Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lisa Sokolov was born on September 24, 1954 in Manhasset, Long Island and raised in nearby Roslyn, New York. She was exposed to jazz as a child through her father, who played stride piano and listened to recordings of jazz artists including Art Tatum, Mabel Mercer and Stan Getz. She began singing from a young age and soon took up piano, which she studied for many years.
1972 saw Sokolov attending Bennington College in Vermont and studying with Milford Graves, Bill Dixon, Jimmy Lyons, voice teacher Frank Baker, and composers Vivian Fine and Louis Calabro. While there she was exposed to Betty Carter and Meredith Monk who have influenced her style. Obtaining a double major in music/back music, she became interested in free jazz as well as avant-garde jazz, both of which she has incorporated into her vocal style.
After graduation Lisa moved to New York City in 1976, spent several months in Paris, France, returned to pursue graduate work in music therapy, met Jeanne Lee and was subsequently introduced to bassist William Parker and a decade long collaboration was begun.
She was part of the Studio Henry scene, a cooperative performance space, alongsideJohn Zorn, Wayne Horvitz, Robin Holcomb, Elliot Sharpe and David Sewelson. The 1990s saw Sokolov recording music and releasing her debut as a leader, angel Rodeo, followed by her second release six years later in 1999 titled Lazy Afternoon. She has since released five more albums.
As an educator Sokolov has worked as a music therapist, has taught in NYU’s graduate music department and is currently a full arts professor at the Experimental Theater Wing at the Tisch School of the Arts, which is part of New York University, and is recognized in the music therapy world as a pioneer and innovator in the applications of the voice to human potential.
She has worked with Cecil Taylor, William Parker, Robin Holcomb, Rahn Burton, Rashid Ali, Bada Roy, Jeanne Lee, Jimmy Lyons, Wayne Hovitz, Hilton Ruiz, Irene Schweizer, Butch Morris, Blue Gene Tyranny, Jim Mc Neely, Gerry Hemingway and Cameron Brown to name a few. A courageous and adventurous vocalist, Lisa Sokolov continued to sing, compose and perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jeremy Steig was born September 23, 1942 in New York City in Greenwich Village. He studied flute in his childhood but at nineteen a motorcycle accident left him paralyzed on side and for some years afterward, he played the flute with the help of a special mouthpiece.
Starting in mainstream jazz Jeremy recorded with Bill Evans and Denny Zeitlin and then became an early force in the jazz-rock fusion experiments of the late Sixties and early 70s. He record Energy with Warren Bernhardt, Eddie Gomez and Adrian Guiliary, with a reissue of additional material featuring Jan Hammer and Gomez.
He has played flute on Peter Walker’s Rainy Day Raga, has been sampled by the Beastie Boys, performed the role of The Pied Piper in the film Shrek Forever After. He has recorded 29 albums as a leader and has performed and/or recorded with Walter Bishop Jr., Tommy Bolin, Hank Crawford, Art, Farmer, Urbie Green, Idris Muhammad, Lalo Schifrin, Johnny Winter and Paul Winter.
Flautist Jeremy Steig, who plays the entire battery of the flute family of instruments from piccolo to bass flute continues to perform, record, compose and tour.
Inspire A Young Mind
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ray Wetzel was born on September 22, 1924 and played lead trumpet for Woody Herman from 1943 to 1945 and then with Stan Kenton from 1945 to 1948. In 1947 he recorded with the Metronome All-Stars, Vido Musso and Neal Hefti. The same year he married bass player Bonnie Addleman in 1949.
While with the Charlie Barnet Orchestra he played trumpet alongside Maynard Ferguson, Doc Severinsen and Rolf Ericson. He played with his wife in Tommy Dorsey’s ensemble in 1950 and with Kenton again in 1951. While touring with Dorsey on August 17,1951, he was killed in a car crash at the age of 27.
Ray Wetzel, the greatly admired by his fellow trumpeters, never got the opportunity to record as a leader. He is credited with composing the Stan Kenton tune ‘Intermission Riff’.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Henry Butler was born September 21, 1949 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Blinded by glaucoma in infancy and his musical training began at the Louisiana State School for the Blind, where he learned to play valve trombone, baritone horn and drums before focusing his talents on singing and piano,
Butler was mentored at Southern University in Baton Rouge by clarinetist and educator Alvin Batiste. He later earned a master’s degree in music at Michigan State University in 1974, receiving the MSU Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009.
Due to the devastation of his home and his vintage 1925 Mason & Hamlin piano by Hurricane Katrina, Henry moved to first Boulder then Denver, Colorado but by 2009 he relocated to New York City. He has pursued photography as a hobby since 1984,and his methods and photos are featured in a 2010 HBO2 documentary, Dark Light: The Art of Blind Photographers, that aired. His photographs also have been shown in galleries in New Orleans.
Pianist Henry Butler has recorded and released nine albums as a leader for Impulse, Windham Hill and Basin Street Records and as a sideman with James Carter and Corey Harris. He joins the lineage of Crescent City pianists like Professor Longhair, James Booker, Tuts Washington and Jelly Roll Morton. He continues to perform and record in a variety of styles of music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jackie Paris was born Carlo Jackie Paris on September 20, 1924 in Nutley, New Jersey. His uncle Chick had been a guitarist with Paul Whiteman’s orchestra. A very popular child entertainer in vaudeville, the pint-sized song and dance man shared the stage with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and the Mills Brothers.
After serving in the Army during World War II, Paris was inspired by his friend Nat King Cole to put together a trio featuring himself on guitar and vocals. The Jackie Paris Trio was a hit at the Onyx Club, playing for an unprecedented 26 weeks, perhaps the longest-running residency in the history of Swing Street.
The first song that Jackie’s trio recorded was Hoagy Carmichael’s Skylark for MGM Records in 1947. In 1949, he was the first white vocalist to tour with the Lionel Hampton for a 78 one-night tour. Coming off the road, he received an offer to join the Duke Ellington Orchestra, but at that time was too exhausted to take it.
Paris was the first singer to record Thelonious Monk’s future jazz anthem Round Midnight, which was produced by Leonard Feather and featured a young Dick Hyman on piano with drummer Roy Haynes and bassist Tommy Potter. He was the only vocalist to ever tour as a regular member of the Charlie Parker Quintet but unfortunately no recordings exist of the Parker-Paris combo.
In 1953, Jackie was named Best New Male Vocalist of the Year in the first ever Down Beat Critics Poll. Ella Fitzgerald won the female category and repeatedly named Paris as one of her favorites as well as Charles Mingus, who enlisted the talented vocalist on several projects and club dates over many decades. He shared the bill with comic Lenny Bruce and recorded with Hank Jones, Charlie Shavers, Joe Wilder, Wynton Kelly, Eddie Costa, Coleman Hawkins, Bobby Scott, Max Roach, Lee Konitz, Donald Byrd, Gigi Gryce, Ralph Burns, Tony Scott, Neal Hefti, Terry Gibbs, Johnny Mandel and Oscar Pettiford and the list continues.
He recorded consistently through the years, from the 1940s and in 2001, he played to a standing room crow and to a standing ovation at Birdland. He was virtually the only performer to have appeared at every incarnation of the famed nightspot, from the 1950s to the present. Jackie Paris passed away on June 17, 2004 in New York City.
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