Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Stafford James was born April 24, 1946 in Evanston, Illinois. As a young man he enlisted in the Air Force and after his discharge he studied at the University of Chicago. In 1969 he moved to New York City and studied at the Mannes College for Music. Here he met Pharoah Sanders, with whom he played his first jazz concerts in New York. He played with Monty Alexander, Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane and Albert Ayler.

James did the first road tour of the Broadway show Hair through Canada, met Melba Moore in 1971 and played the David Frost Revue with her, and went on to Rashied Ali, Roy Ayers, Al Haig, Barry Harris, Andrew Hill, Andrew Cyrille and Chico Hamilton.

In 1973 Stafford toured Europe for the first time with Gary Bartz, then became a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. At the same time he met Woody Shaw, began a lifelong friendship with Betty Carter and started teaching at the United Nations International School in NYC. He recorded his debut album as a leader in 1975 with Enrico Rava, Dave Burrell and Beaver Harris. A year later he founded a quintet and toured Europe.

He met Dexter Gordon while on tour with Al Cohn and recorded Homecoming with him upon his return to the United States. He continued to tour through the 1980s, arranged compositions by Ellington, and composed sonatas. By the end of the decade and into the next James moved to Paris, collaborated with Pharoah, Barney Wilens and Lavelle, formed the Stafford James Project, played with his trio and continued to compose for large ensembles.

His list of collaborations, recording sessions and tours is extensive and in recent years he has recorded The Stafford James String Ensemble, taught master classes at the university level, had a two-hour program on his life and compositions, founded the Top Hat Music Society, performed with Max Roach’s percussion ensemble M’Boom and continue his tradition of performance, composing, recording and touring around the world.

Put A Dose In Your Pocket

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Kendra Shank was born on April 23, 1958 in Woodland, California and was acting in plays at age 5, picked up the guitar at 13, and at 19 began her music career playing in Parisian subways and sidewalk cafés. After several years on the west coast folk and pop music circuit, a Billie Holiday recording inspired her to pursue jazz.

In 1989 Shank began studying with jazz vocalist Jay Clayton in Seattle, while keeping dual residency in Paris, France where she gigged in jazz clubs. Her jazz career blossomed quickly and in 1991 Bob Dorough hired her as vocalist-guitarist-percussionist for his west coast tour. She soon caught the attention of jazz legend Shirley Horn, who invited Kendra to perform as her guest at the Village Vanguard in New York and co-produced her critically acclaimed debut release Afterglow in 1994 featuring pianist Larry Willis and saxophonist Gary Bartz.

Kendra relocated to New York in 1997 and recorded Wish and Reflections for Jazz Focus Records, the latter debuted The Kendra Shank Quartet, her current working band. She followed these in 2007 with her groundbreaking A Spirit Free: Abbey Lincoln Songbook, and then with Mosaic in which she married her folk and jazz improvising talents.

Shank has been the Downbeat magazine’s top female vocalist for 1999, 2006 and 2007, has been featured on National Public Radio’s JazzSet and Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland, has taught clinics at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, The New School and the Brooklyn/Queens Conservatory of Music in New York City, and the Jazz in Marciac Festival in France.

Vocalist, guitarist and percussionist Kendra Shank continues express her talents through performance recording and touring.

Take A Dose On The Road

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Tommy Turrentine was born Thomas Walter Turrentine, Jr. on April 22, 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is the older brother of saxophonist Stanley Turrentine.

Tommy played in the bands of Benny Carter, Earl Bostic, Charles Mingus, Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie. While his brother had a successful career and recorded a number of albums over his lifetime, Tommy only recorded one album under his name with Julian Priester, Bob Boswell, Max Roach and Horace Parlan before retiring in the 1960s.

However, he recorded a number of sessions as a sideman with Sonny Clark, Booker Ervin, Lou Donaldson, Abbey Lincoln, Dexter Gordon, Jackie McLean, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra and his brother’s bands. In the late 1950s Turrentine began a working relationship with Max Roach that was spawned in part when he joined the Max Roach Quintet following the death of Clifford Brown.

