Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Walter Benton was born September 9, 1930 in Los Angeles, California and first began playing saxophone as in high school. After three years of service in the Army in the early 1950s, he played in 1954 with Kenny Clarke, Max Roach and Clifford Brown.

From 1954 to 1957 he played Afro-Latin jazz with Perez Prado, touring Asia with the band. Returning to the States, he went on to work with Quincy Jones in 1957 and Victor Feldman in 1958-59. He led his own group from 1959, recording under his own name in 1960 with Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Tootie Heath.

That same year he worked again with Max Roach and Julian Priester. In 1961 he recorded with Abbey Lincoln, Roach once more, Eric Dolphy and Slide Hampton. By the late 1960s he was working with Gerald Wilson and John Anderson.

As so often happens with great players, in the late 60’s Benton became discouraged with the state of jazz and the overall music business, disappeared from the scene, sank into poverty never re-discovered. He stopped playing and lived the rest of his days in cheap rooming houses and collected a pittance of social assistance.

On August 14, 2000, West Coast tenor saxophonist Walter Benton, who played cool and bluesy, ventured into free and wild before returning to his roots with his beautiful dark and somewhat diffused sound coupled with his own ideas and phrasing, passed away in total obscurity in Los Angeles at the age of 69.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Specs Wright was born Charles Wright on September 8, 1927 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He played drums in an Army band until his discharge in 1947. Following this he played in a group with Jimmy Heath and Howard McGhee. By 1949 he had joined Dizzy Gillespie’s band alongside John Coltrane, remaining until it disbanded in mid-1950.

Wright would rejoin Dizzy late in the decade as a member of his sextet with Coltrane, Jimmy Heath, Percy Heath and Milt Jackson. He would go on to play with Earl Bostic, Kenny Drew, Cannonball Adderley, Art Blakey and Carmen McRae as well as a member of the Hank Mobley sextet with Curtis Fuller, Ray Bryant, Tommy Bryant, Billy Root and Lee Morgan.

Not one to be idle, though never a leader, he was a sought after sideman playing with Sonny Rollins, Betty Carter, Red Garland, Coleman Hawkins and Lambert, Hendricks and Ross in the early Sixties. Drummer Specs Wright passed away on February 6, 1963. He was 36 years old.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Michael Jay Feinstein was born September 7, 1956 in Columbus, Ohio. At the age of five, he studied piano for a couple of months until his teacher became angered that he wasn’t reading the sheet music she gave him, since he was more comfortable playing by ear. As his mother saw no problem with her son’s method, she took him out of lessons and allowed him to enjoy music his own way.

After graduating from high school, Feinstein worked in local piano bars for two years, moving to Los Angeles when he was 20. He catalogued Ira Gershwin’s extensive collection of phonograph records, unpublished sheet music and rare recordings. This led to the development of a close relationship with Gershwin’s neighbor, Rosemary Clooney.

By the mid-1980s, Feinstein was a nationally known cabaret singer-pianist who dedicating himself to the Great American Songbook and recorded his debut titled Pure Gershwin in 1986. This led to more Americana with Irving Berlin, a live album from the Algonquin, “Over There” featuring music of the WWI era and “Pure Imagination” – a children’s album in 1992.

He has starred on Broadway, recorded several “composer” albums, and a series of “romance” albums and a Sinatra project. Michael was appointed by the Library of Congress to the National Recording Preservation Board to safeguard America’s musical heritage; he is the artistic director of The Center for the Performing Arts, which is home to the Michael Feinstein Initiative, and is the owner of a nightclub in Manhattan, “Feinstein’s” in the Regency Hotel.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

John Malachi was born on September 6, 1919 in Red Springs, North Carolina and was the pianist for the epochal Billy Eckstine Bebop Orchestra in 1944-45 and again in 1947. He worked with Illinois Jacquet in 1948, Louis Jordan in 1951, and a series of singers including Pearl Bailey, Dinah Washington, Al Hibbler, Joe Williams and Sarah Vaughan.

Malachi is credited with creating the nickname “Sassy” for Sarah Vaughan, working with her both in the Eckstine Orchestra and later during her solo career. He was also fond of categorizing jazz pianists into “acrobats” and “poets,” classifying himself among the latter.

John opted out of the traveling life of the touring jazz musician in the 1960s, living roughly the last decade and a half of his life in Washington, D.C. freelancing, playing with touring bands and artists when they stopped through, and leading music workshops at clubs like Jimmy MacPhail’s Gold Room and Bill Harris’s Pig’s Foot.

Always the educator, Malachi’s generosity towards younger musicians was legendary. One of the musicians he helped influence recalls that younger players referred to his workshops as “The University of John Malachi”. On February 11, 1987 jazz pianist John Malachi passed away in Washington, D.C.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Richie Powell was born on September 5, 1931 in New York City, the older brother of bebop-icon Bud Powell. He studied piano at City College of New York and played in the bands of Paul Williams, Johnny Hodges and for two years was a member of the group led by Clifford Brown and Max Roach.

Pianist McCoy Tyner, who grew up next door to Richie and brother Bud in Philadelphia, purportedly got some of his inspiration to develop his pentatonic chord voicings because he heard the Richie voice left-hand chords in fourths.

In 1956, after an informal gig at a Philadelphia store called Music City, Powell and Brown were being driven overnight by Powell’s wife Nancy to an engagement in Chicago. During the dark rainy night Nancy lost control of the vehicle on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, heading for Cleveland, and in the early hours of June 26, 1956 all three occupants were killed.

Although sometimes considered less gifted than his brother, he was a respected musician and was beginning to achieve recognition at the time of his death. He left behind a small discography, playing on albums with Dinah Washington, Sonny Rollins but mainly with Max Roach and Clifford Brown.

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