Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James M. Knepper was born November 22, 1927 in Los Angeles, California. He began playing trombone at nine, started playing professionally at 15 and worked with the big bands Freddie Slack, Roy Porter, Charlie Spivak, Charlie Barnet, Woody Herman and Claude Thornhill during the late forties and early ‘50s.
A good friend and arranging/transcribing partner of bassist and composer Charles Mingus, Knepper was twice on the receiving end of Mingus’ legendary temper. The first incident was being a punch in the mouth while onstage at a memorial concert in Philadelphia, the second punch landed in Mingus’ apartment broke one of his teeth ruining his embouchure and resulting in the permanent loss of the top octave of his range on the trombone, thus ending their working relationship.
Throughout his career Jimmy worked with Lee Konitz, Stan Kenton, Herbie Mann, Gil Evans, Benny Goodman, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, toured Africa and the Soviet Union, and cut sessions as a leader several albums on Debut, Bethlehem, Blackhawk, Steeplechase and Criss Cross labels among others.
Knepper’s nimble technique enabled him to articulate the trombone more in the manner of a saxophone coupled with the slurs and tonal variations of his predecessors. His improvisation was filled with subtle surprises and his reputation has remained strong in the jazz world over the years. After a long battle with Parkinson’s disease, Jimmy Knepper passed away on June 14, 2003.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Coleman Randolph Hawkins was born on November 21, 1904 in St. Joseph, Missouri and named after his mother’s maiden name. He started out playing piano and cello prior to playing saxophone at age nine. By the time he turned 14, he was playing around eastern Kansas while attending Topeka High School and simultaneously studying harmony and composition for two years at Washburn College.
In 1921 Hawkins joined Mamie Smith’s Jazz Hounds, toured through 1923 and settled in New York City. Hawkins joined Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra doubling on clarinet and bass saxophone and becoming a star soloist. He recorded with band mates Louis Armstrong and Henry “Red” Allen, a number of solo recordings with either piano or a pick-up band of Henderson musicians. In late 1934, he played with Jack Hylton’s band in London, toured Europe as a soloist until 1939 and worked with Django Reinhardt and Benny Carter in 1937 Paris.
Returning to the States he worked Kelly’s Stables, recorded two choruses of Body and Soul, his landmark recording of the Swing Era. Recorded as an afterthought at the session, it is notable in that Coleman ignores almost all of the melody, only the first four bars are stated in a recognizable fashion. In its exploration of harmonic structure it is considered by many to be the next evolutionary step in jazz recording from where Louis Armstrong’s “West End Blues” in 1928 left off.
Over the course of his long and prolific career Hawkins had an unsuccessful attempt at a big band, led a combo at Kelly’s Stables, played with Thelonious Monk, Oscar Pettiford, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, Ben Webster, Max Roach, Howard McGhee, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Roy Eldridge, J.J. Johnson, Fats Navarro and Duke Ellington among others, recorded a session with Dizzy Gillespie that is considered the first bebop recording and toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic. After 1948 Hawkins divided his time between New York and Europe, making numerous freelance recordings. In the 1960s, he appeared regularly at the Village Vanguard.
Tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins directly influenced many future bebop musicians such as Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. In his later years he stopped recording, began drinking heavily and died of pneumonia on May 19, 1969 in New York.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
June Christy, born Shirley Luster on November 20, 1925 in Springfield, Illinois but grew up in Decatur, Illinois from the age of three. She began singing at 13 with the Decatur-based Bill Oetzel Orchestra continuing through high school and adding appearances with the Ben Bradley Band, and Bill Madden’s Band. Graduating she moved to Chicago, changed her name to Sharon Leslie, sang with the Boyd Raeburn group, then joined Benny Strong’s band and in 1944, with Strong’s band moved to New York.
In 1945, after hearing that Anita O’Day had left Stan Kenton’s Orchestra, she auditioned and got the role as a vocalist and her success was on the rise. She actually bore a heavy vocal and physical resemblance to Anita O’Day and it was during this time, she changed her name once again, finally becoming June Christy. I
n 1947 June started working on her own records with arranger and bandleader Pete Rugolo that produced her debut “Something Cool” in 1954 with husband Bob Cooper and Bud Shank. This album was instrumental in launching the vocal cool movement of the fifties. Throughout the decade she had a string of hits like Something Cool, Midnight Sun and I Should Care as she continued to release records, such as, “The Misty Miss Christy” that would set new standards for the music and influence future jazz vocalists.