In the 1970s he lived on the ground floor of a brownstone with his wife Jane on West 82nd Street in New York City, a street which during that period had a number of jazz luminaries living along its blocks between Broadway and Central Park, including Tommy Flanagan and Pharoah Sanders.

In the summer of 1979 Turrentine was one of several star trumpeters who appeared at the Village Gate for an all-star tribute to Blue Mitchell. He was also adept on the piano at chord blockings and was a compositional exponent of Thelonious Monk’s earlier chordal voicing. His bebop compositions combined a sophisticated and emotional fusion and poignant lyricism reminiscent of Benny Golson and with the passionate, spirited influence of the Brown/Roach Quintet. Trumpeter Tommy Turrentine passed away on May 13, 1997 in New York City.

Dose A Day – Blues Away

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Mundell Lowe was born April 21, 1922 in Laurel, Mississippi and in the Thirties he played country music and Dixieland jazz. He later played with big bands and orchestras, and on television, and in the 1960s he composed music for films and television in New York City Los Angeles.

Mundell has performed and/or recorded with with a Who’s Who list not limited to Billie Holiday, Bobby Darin, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Bill Evans, Helen Humes, Charles Mingus, Stan Getz, Doc Severinsen, Kai Winding and Sarah Vaughan. He also worked with Carmen McRae, Benny Carter, Herb Ellis, Tal Farlow, Barry Manilow, Andre Previn, Ray Brown, Kiri Te Kanawa, Tete Montoliu, Harry Belfonte and numerous others.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s Lowe was also a well-respected teacher at Dick Grove Music Workshop, later the Grove School of Music, in Studio City, California, teaching guitar as well as film scoring.

Lowe was responsible for introducing the pianist Bill Evans to producer Orrin Keepnews resulting in Evan’s first recordings as a leader. He is a regular featured performer at the annual W.C. Handy Music Festival and a member of the W.C. Handy Jazz All-Stars. He was inducted into the Mississippi Music Hall of Fame, was conferred an honorary Doctorate of Arts from Millsap College and proclaimed Mundell Lowe Day as July 18 by his home town of Laurel. The guitarist continues to teach, perform and record.

Inspire A Young Mind

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Tito Puente was born Ernesto Antonio Puente on April 20, 1923 at Harlem Hospital in New York City and spent the majority of his childhood in Spanish Harlem. As a child his mother sent him to 25-cent piano lessons and by the age of 10, he switched to percussion, drawing influence from jazz drummer Gene Krupa. He later created a song-and-dance duo with his sister Anna in the 1930s, intending to become a dancer, but an ankle tendon injury prevented him pursuing dance as a career. When the drummer in Machito’s band was drafted to the army, Puente subsequently took his place.

After serving three years in the Navy during WW II, Tito used the GI Bill to study music at Juilliard School of Music, taking conducting, orchestration and theory. During the 1950s, Puente was at the height of his popularity, and helped to bring Afro-Cuban and Caribbean sounds, like mambo, son, and cha-cha-cha to mainstream audiences. He moved into more diverse sounds, including pop music, bossa nova and others, eventually settling down with a fusion of Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres that became known as “salsa” (a term that he disliked).

Tito has received the key to the City of New York, the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal from the Smithsonian and been inducted into the National Congressional Record. He has won five Grammy Awards, and won a Grammy at the first Latin Grammy Awards for Best Traditional Tropical Album for Mambo Birdland. He was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 and has his timbales on display at theSmithsonian.

He has had a post office in Spanish Harlem named after him, an amphitheater in San Juan Puerto Rico, performed at the closing ceremonies for the 1996 Olympics, appeared as himself on the Simpsons episode “Who Shot Mr. Burns?”, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,

In early 2000, he shot the music documentary Calle 54. After a show in Puerto Rico, percussionist, timbale player and bandleader Tito Puente suffered a massive heart attack and was flown to New York City for surgery to repair a heart valve but complications developed and he died during the night of May 31 – June 1, 2000.

Put A Dose In Your Pocket

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