Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Shu was born Edward Shulman on March18, 1918 in New York City and learned violin and guitar as a child before picking up the saxophone as a teenager. He began his professional career in 1935 in Brooklyn and for the seven years leading up to his service in the U.S. Army, he performed in vaudeville and night clubs as a ventriloquist and played harmonica with the Cappy Barra harmonica Band.
While serving in the Army from 1942 to 1945 with Stan Harper, the two were assigned to a special unit to entertain the troops. He also played in various bans including with Maurice Evans in the Pacific. After the war and through the 1950s Eddie performed with Tadd Dameron, George Shearing, Johnny Bothwell, Buddy Rich, Les Elgart, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnet, Chubby Jackson, and Gene Krupa.
By the 1960s Shu moved to Florida, playing locally as well as with the Louis Armstrong All-Stars, Lionel Hampton and Gene Krupa once again. He was a member of the vocal jazz group Rare Silk in 1980. During this period, he performed with this group in and around Boulder, Colorado and also performed a 6-week Department of Defense tour. He would record his final date on the Island Jazz Label “Shu-Swings” With The Joe Delaney Trio, playing tenor and alto saxophones, clarinet, trumpet and also revisit’s his 1954 78 single “Ruby” on chromatic harmonica.
Eddie Shu died on July 4, 1986 in St. Petersburg, Florida while living in Tampa. The swing and jazz multi-instrumentalist also had a high proficiency on the accordion and was a popular comedic ventriloquist.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ike Quebec was born Ike Abrams Quebe on August 17, 1918 in Newark, New Jersey and was both an accomplished dancer and pianist. He switched to tenor sax as his primary instrument in his early twenties, and quickly earned a reputation as a promising player. His recording career started in 1940, with the Barons of Rhythm and from 1944 and 1951 he worked intermittently with Cab Calloway.
Over the course of his career Quebec recorded or performed with Frankie Newton, Hot Lips Page, Roy Eldridge, Trummy Young, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter, Sonny Clark, Dodo Green, Jimmy Smith and Coleman Hawkins. He recorded as a leader for Blue Note records in the Forties era, and also served as a talent scout for the label, helping pianists Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell come to wider attention. Due to his exceptional sight-reading skills, he was also an un-credited impromptu arranger for many Blue Note sessions.
His struggles wit drug addiction and the fading popularity of big band music forced Ike to record only sporadically during the 1950s, though he still performed regularly. He kept abreast on new developments in jazz, and his later playing incorporated elements of hard bop, bossa nova and soul jazz. He occasionally recorded on piano, as on his 1961 Blue & Sentimental album, where he alternated between tenor and piano, playing the latter behind Grant Green’s guitar solos.
In 1959 he began what amounted to a comeback with a series of albums on the Blue Note label. Blue Note executive Alfred Lion, though always fond of his music, was unsure how audiences would respond to the saxophonist after a decade of low visibility. So in the mid-to-late 1950s, they issued a series of singles for the juke-box market and audiences ate them up, leading to a number of warmly-received albums. However, his comeback was short-lived when Ike Quebec, the tenor saxophonist with the big breathy sound, passed away from ling cancer on January 16, 1963.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
William John Evans was born August 16, 1929 in Plainfield, New Jersey and grew up in a turbulent household of abuse. While staying with his aunt family somewhere between age 3 and five he soon began to play what he had heard during his brother’s class and soon he would also receiving piano lessons. At age 7, Bill began violin lessons and also flute and piccolo but eventually dropped those instruments, though it is believed they later influenced his keyboard style.
From age 6 to 13 Evans would only play classical music scores of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. During high school he was exposed to Stravinsky and Milhaud but also the jazz of Tommy Dorsey and Harry James. At 13 he stood in for a sick pianist in Buddy Valentino’s rehearsal band where he got his first deviation from the written music, in an arrangement of Tuxedo Junction, leading him to listen to Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins, Bud Powell, George Shearing, Stan Getz and Nat King Cole among others.
Bill was soon playing dances and weddings throughout New Jersey and then formed his own trio, met Don Elliott, and bassist George Platt who taught him the harmonic principles of music. He would go on to study at Southeastern Louisiana University and in 1955 he moved to New York City where he worked with bandleader and theorist George Russell. In 1958, he joined the Miles Davis Sextet, where he was to have a profound influence. In 1959, the band, then immersed in modal jazz recorded Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz album of all time.
In late 1959, Evans left the Miles Davis band and began his career as a leader with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian, a group now regarded as a seminal modern jazz trio. In 1961, ten days after recording the highly acclaimed Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby, LaFaro died in a car accident. After months of seclusion he re-emerged with bassist Chuck Israel. In 1963, Evans recorded his first innovative solo project Conversations with Myself, and in ’66 met bassist Eddie Gomez who he would work with for eleven years.
