with the Peterson rhythm section, bassist Ray Brown and drummer J.C. Heard. The album was released as Toshiko’s Piano in the U.S. and as Amazing Toshiko Akiyoshi in Japan.
Toshiko went on to study at Berklee School of Music under a full scholarship and in 1956 she became the first Japanese student to attend. She married saxophonist Charlie Mariano in ’59, had a daughter, divorced in ’67, married Lew Tabackin in ’69 and moved to Los Angeles, California in ‘72. Tgether they formed the a 16-piece big band comprised of studio musicians. She composed and arranged the music and he was featured soloist on sax and flute, recording their first album Kogun in 1974. With commercial success in Japan the band began receiving critical acclaim.
Moving to New York City in 1982, a new big band was assembled called the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra featuring Lew Tabackin. Though BMG released her big band projects in Japan, to her dismay she could never get distribution in the States and after several decades she disbanded the band after the final concert of a seven year run at Birdland in New York City.
Over the course of a fifty year career since her debut recording for Granz in 1954, pianist, composer and arranger Toshiko Akiyoshi has recorded continuously – almost exclusively as a leader of small jazz combos and of her big bands – averaging one studio album release per year for well over 50 years. She has been honored as an NEA Jazz Master, been named a winner in Down Beat Magazine Critic and Reader Polls for album, big band, arranger and composer, and has been nominated for several Grammy awards among other accolades. She continues to compose, arrange, record and perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lynette Washington was born on December 11th in Brooklyn, New York and as a child listened to jazz, R&B and gospel of which can be heard in her vocal style. She began her early professional singing career performing in Russian nightclubs throughout New York City and Europe.
She has appeared with jazz drummers Buddy Williams and Anton Fig, and with Clifford Jordan, Gerry Neiwood, Alex Blake and Cameron Brown and recorded on the early GRP releases of jazz trumpeter Tom Browne. Lynette has taken her talent into the R&B/Dance world with her group Touche as well as working with Aretha Franklin, U2, Peter Gabriel, Lenny Kravitz. She has also lent her voice to national commercials for Roy Rogers, Mercedes Benz, Boy’s Town, Nescafeand Pizza Hut.
She has four projects under her belt beginning with her1999 debut solo project entitled Long, Long Ago (A Jazz Celebration of Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanzaa, Smoky Dawn, Kaleidoscope and a double CDLIVE! at Harlem’s Kennedy Center.Vocalist Lynette Washington sings in several international languages including Russian, Yiddish, French, Italian, Hebrew and Portuguese as she continues to perform, tour and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Billie Davies was born on December 10, 1955 in Bruges, West Flanders, Belgium. An autodidact and naturally talented she was surrounded by music from birth as her mother played the best in jazz and classical music. From the age of ten she was singing in choirs until her voice changed around the age of 22.
A few years later Davies would embark on learning to play the drums and became a professional jazz musician shortly after declining Max Roach’s invitation to attend Berklee College of Music. Her music is an improvisational conversation between musicians and musical instruments.
Billie has played with Leroy Vinnegar, John Handy, Joe Fuentes, Saul Kaye, Michael Godwin, Lee Elfenbein, Drew Waters, Pierre Swärd, Tom Bone Ralls, Manny Silvera, Oliver Steinberg, Daniel Coffeng, Adam Levy and has appeared all over the world.
Drummer, composer, director, arranger and bandleader Billie Davies has been honored as Jazz Artist of the Year at the Los Angeles Music Awards, drums in rhythms of jazz, cool jazz, Avant jazz and avant-garde and continues to mold it into her own neo-humanistic expressionist jazz.
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Freddy Martin was born Frederick Alfred Martin on December 9, 1906 in Cleveland, Ohio and was raised mostly in an orphanage and by various relatives. He started out playing drums, then switched to C-melody saxophone, finally landing on the tenor saxophone.
Martin led his own band while he was in high school, then played in various local bands. Earning enough money through music to enter Ohio State University, he opted to perform and wound up becoming an accomplished musician. After working on a ship’s band, he joined the Mason-Dixon band, then joined Arnold Johnson and Jack Albin, with whom he made his first recordings in 1930.
Freddy’s career got started when he filled in one night for a date Guy Lombardo couldn’t make. Though the band did well, it broke up and he didn’t put another together until 1931 at the Bossert Hotel in Brooklyn, New York. Here he pioneered the “Tenor Band” style that swept the sweet-music industry and spawned imitators in hotels and ballrooms nationwide.
He would go on to make his debut for Columbia Records in 1932, then record for Brunswick, Bluebird, and Victor Record labels. He would play NBC radio’s Maybelline Penthouse Serenade and have his million copies gold record hit Tonight We Love with Clyde Rogers on vocals. Martin recorded A Lover’s Concerto two decades before The Toys made it popular as a R&B hit, as well as many other classical pieces were arranged for his jazz band.
Nicknamed “Mr. Silvertone” by saxophonist Johnny Hodges, Chu Berry named him his favorite saxophonist, and so did Eddie Miller. He had a good ear for singers and at one time or another employed Merv Griffin, Buddy Clark and Helen Ward. His popularity led him to Las Vegas, Hollywood performing in a handful of movies, while still playing hotels, radio and a tour of one-nighters called The Big Band Cavalcade.
Returning to California he would lead Guy Lombardo’s band when he was hospitalized and led his own band until the early 1980s, although by then, he was semi-retired. Tenor saxophonist and bandleader Freddy Martin passed away at age 76 on September 30, 1983, in a Newport Beach hospital after a lingering illness.
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