During the 50s and 60s, Christy appeared on the top television programs of the day including Eddie Condon’s Floor Show, The Alan Young Show, The Jack Carter Show, The Jackie Gleason Show, The Tonight Show, The Nat King Cole Show, The Steve Allen Show, Playboy’s Penthouse, The Mike Douglas Show and The Joey Bishop Show. She embarked on dozens of concert tours throughout the U.S. and in Europe, South Africa and Japan.
June retired from the music business in 1969, only to take the stage again in financial crisis. In 1972, June sang at the Newport Jazz Festival in New York and reunited on stage with the Stan Kenton Orchestra. She recorded her final album “Impromptu” in 1977 but continued to perform at a few festivals over the next two decades with her final performance sharing the stage with Chet Baker in 1988. After struggling with illness for many years, vocalist June Christy passed away at her home in Sherman Oaks, California of kidney failure on June 21, 1990. She was 64.
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Kenny Werner was born on November 19, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York and by four was a member of a song and dance group. He started piano lessons at seven and by the time he turned 11, he recorded a single with a fifteen-piece orchestra and appeared on television playing stride piano. He attended the Manhattan School of Music as a concert piano major and later transferred to the Berklee School of Music.
Upon graduation he travelled working in Brazil and Bermuda before returning to New York where he formed a trio with drummer Gary Berkowitz and bassist Alex Peglise. In 1977 he recorded first LP that featured of the music of Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson and George Gershwin and later that year with Charles Mingus on “Something Like A Bird”.
By the early 80s he toured extensively and recorded with Archie Shepp, recorded his own solo album of original compositions titled “Beyond the Forest of Mirkwood”, followed by a recording of the sounds heard coming from his Brooklyn-based studio – a hotbed of late-night jam sessions, titling the record after his address, 298 Bridge Street. In 1984 he joined the Mel Lewis Orchestra, began performing more in Europe and New York City as a leader and in duos with such notables as Rufus Reid, Ray Drummond, Jaki Byard also doing stints in the groups of Eddie Gomez, Tom Harrell, Joe Lovano and many others.
Since 1989 he has served as pianist, arranger and musical director for the noted film, television and Broadway star, Betty Buckley, has performed and recorded with Toots Thielemans mostly in duo settings but in trio with Oscar Castro-Neves and quartet with Airto Moreira. He has been nominated for a Grammy, has received performance grants from the NEA, a Guggenheim Fellowship Award for the 2010 release “No Beginning No End”, was commissioned to compose and conduct a memorial piece for Duke Ellington, and has been honored with the distinguished Composer award.
Kenny has a catalogue of twenty albums and another six as a sideman composer chops have had him writing compositions for the Mel Lewis Orchestra, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Cologne Radio Jazz Orchestra, the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra, the Metropole Orchestra and the Umo Jazz Orchestra and most recently has joined Quincy Jones. He is a published author of “Effortless Mastery” that features the physical, technical, psychological and spiritual aspects of being an artist and this publication has garnered him requests as a teacher and clinician from universities around the world, while maintaining an Artist-in-Residence at New York University.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roswell Rudd, born Roswell Hopkins Rudd, Jr. on November 17, 1935, grew up in Sharon, Connecticut. Graduating from Yale University where he had played and recorded two albums of boisterous trad-jazz with Eli’s Chosen Six, a Dixieland band of Yale students that Rudd joined in the mid-’50s. But his landmark collaborations with Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, John Tchicai and Steve Lacy grew out of the lessons learned while playing rags and stomps in college.
In the 1960s, Rudd participated in key free jazz recordings with his ultra avant-garde New York Art Quartet, the soundtrack of the 1964 film New York Eye and Ear Control, Michael Mantler & Carla Bley’s 1968 Jazz Composer’s Orchestra-Communications with Cecil Taylor; and has collaborations with Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Larry Coryell and Gato Barbieri. A major factor in his career has been his lifelong friendships with saxophonists Archie Shepp and Steve Lacy, recording and performing the music of Thelonious Monk numerous times with the later.
Roswell is skilled in a variety of jazz genres but is best known for his avant-garde contributions. Rudd has taught ethnomusicology at Bard College and the University of Maine. Over a period of three decades he has assisted with world music song style – Cantometrics and Global Jukebox projects. He has collaborated and recorded with Malian, Mongolian and with Hispanic New Yorkers.
The Grammy Award-nominated jazz trombonist and composer Roswell Rudd conducts master classes and workshops around the world and since 1962 Rudd has worked extensively with saxophonist Archie Shepp.
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