Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Lang was born Salvatore Massaro on October 25, 1902 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He first took violin lessons for 11 years and while in school he became friends with Joe Venuti, with whom he would work for much of his career. By the time he was 16 he was playing violin, banjo and guitar professionally. He worked with various bands in the Northeast United States, worked in London between late 1924 to early 1925, and then settled in New York City.
By 1927 Lang was being featured along with cornetist Bix Beiderbecke on the recording of Singin’ the Blues by Frankie Trumbauer and His Orchestra. Between the two trading licks and soloing this session became a landmark jazz recording of the decade. 1929 saw him joining Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra and performing in the movie King of Jazz. The following year he played guitar on the original recording of the jazz and pop standard Georgia On My Mind recording with Hoagy Carmichael and His Orchestra with Joe Venuti and Bix Beiderbecke.
Eddie would leave Whiteman’s band with Bing Crosby and as his accompanist was back in the movies with Big Broadcast. Switching gears to play blues he recorded under the pseudonym Blind Willie Dunn on a number of blues records with Lonnie Johnson. Over the course of his short career he composed some three-dozen songs and recorded with the bands of Joe Venuti, Frank Signorelli, Adrian Rollini, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Jean Goldkette, in addition to doing a large amount of freelance radio and recording work.
Guitarist Eddie Lang, who was one of the three major innovators of jazz guitar and who influenced future guitarists, such as Django Reinhardt, passed away following a tonsillectomy in New York City on March 26, 1933 at the age of thirty. He had been urged by Crosby to have the tonsillectomy so that he might have speaking parts in Crosby’s films. His voice was chronically hoarse, and it was hoped that the operation would remedy this.
His recording of Singin’ The Blues with Frankie Trumbauer and His Orchestra was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and has been placed on the U.S. Library of Congress National Recording Registry. He has been inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame, is one of the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame inductees.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rick Margitza was born in Dearborn, Michigan on October 24, 1961. His paternal grandfather, a Hungarian Gypsy violinist taught him to play the violin at the age of four. Following this he played piano and oboe, and settled on tenor saxophone while at Fordson High School.
After attending several colleges, Wayne State University, Berklee College of Music, University of Miamiand Loyola University in New Orleans, Rick toured with Maynard Ferguson and Flora Purim in the 1980s. A move to New York City presented him the opportunity to playwith Miles Davis.
Between 1989 and 1991, Margitza released three sessions for Blue Note Records, his debut being Color followed by Hope and This Is New. He has recorded copiously for EMI, Challenge, Steeplechase, Palmetto, snd Nocturne Jazz record labels as well as a sideman with Eddie Gomez, Tony Williams, Bobby Hutcherson, Maria Schneider, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Stanley Cowell, Steve Masakowski, Andy Laverne, .
In 2003 Rick Margitza moved to Paris and has performed with Martial Solal, Francois Moutin, ri Hoenig, Franck Amsallem, Jean-Michel Pilc and Manuel Rocheman. He composed a saxophone concerto and two symphonies for orchestra and the tenor saxophonist continues to perform, compose and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gary McFarland was born in Los Angeles, California on October 23, 1933. An influential composer, arranger, vibraphonist and vocalist, he made a name for himself on Verve and Impulse Records during the Sixties, making one of the more significant contributors to orchestral jazz. He attained a small following after working with Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Johnny Hodges, John Lewis, Stan Getz, Bob Brookmeyer and Anita O’Day.
His debut as a leader came in 1961 with the Jazz Version of How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. Gary recorded for Skye, Buddah and Cobblestone Records through the 1960s into the early Seventies. As well as eighteen of his own albums as a leader and arrangements for other musicians such as Lena Horne, Steve Kuhn, Gabor Szabo, John Lewis, Shirley Scott, Zoot Sims and Gary Burton, he composed the scores to the films Eye of the Devil in 1968 and Who Killed Mary What’s ‘Er Name in 1971.
By the end of the 1960s McFarland was moving away from jazz towards an often wistful or melancholy style of instrumental pop, as well as producing the recordings of other artists on his Skye Records label, run in partnership with Szabo and Cal Tjader until its bankruptcy in 1970.
Gary McFarland and Louis Savary wrote the classic song Sack Full Of Dreams that was first released by Grady Tate in 1968. He was considering a move into writing and arranging for film and stage when on November 3, 1971 he was poisoned with methadone in a New York City bar at the tender age of 38. In tribute Bill Evans performed Gary’s Waltz in 1979, shortly before his own death.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Urszula Bogumiła Dudziak was born October 22, 1943 in the Straconka neighborhood of Bielsko-Biata, Poland. She studied piano but began to sing in the late 50s after hearing records by Ella Fitzgerald. Within a few years she was one of the most popular jazz artists in her native country.
With her marriage to Michael Urbaniak in the late 60s they began to tour overseas and in the 70s settled in New York. Dudziak has some problems with language and customarily eschews words in favor of wordless vocalizing that is far more adventurous than scat. Already gifted with a remarkable five-octave vocal range, she employs electronic devices to extend still further the possibilities of her voice.
