Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jay Hoggard was born September 24, 1954 in Washington, D.C. but grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. His mother taught him how to play piano at a young age and picked up the saxophone long before age 15 when he started playing the vibraphone. He played with Anthony Davis and Leo Smith in the early 1970s around New England.
After moving to New York City in 1988 Jay worked again with Davis and with Chico Freeman, Sam Rivers, Cecil Taylor, James Newton and Kenny Burrell. He would go on to collaborate and perform over the next few decades with Lionel Hampton, Milt Jackson, Tito Puente, Bobby Hutcherson, Billy Taylor, James Newton, Hilton Ruiz and Oliver Lake.
An international performer Hoggard has played on stages and jazz festivals in Africa, South America, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean and throughout the United States as well as appearing on television. Since 1978 he has recorded more than a dozen and a half sessions as a leader and many dates as a sideman. Vibraphonist Jay Hoggard currently teaches at his alma mater Wesleyan University.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Irene Reid was born on September 23, 1930 in Savannah, Georgia, singing in church and in high school in Georgia. In 1947 after her mother passed, she moved to New York City. Toward the end of the year she tried out for an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater in Harlem and won the competition for five straight weeks. Soon after she was offered a slot as the featured vocalist with Dick Vance at the Savoy Ballroom, which she held from 1948 to 1950.
In 1961–62, Reid sang with Count Basie’s orchestra, and recorded for Verve Records. She would later perform in a Broadway production of the musical “The Wiz”. She sang with Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin and B.B. King.
Irene receded from fame in the 1970s and 1980s, but launched a comeback near the end of that decade. She appeared at the Savannah Jazz Festival in 1991, 1994, and 1996, and continued releasing albums on Savant Records in the 1990s and 2000s.
In 2002, British DJ duo Beginerz sampled Reid’s vocals to make the club hit “Reckless Girl” and in 2003 Lil’ Kim sampled Reid’s vocals to make the hit “I Came Back For You”.
On January 4, 2008 jazz singer Irene Reid passed away, leaving for posterity more than a dozen albums.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ray Wetzel was born on September 22, 1924 in Parkersburg, West Virginia. He played lead trumpet for Woody Herman from 1943 to 1945 and for Stan Kenton from 1945 to 1948. He recorded in 1947 with the Metronome All-Stars, Vido Musso and Neal Hefti before marrying bass player Bonnie Addleman in 1949.
While with the Charlie Barnet Orchestra in 1949, he played trumpet alongside Maynard Ferguson, Doc Severinsen and Rolf Ericson. He played with his wife in Tommy Dorsey’s ensemble in 1950 and with Kenton again in 1951.
Never recording as a leader, he did however compose the Stan Kenton tune “Intermission Riff”. While touring with Dorsey in 1951, trumpeter Ray Wetzel was killed in a car crash at the age of 27 on August 17, 1951 in Sedgwick, Colorado.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tommy Potter was born Charles Thomas Potter in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 21, 1918. He began on the bass fairly late, originally playing piano and guitar and not switching to bass until he was already 21 in 1940. He played with John Hardee and Max Roach before joining Charlie Parker’s “classic quintet”, first playing with him in 1944, then John Malachi and Trummy Young before hitting with Billy Eckstine’s band fro ’44-45 with Dizzy Gillespie, Lucky Thompson and Art Blakey, and worked with Miles Davis between 1947 and 1950.
In the 1950s he remained in demand though never a major soloist himself on the level of an Oscar Pettiford, Potter was really an advanced swing stylist who was flexible and skilled enough to keep up with Parker’s rapid tempos.
Potter performed and recorded with such notable jazz musicians including Earl Hines, Artie Shaw, Bud Powell, Count Basie, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Max Roach, Eddie Heywood, Tyree Glenn, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Buck Clayton, Wardell Gray, Fats Navarro and Charles Lloyd.
After playing in a Charlie Parker memorial group in 1965, he gradually dropped out of music, becoming semi-retired and on March 1, 1988 double bassist Tommy Potter passed away.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Billy Bang was born on William Vincent Walker on September 20, 1947 in Mobile, Alabama and while he was still an infant his family moved to the Bronx in New York City. As a child he attended a special school for musicians in Harlem and being small in physical size was assigned a violin instead his first choices, the saxophone or drums. It was around this time that he acquired the nickname of “Billy Bang”, derived from a popular cartoon character.
Billy studied the violin until he earned a hardship scholarship to a private high school in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, at which point he abandoned the instrument due to a lack of a music program. He had difficulty adjusting to school life, encountering racism and developing confusion about his identity, and his later onset of schizophrenia.
Bang left the school after two years, attended a school in the Bronx, dropped out when he was drafted, at 18 joined the Army and arrived in Vietnam in time for the Tet Offensive. Returning from the war he became politically active, fell in with an underground group of revolutionaries, purchased weapons and impulsively bought another violin from the same pawnshop.
In 1977, Bang co-founded the String Trio of New York with guitarist James Emery and bassist John Lindberg, exploring his experience in Vietnam in two albums: Vietnam: The Aftermath and Vietnam: Reflections.
Free jazz composer and violinist Billy Bang passed away on April 11, 2011 from complications due to lung cancer. He is survived by a legacy of some three-dozen albums.
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