Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mark Elf was born in Queens, New York on December 13, 1949 and started playing guitar at the age of 11. He attended Berklee College of Music from 1969-71 when his first professional jazz gig came as a sideman with Gloria Coleman and Etta Jones at the Club Barron in Harlem, New York that was double billed with the George Benson Quintet.
During the 1970’s he toured with Lou Donaldson, Jimmy McGriff, Richard “Groove” Holmes and Charles Earland and recorded a number of albums with them, his first with McGriff and Holmes in 1973 on the Giants of the Organ Come Together. In the late 1970’s Mark worked and recorded with Junior Cook and Bill Hardman. By the 80’s he was touring Europe with Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry and other jazz luminaries. In 1986 he recorded his first album as a called the Mark Elf Trio Volume 1.
He continued to record as a leader over the next two decades with Hank Jones, Jimmy Heath, Ray Drummond and Ben Riley, Jon Hendricks, Wynton Marsalis, Benny Golson, Al Grey and Red Holloway. He also inked his first overseas record deal. In 1995 Mark established Jen Bay Records and stunned the record industry with hit recordings. From 1996 to 2004 all 10 of his recordings had finished in the top ten on national jazz radio with eight of them going to #1 consecutively from 1997 to 2004.
From 1970 to the present, guitarist, clinician and educator Mark Elf has taught guitar and theory at independent studios, colleges and universities across the United States and abroad, and his clinics are recognized as some of the finest in the world. He is sought after for his lectures on “How To Succeed As An Indie”. He owns his own successful record label and publishing company. He continues touring with his trio at festivals, colleges and clubs.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Williams was born Joseph Goreed on December 12, 1918 in Cordele, Georgia but was raised in Chicago from the age of four by his mother, grandmother and aunt. As a child he was greatly influenced by the rebellious sound of jazz from Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Big Joe Turner and many others of the 1920’s he would hear on the radio. By his early teens, he had already taught himself to play piano and had formed his own gospel vocal quartet, known as “The Jubilee Boys”, that sang at church functions.
During his mid-teens Williams began performing as a vocalist, singing solo at formal events with local bands. The most that he ever took home was five dollars a night, but that was enough to convince his family that he could make a living with his voice. So, at 16, he dropped out of school, created his stage name to “Williams” and began earnestly marketing himself to Chicago clubs and bands. His first job was singing with the band at Kitty Davis’s club during the evening for tips that would sometimes amount to $20.
Williams first real break came in 1938 when clarinetist Jimmy Noone invited him to sing with his band. Less than a year later, the young singer was earning a reputation at Chicago dance halls and on a national radio station that broadcast his voice across the nation. Soon he was touring the Midwest by 1939 and accompanying Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller, a year later toured with Coleman Hawkins. In 1942 Lionel Hampton hired Joe to fill-in for the regular vocalist for the orchestra, the Tic Toc Club in Boston and cross-country tours. By the time the relationship ended Williams was in great demand. Through the 40s he toured and made his first recording with Andy Kirk, which led to working with Red Saunders and recording for Okeh and Blue Lake Records.
He went on to sing with the Count Basie Orchestra from ’54 to 61 with his first recording “Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings” that hit #2 on the charts and sparked another LP, he won Down Beat magazine’s New Star Award and international critic’s Best New Male Singer and reader’s poll Best Male Band Singer. Through the end of the 50s the band was consistently touring Europe.
By the Sixties he was working a solo career with top-flight jazz musicians like Harry “Sweets” Edison, Clark Terry, George Shearing and Cannonball Adderley. He did all the variety shows from The Tonight Show to Joey Bishop, Merv Griffin, Steve Allen and Mike Douglas. He gained further notoriety as the father-in-law on The Cosby Show.
Baritone Joe Williams continued to perform regularly at jazz festivals in the U.S. and aboard, as well as on the nightclub circuit. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in 1983 next to Count Basie, sang Ellington’s Come Sunday at Basie’s funeral, performed the title track All of Me in the Steve Martin/Lily Tomlin vehicle, won two Grammy Awards and enjoyed a successful career, working regularly until his death of natural causes at age 80. He collapsed on the street a few blocks from his home on March 29, 1999 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ray Willis Nance was born on December 10, 1913 in Chicago, Illinois and as a child he studied piano, took violin lessons and was self-taught on trumpet. He led small groups from 1932-1937, then spent periods with the orchestras of Earl Hines and Horace Henderson through to 1940, however, he is best known for his long association with Duke Ellington through most of the 1940s and 1950s, after he was hired to replace Cootie Williams.
Shortly after joining the band, Nance was given the trumpet solo on the first recorded version of “Take The “A” Train” which became the Ellington theme, a major hit and jazz standard. Nance’s “A Train” solo is one of the most copied and admired trumpet solos in jazz history that even Williams upon his return to the some twenty years later would play Nance’s solo almost exactly as the original.
