Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Art Blakey was born Arthur Blakey on October 11, 1919 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By the time he was a teenager, he was playing the piano full-time, leading a commercial band. Shortly afterwards, he taught himself to play the drums in the aggressive swing style of Chick Webb, Sid Catlett and Ray Bauduc. He joined Mary Lou Williams in 1942, then toured with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, spent three years with Billy Eckstine’s big band and became associated with the bebop movement along with his fellow band members Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Fats Navarro and others.

He recorded on Thelonious Monk’s first and last sessions as a leader, organized a rehearsal band called the Seventeen Messengers in 1947, recorded with an octet call the Jazz Messengers co-led with Horace Silver, and the group recorded with Clifford Brown and Lou Donaldson live at Birdland and formed a regular cooperative group with Hank Mobley and Kenny Dorham in 1953.

Along with Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, Art was one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. Known as a powerful musician and a vital groover, his brand of bluesy, funky hard bop was and continues to be profoundly influential on mainstream jazz. For more than 30 years his band, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, included many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz.

Blakey’s Messengers would go on to enlist musicians like Doug Watkins, Donald Byrd, Johnny Griffin, Benny Golson, Jymie Merritt, Lee Morgan, Bobby Timmons, Curtis Fuller, Freddie Hubbard, Cedar Walton and Wayne Shorter, all of whom made an indelible impression on Blakey’s repertoire with their original compositions such as Dat Dere, Moanin’ and Lester Left Town.

Art recorded dozens of albums both as a sideman and a leader with a constantly changing group of Jazz Messengers, toured with the Giants of Jazz in early Seventies, revitalized the band in the 80s with players like Wynton Marsalis, Johnny O’Neal, Philip Harper, Terence Blanchard, Joanne Brackeen, Donald Harrison, Kenny Garrett, Bobby Broom, Robin Eubanks, Ralph Peterson, Jr. and Mulgrew Miller.

Also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after converting to Islam and nicknamed “Bu”, was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame in 1982, won a Grammy for Best Group Jazz Instrumental Performance for New York Scene, was inducted in the Newport Jazz Festival and Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fames, and was posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001 and was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. Drummer and bandleader Art Blakey died on October 16, 1990.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Yusef Lateef was born William Emanuel Huddleston on October 9, 1920 in Chattanooga, Tennessee and by the time he was five his family moved to Detroit. Throughout his early life Lateef came into contact with many Detroit-based jazz musicians who went on to gain prominence, including vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Elvin Jones and guitarist Kenny Burrell.

Proficient on saxophone by graduation from high school at the age of 18, he launched his professional career and began touring with a number of swing bands. In 1949, he was touring with Dizzy Gillespie and his orchestra. In 1950, Lateef returned to Detroit and began his studies in composition and flute at Wayne State University. It was during this period that he converted to Islam.

Lateef began recording as a leader in 1957 for Savoy Records overlapping with Prestige Records subsidiary label New Jazz, collaborating with Wilbur Harden and Hugh Lawson among others. By 1961, with the recording of Into Something and Eastern Sounds his dominant presence within a group context had emerged and his ‘Eastern’ influences are clearly audible in all of these recordings.

Along with trumpeter Don Cherry, Yusef can lay claim to being among the first exponents of the world music as sub-genres of jazz. He played on numerous albums, was a member of Cannonball Adderley’s Quintet during the early Sixties, was a major influence on John Coltrane, he began to incorporate contemporary soul and gospel phrasing into his music, founded his own label YAL Records and was commissioned by the WDR Radio Orchestra to compose the African American Epic Suite.

Lateef has written and published a number of books including two novellas and Yusef Lateef’s Flute Book of the Blues. He has received the Jazz Master Fellowship Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and has had aired a special-documentary program for Lateef, titled A Portrait of Saxophonist Yusef Lateef In His Own Words and Music. He has recorded nearly six-dozen records as both a leader and sideman and continued to compose, perform, record and tour until his transition at age 93 on December 23, 2013 in Shutesbury, Massachusetts.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Gerry Moore was born Gerald Asher Moore on October 8, 1903 in London, England A pianist, he spent the years 1922-1939 working freelance jazz gigs in his hometown, playing movie palaces and nightclubs. Among the clubs in which he worked are Sherry’s and the Empress Rooms through the Twenties and in the 30s he played Chez Rex Evans, the Bag o’ Nails, the 43 Club and Mema’s.

In 1939 Gerry worked with Buddy Featherstonhaugh, Adelaide Hall, Vic Lewis, Max Geldray along with Carlo Krahmer at the Paris Jazz Fair and the Palm Beach Hotel in Cannes. He played with Harry and Laurie Gold and worked as a pianist on the Queen Mary and Caronia in the Fifties. From the mid-1960s up until his passing on January 29, 1993 in Twickenham, pianist Gerry Moore played the clubs of London.

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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…

Helen Ward was born September 19, 1913 in New York City and was taught her piano by her father, appeared on WOR and WNYC radio broadcasts and also worked as a staff musician at the latter. Helen started singing in Benny Goodman’s first band in 1934 and became one of the first popular swing “girl singers”, as they were then called, and among Goodman’s most popular.

Ward and Benny had a brief romance and he came very close to proposing marriage to her in either 1935 or 1936. However, according to Ward in the documentary, Adventures in the Kingdom of Swing, he called it off at the last minute, citing his career. She married financier Albert Marx the following year and left the band.

In 1938, Marx arranged for Goodman’s Carnegie Hall concert to be recorded for her as an anniversary present. That recording was later released as a dual LP set by Columbia Records in 1950. During the 1940s, Ward worked with the bands of Hal McIntyre and Harry James and became a radio show producer for WMGM in 1946-1947.

Following her divorce to Marx, Ward later married the audio engineer William Savory, who was part of the team that invented the 33⅓ rpm long-playing record. She sporadically did studio work, occasionally toured with Goodman, worked briefly with Peanuts Hucko but effectively retired in 1960. A brief return in the late 70s and early 80s saw her singing in New York clubs and released her final album The Helen Ward Song Book Vol. I. Vocalist Helen Ward died April 21, 1998 in Arlington, Virginia.

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