Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Coco Rouzier was born on April 14, 1966 in Washington, DC and began singing as a child by imitating the sounds that came from her mother. She sang in the Concert Choir at Kelly Miller Jr. High School taught her harmony. While working summers in musical theater she learned acting and subsequent immersion into cabaret taught her to and learned to connect intimately with the audience.

While at Howard University, Rouzier won the amateur singing contest and that led her straight to the Apollo Theater in New York City where she performed on “It’s Showtime at the Apollo”. New York City become her home, where she discovered jazz and started to swing with The Jerry Kravat NY Orchestra, now called Tribeca Rhythm.

Coco’s performances have garnered her the labels of a Jazz Diva in France, the Soulful Swinging Songstress in America, and The Jewel in China. She has performed in Norway on some of stages her heroes stood decades before. As yet she has not led her own recording session to showcase her own style she has developed and for the past 15 years. Vocalist Coco Rouzier continues to perform for audiences around the world with a blend of straight-ahead swing, blues and old-school soul.

Dose A Day – Blues Away

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Rusty Jones was born Isham Russell Jones II on April 13, 1942 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and began playing drums at the age of thirteen and continued on throughout his college years choosing traditional and modern jazz as his preferred mode of music.

He went “on the road” after graduating college in 1965 from the University of Iowa with a degree in history and political science, to “get it out of his system”, but he never stopped his pursuit of a musical vocation. He moved to the Chicago area in 1967.

Jones appeared with Chicago musician Judy Roberts from 1968 to 1972, soon after becoming a member of George Shearing, then accompanied pianist Marian McPartland, then free-lanced throughout Chicago with several bands, touring the United States and Europe. He has worked with Patricia Barber, Adam Makowitz, Larry Novak, Ike Cole, Clifford Jordan, Danny Long, Johnny Gabor, Frank D’Rone, Art Hodes, Buddy DeFranco, Mark Murphy, Eddie Higgins, Red Holloway, Anita O’Day Stephane Grappelli, Ira Sullivan and J. R. Monterose, and the list goes on.

Between 1958 and 2004 this consummate sideman has been a part of nearly four-dozen recording sessions, all while performing and touring the U.S. and the world. Drummer Rusty Jones currently, appears quite regularly around the Chicago area with the Johnny Gabor Trio featuring vocalist Connie Marshall.

Dose A Day – Blues Away

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ryan Kisor was born April 12, 1973 in Sioux City, Iowa and learned trumpet from his father. He started playing in a local dance band, the Eddie Skeets Orchestra, at age ten. By 12 he was taking classical trumpet lessons, met Clark Terry when he was 15 while attending his summer jazz camp, and played with all-star high school bands. In 1990, he won the Thelonious Monk Institute’s trumpet contest at the age of 17, performing against Nicholas Payton and Marcus Printup.

Following this he was signed by Columbia Records and released his first two albums, 1992’s Minor Mutiny and 1993’s On the One. Following this, Kisor entered the Manhattan School of Music and studied under Lew Soloff among others.

He has played in New York with the Mingus Big Band, Michel Camilo Big Band, with Gerry Mulligan, Wynton Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Horace Silver and Walter Blanding. Since 1994 he has been a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, has released fifteen albums as a bandleader and continues to perform and record.

Inspire A Young Mind

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Greg Ruggiero was born on April 11, 1977 in Albuquerque, New Mexico and and studied the guitar as a youth. Then at the age of twenty-seven he decided to make his jazz mark in the clubs of New York City and moved to Brooklyn in 2004. It was just three years later that he released his debut record as a leader “Balance” on the jazz label Fresh Sound New Talent.

As a sideman he has recorded with Luisa Sobral, Mark Turner, Nasheet Waits, Greg Osby, Matt Brewer, Logan Richardson, Nick Halley and Gavin Fallow and has several projects that are still in production. Greg has the honor of featured artist at the Canjazz Festival in Galicia, Spain; taught workshops, recorded two records, and performed in concert.

As an educator he sits on the New School University Applied Music faculty, has taught at the Academy of Creative Education in Los Angeles, California, and has been a guest artist and clinician at the Crossties Jazz Festival hosted by Delta State University in Greenville, Mississippi along with Mulgrew Miller.

Ruggiero was a part of the Jazz of Enchantment radio program and educational series as one of the top 20 Jazz artists associated with his home state of New Mexico, along with Frank Morgan, Bobby Shew, Rob Wilkerson and Matt Brewer. Greg has performed with Matt Brewer, Logan Richardson, and many others.

Of late, Greg has renewed his passion for the jazz standard repertoire leading his trio or quartet. Taking license from the classic vocal performances of Billy Holiday, Nat Cole, Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald to name a few, his passion has led the guitarist to release his sophomore project “My Little One”, a collection of original music set to lyrics.

Put A Dose In Your Pocket

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Denny Zeitlin was born on April 10, 1938 in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in the suburb of Highland Park. He began improvising on the piano at age two and was composing before elementary school. His father played piano by ear, his mother was his first piano teacher. He began formal study in Western classical music at age six, switching to jazz in the eighth grade. By the time he was in high school, he was playing professionally in and around Chicago.

While in college at the University of Illinois and Urbana-Champaign he was playing with Ira Sullivan, Johnny Griffin, Wes Montgomery, Joe Farrell, Wilbur Ware and Bob Cranshaw. Denny’s mentors included Billy Taylor and George Russell, while Bil Evans supported him by recording his composition “Quiet Now” and giving title to his 1970 album.

Zeitlin began his recording career when signing with Columbia Records in 1963 while studying medicine at John Hopkins University. His debut as a feature pianist was on the Jeremy Steig album Flute Fever along with Ben Riley and Ben Tucker. After moving to San Francisco in 1964 he recorded four albums as a leader for the label. He stood out from the crowd for the unbridled creativity of his work, the richness of his harmonic palette, and the sheer beauty of his piano tone.

Between 1968 and 1978, Denny ventured into electronic keyboards, synthesizers and sound altering devices, integrated them into his music and resulted in the release of Jazzy Spies in 1969 on the first season of Sesame Street. It featured the voice of Grace Slick. He would go on to be awarded Down Beat’s highest award for his Expansion album, score the music for the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and by the end of the decade returned focus to acoustic music.

Since 1968, Zeitlin has been on the teaching faculty at the University of California, San Francisco as a clinical professor of psychiatry, has a private practice, and is the founder of Control-Mastery Theory. He does all this while pursuing his passion for jazz, touring internationally and recording more than thirty-five albums to date tha include upwards of 100 original compositions. He is a first-place winner of the Down Beat International Jazz Critics Poll in 1965 and 1974.

Take A Dose On The Road

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