Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kendrick Scott was born July 8, 1980 in Houston. His initial encounter with the drums was in church, where his family was involved in the music ministry. Attending Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, garnering several awards, most notably the IAJE Clifford Brown/Stan Getz Fellowship.
Upon graduation from high school in 1998, Kendrick matriculated through Berklee College of Music under scholarship. Since graduating in 2002,Scott has performed with the Jazz Crusaders, Pat Metheny, Joe Lovano, Kenny Garrett, Dianne Reeves, Lizz Wright and Terence Blanchard among others. He also was a member of the Berklee-Monterey Quartet from 1999 to 2007.
Scott’s debut recording with his group Oracle recorded The Source in 2006, including pianists Aaron Parks and Robert Glasper, guitarist Lionel Loueke, vocalist Gretchen Parlato and others. He also performed with the Terence Blanchard Quintet on the twice Grammy nominated album A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina) in 2007, celebrated the Monterey Jazz Festival’s 50th anniversary and embarked on a 22-state tour with the 50th Anniversary MJF All-Star Band features the leaders of the past, present and future with Blanchard, James Moody, Benny Green, Derrick Hodge and Nnenna Freelon. In 2010 he released his sophomore leader project “Reverence” and in 2013 “Conviction”. He continues to perform, record and tour.
Put A Dose In Your Pocket
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Henry (Hank) Mobley was born on July 7, 1930 in Eastman, Georgia but was raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Early in his career, he worked with Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach, and then took part in one of the landmark hard bop sessions, alongside Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Doug Watkins and Kenny Dorham, resulting in the release of Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers and the Jazz Messengers. When they split in ’56, Hank and Silver continued their collaboration in the 50s.
During the 1960s, he worked chiefly as a leader, recording over 20 albums for Blue Note Records between 1955 and 1970 and playing many of the most important hard bop players such as Grant Green, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Clark, Wynton Kelly and Philly Joe Jones, along with a particularly productive partnership with Lee Morgan. He spent a brief time with Miles Davis in 1961 replacing John Coltrane.
Hank was a major voice on tenor saxophone, known for his melodic playing, is widely recognized as one of the great composers of originals in the hard-bop era, with interesting chord changes and room for soloists to stretch out.
He was forced to retire in the mid-1970s due to lung problems and although he worked two engagements at the Angry Squire in New York City in ‘85 and ‘86 in a quartet with Duke Jordan. He recorded as a leader for Blue Note, Prestige and Savoy record labels leaving history thirty-two albums and another fifty-six sitting in the sideman seat.
A few months later tenor saxophonist and composer Hank Mobley, who soared in the hard bop and soul jazz genres with his laid-back, subtle and melodic delivery, passed away from pneumonia on May 30, 1986.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Louie Bellson was born Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni on July 6, 1924 in Rock Falls, Illinois. He started playing drums at three years of age and at 15 pioneered the double-bass drum set-up. By 17 he triumphed over 40,000 drummers to win the Slingerland National Gene Krupa contest and graduated from high school in 1939.
1943 saw Bellson performing with Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee in the film “The Powers Girl” followed two more by the decade’s end. Between 1943 and 1952, he performed with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James and Duke Ellington, for whom he composed “Skin Deep” and “The Hawk Talks”. In 1952 he married Pearl Bailey, leaving Ellington to be her musical director, a union that lasted 38 years until her death in 1990.
Through the 1950s and 1960s, Louie performed with Jazz At The Philharmonic or J.A.T.P., Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie, again with Duke Ellington and Harry James, as well as appearing on several Ella Fitzgerald studio albums.
Equally adept as a big band or small group drummer, Bellson recorded extensively and led his own big and small bands, occasionally maintaining separate bands on each coast. His sidemen have included Blue Mitchell, Don Menza, Larry Novak, John Heard, Clark Terry, Pete and Conte Candoli and Snooky Young.
Louie Bellson, composer, arranger, bandleader and jazz educator passed away from Parkinson’ s disease on February 14, 2009.
Take A Dose On The Road
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eric Watson was born July 5, 1955 in Wellesley, Massachusetts. After graduating from Oberlin Conservatory he moved to Paris and by 1982 he recorded his first trio album with Paul Motian and Ed Schuller followed by two solo albums.
He worked in a long-time duo with double-bass player John Lindberg that became extended with Albert Mangelsdorff and Ed Thigpen. He has played and recorded with Steve Lacy, Linda Sharrock and Joelle Leandrein1991. His trio with Mark Dressler and Ed Thigpen recorded “Silent Hearts” in 1998 that became the basis for the “Full Metal Quartets” a year later with saxophonist Bennie Wallace.
Eric’s current small catalogue of seven recordings includes a solo piano project “Sketches of Solitude” in 2002 that became one of the best-selling jazz albums in France. Between 2003 and 2005 he toured Europe, Asia, and Australia with tenor saxophonist Christof Lauer.
His dance score The Peking Ballet was commissioned by Radio City Music Hall to a record summer attendance of 200,000. Watson has presented commissioned works at the Lyon Opera, the State Theatre in Poitiers, he has written for Martial Solal and the Orchestra National de Jazz and for Australian violinist Jane Peters.
In 2001, Eric Watson was appointed artistic director of La Villette Jazz Festival, is musical consultant to the director of the Cité de la Musique, and in 2003 he was appointed as a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Butch Miles was born Charles J. Thorton, Jr. on July 4, 1944 in Ironton, Ohio. He began playing snare drum at the age of 9 and went on to major in music at West Virginia State University from 1962–1966. After his matriculation he toured with the Iris Bell Trio.
Miles joined the Count Basie Orchestra in 1975 and the association lasted for four years and then returned for ten years from 1997–2007. He led his own group, Jazz Express, in the 1980s and ’90s.
Besides performing with the Count Basie Orchestra, Butch has played with Dave Brubeck, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., and Frank Sinatra among others as well as hitting the stage of the Newport and Montreux Jazz Festivals.
HE cites Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa and Jo Jones as favorite drummers and is currently a professor in the School of Music at Texas State University-San Marcos.
Inspire A Young Mind
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