Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Pisano was born February 6, 1931 in Staten Island, New York. He began his musical career on the East Coast playing the piano. At age 14 he took up the guitar. In the 1950’s, he entered the service, played guitar with the Air Force Band, then after discharge he followed Howard Roberts and Jim Hall into the guitar chair in the Chico Hamilton quintet. His first significant recordings were made with Hamilton with the quintet in ’57 and South Pacific in 1958.
Pisano’s work with Hamilton and Katz established him as a significant guitarist and arranger and an integral component of the Los Angeles jazz scene. He published some of his own compositions while with the Herb Alpert band. He composed So, What’s New that appeared as the B-side of Herb Alpert’s hit single Flamingo in 1966.
Though he has been a leader in his own right, for most of his career John has resided in his comfort zone as a sideman working with Paul Horn, Fred Katz, Burt Bacharach, Tony Bennett, Herb Alpert, Natalie Cole, Michael Franks, Diana Krall, Peggy Lee, Julie London, Joe Pass, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Billy Bean and many more in performance or recordings. He has recorded for Decca,
Starting in the ’90s, John performed with his wife singer Jeanne Pisano in a group called The Flying Pisanos. Today John Pisano continues to influence the jazz guitar community and further the value of jazz guitar with his fabled Guitar Nights and his duet recordings Among Friends, Conversation Pieces, Affinity with Ray Walker, and Homage with Adrian Ingram.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rick Laird was born Richard Quentin Laird on February 5, 1941 in Dublin, Ireland. He played music from a young age and enrolled for guitar and piano lessons. He started playing jazz after moving to New Zealand at the age of 16 with his father. He played guitar in jam bands in New Zealand before buying an upright bass. After extensive touring in New Zealand he moved to Sydney, Australia, where he played with many top jazz musicians.
He moved to England in 1962 and became house bassist at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London, where he had the opportunity to play with Wes Montgomery and Sonny Stitt among others. In 1963 Laird attended London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 1965 He performed with Victor Feldman and recorded on the Sonny Rollins album ”Alfie” and then went on to play in The Brian Auger Trinity and The Brian Auger Group.
Heading to the States, Rick enrolled in Berklee College of Music in Boston where he studied arranging, composition and string bass. He then teamed up with ex-pat John McLaughlin and The Mahavishnu Orchestra as a founding member to play electric bass until 1973, when the band broke up. Moving to New York he joined Stan Getz’s tour in 1977 followed by Chick Corea the next year.
He put out one album as a leader, Soft Focus. Today, he is a successful photographer as well as a private bass tutor and an author of a number of intermediate to advanced level bass books. Richard Laird, as he is known in the art world, in March 2009 came across a collection of photographs in a file cabinet that he had taken in years past. The legendary jazz artists like Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Elvin Jones, and Keith Jarrett are now a part of an online archive.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Craig Bailey was born on February 3, 1960 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His interest in music began at age 8, learning to play the recorder with a small group of classmates. Following that, he became a part of the All City Boys Choir. He enrolled in the beginning band program in junior high and took up the clarinet, saxophone and flute, perfecting his skills in playing all three instruments in high school and college.
Bailey earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Miami and headed to New York in 1985. He worked with drummer Charlie Persip’s Superband. He went on to join the world-renowned group of Panama Francis and his Savoy Sultans, learning traditional swing music and traveling to Europe for the first time.
Two years later Craig landed an audition with Ray Charles and became his lead alto saxophonist from 1988-2004. During this period he collaborated the Tana Reid Quintet, Bobby Watson’s Tailor Made Big Band, Nancy Banks Orchestra and the Tom Harrell Big Band among others. He developed his small group writing and playing style, leading him to his own arranging and composing.
Bailey dropped his debut album, A New Journey in 1995 to critical acclaim and is referenced in The Encyclopedia of Jazz. His sophomore release, Brooklyn, received favorable review. He is one of the most consistently inventive and potentially significant reed players of his generation. In between his performing duties Craig Bailey currently holds the position of Assistant Professor of Music in Jazz Saxophone at the University of Cincinnati.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jonny King was born Jonathan Z. King on February 2, 1965 in New York City, New York. Raised in New York City, he graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law School. A jazz pianist primarily self-taught, he has neither received any formal music education nor attended any jazz schools. His school of music was life – obsessively listening to records, going to jam sessions and soaking up as much live and recorded music as possible from traditional to avant-garde.
He credits pianist Mulgrew Miller and Tony Aless as his important influences, mentors and personal teachers. As well as recording under his own name, he has performed with, among others Roy Hargrove, Kenny Garrett, Bobby Watson, Christian McBride, Joe Lovano, Ira Coleman, Billy Drummond, Mark Turner, Vincent Herring, Steve Nelson, Peter Washington, Joshua Redman, Steve Davis, David Sanchez, Milton Cardona and Larry Grenadier.
He has released three albums in the 90s on the Criss Cross and Enja labels – In From the Cold, Notes From The Underground and Meltdown. In between his duties as an attorney at a copyright practice, he continues to approach music the way he learned, both as a performer and composer.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sadao Watanabe was born on February 1, 1933 in Utsunomiya, Japan and first began learning music at the age of 18. He started performing professionally in 1953. By 1958 he had established himself as a world-class saxophonist having performed with leading musicians and quartets. In 1962 he left Japan to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Known for his bossa nova recordings, Sadao’s work encompasses a large range of styles with collaborations from musicians all over the world. Of his 72 albums to date, he has had 13 albums reach the top 50 Billboard charts and two within the Top 10. He has also had numerous albums reach number one on the jazz charts.
Watanabe has been awarded the Order of the Rising Sun – the imperial medal of honor, the Fumio Nanri Award, and an honorary Doctorate Degree from Berklee College of Music.
In addition to his musical career, alto and soprano saxophonist and flutist Sadao Watanabe is also a published photographer with six books to his credit in Japan. He is also a U.S. citizen sharing his time between his homeland and Los Angeles, California as he continues to perform, record and tour.
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