She has frequently worked with leading contemporary musicians, including Archie Shepp, Lester Bowie, Jay Clayton, Jeanne Lee, Bobby McFerrin, Norma Winstone, Sting, Michelle Hendricks, Michael Urbaniak, Krzysztof KomedaLaura Newton, Gil Evans and collaborated with fellow Polish jazz vocalist Grazyna Auguscik.
Vocalist Urszula Dudziak has been awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by President Leon Kaczynski, published her autobiography Wyspiewam Wam Wszystko, translated means I’ll Sing Everything For You and she has recorded twenty-two albums and appeared in thirteen films. She continues to perform and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dizzy Gillespie was born John Birks Gillespie on October 21, 1917 in Cheraw, South Carolina, the youngest of nine children of James and Lottie Gillespie. His father, a local bandleader, made instruments available to the children. He started playing the piano at the age of four and taught himself how to play the trombone as well as the trumpet by the age of twelve. From the night he heard his idol, Roy Eldridge, play on the radio, he dreamed of becoming a jazz musician. Receiving a music scholarship to the Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina, he attended for two years before accompanying his family when they moved to Philadelphia.
Gillespie’s first professional job was with the Frank Fairfax Orchestra in 1935, after which he joined the respective orchestras of Edgar Hayes and Teddy Hill, essentially replacing Roy Eldridge as first trumpet in 1937 and making his first recording as part of the band on King Porter Stomp. He would move on to play with Cab Calloway, alongside Cozy Cole, Milt Hinton and Jonah Jones until an altercation with Calloway got him fired. During his period he started writing big band music for bandleaders like Woody Herman and Jimmy Dorsey while freelancing with a few bands – most notably Ella Fitzgerald’s orchestra, comprised of members of the late Chick Webb’s band, in 1942. Avoiding service in World War II, he joined the Earl Hines band followed by a stint with Billy Eckstine’s big band, got reunited with Charlie Parker and finally left to play with a small combo of quintet size.
A forerunner of the evolution of bebop along with Parker, Monk, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, and Oscar Pettiford, Dizzy helped shape a new vocabulary of musical phrases. They jammed at Minton’s Playhouse and Monroe’s Uptown House with compositions like Groovin’ High, Woody ‘n’ You, Salt Peanuts and A Night In Tunisia that also introduced Afro-Cuban rhythms.
As an educator Gillespie taught or influenced many of the young musicians on 52nd Street including Miles Davis, Max Roach, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan, Chuck Mangione and even balladeer Johnny Hartman about the new style of jazz, but after ambivalent or hostile reception in Billy Berg’s Los Angeles club, he decided to lead his own big band, though unsuccessful at his first attempt in 1945. He went on to work with Milt Jackson, John Coltrane, Lalo Schifrin, Ray Brown, Kenny Clarke, James Moody, J.J. Johnson and Yusef Lateef, whole appearing as a soloist for Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic.
In 1948 Dizzy lost his ability to hit the B-flat above high C due to an automobile hitting the bicycle he was riding. He won the case, but the jury awarded him only $1000, in view of his high earnings up to that point. Not to be sidelined, he went on tour for the State Department earning himself the title Ambassador of Jazz. His new big band would tour the U.S. and record a live album at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival and featured pianist Mary Lou Williams.
Dizzy immersed himself in the Afro-Cuban movement and hired Chano Pozo and Mario Bauza to play in his bands on 52nd Street, the Palladium and the Apollo Theater. He co-wrote with Pozo the songs Manteca and Tin Tin Deo, commissioned George Russell’s Cubano Be, Cubano Bop, and discovered Arturo Sandoval while on a music researching trip to Cuba.
As his tone gradually faded in the last years in life his performances often focused more on his protégés, such as, Arturo Sandoval and Jon Faddis, all the while keeping his good-humored comedic routines a part of his live act. Dizzy would go on to give 300 performances in 27 countries, appeared in 100 U.S. cities in 31 states and the District of Columbia, headline three television specials, performed with two symphonies, and recorded four albums.
Gillespie put himself on the ballot as a write-in candidate of the 1964 Presidential election, published his autobiography, To Be or Not To Bop, was a vocal fixture in many of the John & Faith Hubley’s animated films, such as The Hole, The Hat and Voyage to Next. He led the United Nation Orchestra, toured with Flora Purim and David Sanchez in his band, received Grammy nominations, guested on The Muppet Show, Sesame Street and The Cosby Show and had a cameo on Stevie Wonder’s hit Do I Do and Quincy Jones’ Back On The Block.
Inducted into the Down Beat Magazine’s Jazz Hall of Fame, Dizzy was also honored by being crowned a traditional chief in Nigeria, received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France, and was named Regent Professor by the university of California, received fourteen honorary doctorates, received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the Polar Music Prize, a Hollywood Walk of Fame Star, the Kennedy Center Honors Award, and the Ameican Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Duke Ellington Award for 50 years of achievement. Composer, performer, bandleader and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie passed away of pancreatic cancer on January 6, 1993 in Englewood, New Jersey at the age of 75. In 2014, Gillespie was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
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