Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tanya Kalmanovitch was born in Fort McMurray, Alberta on July 5, 1970 and learned to play the viola as a child and would go on to master the violin. She attended and graduated in 1992 from Juilliard School with a degree in viola performance and soon after debuted her jazz chops with the Turtle Island String Quartet.
Her 2003 debut recording with her quartet Hut Five was hailed by the Montreal Gazette as “an exceptional recording, one of the more engaging recordings heard in some time” and was garnished with a number of stars by DownBeat magazine. Actively performing in New York City since 2004, Tanya has been named “Best New Talent” by All About Jazz New York, while Time Out New York identified her from a small pool of suspects as “the Juilliard-trained violist who’s been tearing up the scene”.
Tanya has performed with Mark Turner, Benoît Delbecq, Mark Helias, Dominique Pifarély, Andy Laster, Tom Rainey, Ernst Reijseger, Mat Maneri, and the Turtle Island String Quartet, Martin Hayes, John Cage and Shujaat Husain Khan. She has travelled frequently to India where she has studied Karnatic music with violinist Lalgudi G. J. R. Krishnan and veena player Karaikudi S. Subramanian while conducting doctoral dissertation research on jazz exotica.
Teaching regularly at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London UK, the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag NL, and as a member of the faculty of the department of Creative Improvisation at Boston’s New England Conservatory, she also conducts workshops on improvisation.
She is a founding member of the Brooklyn Jazz Underground, a collective of ten independent bandleaders based in New York City. She is also the Canadian representative to the International Association of Schools of Jazz, a founding member of the Jazz String Caucus of the International Association for Jazz Education, and a mentor to the Sisters in Jazz Program. Violist and violinist Tanya Kalmanovitch now lives in the spaces between modern jazz, classical music and free improvisation as she continues to compose, perform and educate.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Conny Bauer was born Konrad Bauer on July 4, 1943 in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. While in senior high school in 1957 he became interested in modern music and dance genres such as swing, boogie-woogie, blues and rock and roll. He taught himself to play guitar and piano and after graduation while trying to play in several bands was nicknamed “Conny” by his friends.
Recognizing his lack of musical knowledge to become a professional Bauer studied modern dance music from 1964 to 1968 taking up the trombone. In 1968 he left for Berlin to improve his skills with private lessons. From 1969 until 1971 he started his career as guitarist and singer in the band of Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, while doubling as a trombone soloist.
During the second half of the 1970s Bauer became a prominent jazz player in European free jazz, helping to found numerous groups that influenced the development of jazz in East Germany. By 1986 he was touring Japan, went on to direct the National Jazz Orchestra of the former East Germany, worked with artists such as Tadashi Endo, Sheryl Banks, Tony Oxley, Barry Altschul and George Lewis to name a few.
He has recorded two-dozen albums, received the German SWR jazz prize for his solo recordings Hummelsummen, and continues to perform, tour and record.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dr. Lonnie Smith was born July 3, 1942 in Lackawanna, New York into a family with a vocal group and radio program and a mother who introduced him to gospel, classical and jazz music. He learned to play piano as a child and was part of several vocal ensembles in the 1950s, including the Teen Kings. Local music storeowner Art Kubera gave Smith his first Hammond B3 organ.
Smith’s affinity for R&B melded with his own personal style as he became active in the local music scene. Moving to New York City he met and connected with George Benson, and the two formed the George Benson Quartet, featuring Lonnie Smith, in 1966.
Lonnie recorded his first solo album ”Finger Lickin’ Good” in 1967, with Benson, Melvin Sparks and Ronnie Cuber and Marion Booker. After recording several albums with Benson, Smith became a solo recording artist. In 1967, Smith meeting Lou Donaldson led to a Blue Note introduction, a record date for Alligator Boogaloo and subsequent signing to a four-album deal.
He has since recorded over 30 albums under his own name. He has performed and recorded with among others Lee Morgan, David “Fathead” Newman, Blue Mitchell, King Curtis, Esther Phillips, Bennie Maupin, Idris Muhammad, Joey DeFrancesco and Joe Lovano, however the list inside and out of jazz is too long to enumerate.
He has been named “Organ Keyboardist of the Year” in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, and 2009 by the Jazz Journalist Association and continues to tour, perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Teodross Avery was born on July 2, 1973 and grew up in Oakland and Vacaville, California. Exposed to a wide range of music by his parents, at ten he began his training with classical guitar. However after hearing Coltrane’s Giant Steps he switched to saxophone and it was Wynton Marsalis who bought him a saxophone as a testament to his young promise. At 17 he won a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music.
Two years into Berklee the young saxophonist was heard by Carl Griffin of GRP/Impulse who signed him at age 19, launching his first album In Other Words to critical acclaim. This brought to national attention and demand by the likes of Aretha Franklin and Ramsey Lewis among others. Graduating in 1995 he moved to New York, landed a performance spot in the film Love Jones, released his sophomore project My Generation and worked with Dee Dee Bridgewater, Roy Hargrove, Leela James, Roy Ayers, Mos Def, and Betty Carter. By the end of the decade he was touring with Lauryn Hill and Matchbox Twenty
As a composer and producer, Teo has collaborated on such feature films as Beauty Shop and Brown Sugar, the documentary The N Word, has written music for Amy Winehouse, and appeared on numerous television shows like American Idol, Ellen Degeneres, Saturday Night Live and others. He has been a part of Grammy winning recordings, and recipient of the Advancement In The Arts Clifford Brown/Stan Getz Fellowship and the Sony Innovator Award. With five albums as a leader and several more as a sideman, saxophonist Teodross Avery continues to perform, compose, tour and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alvino Rey was born Alvin McBurney on July 1, 1908 in Oakland, California but grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. Showing very early signs of his mechanical and musical aptitude, he built his first radio at the age of 8, becoming one of the youngest licensed ham operators in the country. Received a banjo at 10, he began studying guitar at age 12 and by 15 he invented an electrical amplifier for the guitar.
In 1927, Rey played banjo with Cleveland bandleader Ev Jones while still in high school. After graduation Rey went to New York and signed with Phil Spitalny Orchestra, playing electric guitar. He changed his name to Alvino Rey to coincide with the Latin music craze in the late Twenties.
Two years later he was in California playing with Horace Heidt in San Francisco. From 1932 to 1939, Alvino played steel and Spanish guitar and in Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights, pioneering the instrument, as well as becoming known for his unique sound and one of the best-known and best-paid sidemen in the country,
Rey formed his own group with the King Sisters and Frank DeVol, that became the Mutual Broadcasting house band that had Johnny Mandel, Neal Hefti, Mel Lewis, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims playing and Nelson Riddle, Billy May and Ray Conniff arranging among others.
Alvino performed well into his eighties after moving to Salt Lake City, Utah and retired from music in 1994 but retained his interests in music and electronics into his mid-nineties. Alvino Rey, swing era musician, pioneer and father of the pedal steel guitar, passed away on February 2, 2004.
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