Ray was often featured on violin and was the only violin soloist ever featured in Ellington’s orchestra. He is also one of the well-known vocalists from the Ellington orchestra, having sung arguably the definitive version of “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing). It was Nance’s contribution to take the previously instrumental horn riff into the lead vocal, which constitute the now infamous, “Doo wha, doo wha, doo wha, doo wha, yeah!” The multi-talented trumpeter, violinist, vocalist and dancer earned him the nickname “Floorshow”.
He left the Ellington band in 1963 after having switched to and playing cornet alongside his predecessor Cootie Williams for a year. Over the course of his career he recorded a few albums as a leader and with Earl Hines, Rosemary Clooney and others. Ray Nance passed away on January 28, 1976 in New York City.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Donald Byrd was born Donaldson Toussaint L’Ouverture Byrd II on December 9, 1932 in Detroit, Michigan. He studied music and trumpet at Cass Technical High School, performing with Lionel Hampton prior to graduating. Joining the Air Force he played with the band, followed by matriculation through Wayne State University and the Manhattan School of Music.
He came to prominence while at the Manhattan School when he joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers replacing Clifford Brown. By 1955 he was recording with Jackie McLean and Mal Waldron, left the Messengers a year later and performed with John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock and Thelonious Monk.
Byrd’s first full-time band was a quintet that he co-led from 1958-61 with Pepper Adams, an ensemble with hard driving performances as captured live on “At The Half Note Café”. In June 1964, Byrd jammed with jazz legend Eric Dolphy in Paris and throughout the rest of the decade and into the 70s was a leader and notable sidemen for Blue Note’s stable of jazz greats.
In the 1970s, Donald moved away from his previous hard-bop jazz base and began to record jazz-fusion, jazz-funk, soul-jazz, and rhythm and blues. Teaming up with the Mizell Brothers, he recorded Black Byrd in 1972 that subsequently became Blue Note’s highest selling album ever. Three subsequent big selling albums called “Street Lady”, Places and Spaces, and “Steppin’ Into Tomorrow” followed this. In 1973, he created the Blackbyrds, a fusion group consisting of his best students that scored several major hits including “Happy Music”, “Walking In Rhythm” and “Rock Creek Park”. Byrd is best remembered as one of the only bebop jazz musicians who successfully pioneered the funk and soul genres while simultaneously remaining a pop artist.
Dr. Donald Byrd holds three master degrees, a law degree and a doctorate and has pursued a career as an educator teaching at Rutgers University, Hampton Institute, New York University, Howard University, Queens College, Oberlin College, Cornell University and was named artist-in-residence at Delaware State University. The trumpeter passed away at the age of 80 in Teaneck, New Jersey on February 4, 2013 leaving a legacy of recordings that spanned the jazz idiom.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Smith was born James Oscar Smith on December 8, 1925 in Norristown, Pennsylvania. He began as a pianist but switched to organ after hearing Wild Bill Davis, purchasing his first Hammond, renting a warehouse and emerging a year later with a fresh new sound. He was instrumental in revolutionizing the playing of the instrument. It only took one time for Alfred Lion to hear him play before signing him to Blue Note in 1956. It was the second album, “The Champ” that established him as a new star on the jazz scene, followed by “The Sermon”, “Home Cookin’” “Midnight Special” and “Back at the Chicken Shack”.
Forty sessions later Jimmy left Blue Note for Verve Records dropping his first album Bashin’ with a big band led by Oliver Nelson. With this album selling well he went on to collaborate over the next decade with Lalo Schifrin, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, Lou Donaldson, Lee Morgan, Stanley Turrentine, Grady Tate, Jackie McLean, George Benson and many other jazz greats of the day.
In the 1970s, Smith opened a supper club in Los Angeles where he played regularly; his career resurged in the 80s recording for Blue Note, Verve, Milestone and Elektra with Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Dee Dee Bridgewater, B.B. King, Etta James and Joey DeFrancesco.
Smith’s virtuoso improvisation technique popularized the Hammond B3 and his style on fast tempo pieces combined bluesy “licks” with bebop-based single note runs, ballads had walking bass lines and up-tempo tunes he played the bass line on the lower manual with use of the pedals for emphasis of a string bass. He influenced the likes of Jimmy McGriff, Brother Jack McDuff, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Larry Goldings and Joey DeFrancesco as well as many rock keyboardists like Brian Auger or more recently The Beastie Boys.
Jimmy Smith, Hammond B3 pioneer in the hard bop, mainstream, funk and fusion jazz genres, was honored as an NEA Jazz Master shortly before his death on February 8, 2005 in Scottsdale Arizona.
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