He would work with Don Elliott, Tony Scott, Mundell Lowe, Jerry Wald, Lucy Reed, George Russell, Dick Garcia, Art Farmer, Barry Galbraith, Milt Hinton, Joe Puma, Charles Mingus, Oliver Nelson, Eddie Costa, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, Sam Jones, Marc Johnson, Tony Bennett, Marty Morell, Joe LaBarbera and the list goes on.
Despite his success as a jazz artist, Bill suffered personal loss and struggled with drug abuse. Both his girlfriend Elaine and his brother Harry committed suicide, and he was a long time user of heroin and later cocaine. As a result, his financial stability, personal relationships and musical creativity all steadily declined during his later years.
On September 15, 1980 pianist, compose and arranger Bill Evans who played in the modal, third stream cool and post-bop genres, passed away at age 51in New York City from complications due to peptic ulcer, cirrhosis, bronchial pneumonia and untreated hepatitis. His recordings for Riverside, Fantasy and Verve record labels left a seminal collection for the avid and casual listener, he was inducted in the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame, was nominated for 31 Grammys, winning seven awards, and was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Stix Hooper was born Nesbert Hooper on August 15, 1938 in Houston, Texas. He developed an interest in music, drums and percussion at a very early age and starting in junior high, under the direction of George Magruder, the school’s band director, he began devoting much of his time to the study of all aspects of music including composition and song writing.
Studying at Phyllis Wheatley High School, spearheaded by band director, Sammy Harris, Stix eventually formed a band called the Swingsters, later on the Modern Jazz Sextet. While matriculating at Texas Southern University he received continual coaching from members of the Houston Symphony Orchestra and other local professional musicians.
A move to the West Coast, he studied music at California State University, Los Angeles and also received coaching from well-known private instructors and his personal mentors. During this time the Jazz Crusaders were formed eventually becoming the Crusaders, a world-renowned entity.
Hooper has performed, collaborated, composed with and produced for a wide range of music greats, including Arthur Fielder, George Shearing, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, B.B. King, Grant Green, Grover Washington, Jr., Quincy Jones, Marvin Gaye, Nancy Wilson, The Rolling Stones and numerous others.
He is credited with creating an original style of drumming called “Jazz Funk” that has been incorporated in jazz as well as other musical genres. In addition, Stix Hooper has contributed through his work with the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences serving as the National Vice Chairman and the first African American to do so, having previously served three terms as President of the Los Angeles Chapter of NARAS, the first ever three term President, and only the second African American President of that chapter.
Among the numerous acknowledgements and accolades he has garnered are 12 Grammy nominations, No. 1 awards from various music media, named one of the top drummers/musicians by Down Beat, Playboy and other publications, and has received an invitation to the White House, keys to major US cities and several international honors. Soul jazz, jazz funk and mainstream drummer Stix Hooper continues to compose, perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ben Hirsh Sidran was born in Chicago, Illinois on August 14, 1943 and raised in Racine, Wisconsin. Attending the University fo Wisconsin he became a member of The Ardells along with Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs. When Miller and Scaggs left Wisconsin for the West Coast and stardom, he stayed behind to earn a degree in English literature. After graduating in 1966, he enrolled in the University of Sussex, England to pursue a PhD degree in American Studies.
Sidran rejoined Miller in an English recording studio the next year, playing on the album Children of the Future and while in England, he was a session musician for Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Peter Frampton and Charlie Watts. When Scaggs and Jim Peterman departedfrom Miller’s band in 1969, he joined as a full-time keyboardist. After a brief stint in Los Angeles, where he began his career as a recording artist, he returned to Madison in 1971 and has kept the university town as a home-base ever since, playing often with such Madison-based talents as drummer Clyde Stubblefield and his keyboardist-composer son, Leo.
Over the years, while continuing to travel, perform and produce, he taught the business of music courses at the University and, beginning in 1981, hosted a variety of jazz programs for NPR, including the Peabody Award Winning “Jazz Alive” series and for VH1 television where his “New Visions” series in the early 1990s won the Ace Award.
As a musician and a producer Ben has released thirty-four solo recordings and collaborated with jazz and pop artists that include Mose Allison, Van Morrison, Diana Ross and Rickie Lee Jones. His written works include the book “Black Talk,” (on the sociology of black music in America), the memoir “A Life in the Music,” “Talking Jazz,” a collection of his historic interviews with jazz musicians.
He authored “There Was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream,” a cultural history of the Jewish contribution to American popular music during the 20th century and a finalist for the 2012 National Jewish Book Award. He has recorded 33 albums for Capitol, Blue Thumb, Arista, Bluebird/RCA, Horizon, Polystar, Island, Go Jazz, Nardis and Bonsai record labels. Pianist, organist, vocalist, writer and educator Ben Sidran continues to expand his legacy or performance and education.
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