Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Walter Davis Jr. was born September 2, 1932 in Richmond, Virginia. As a teenager he performed with Babs Gonzales and in the 1950s he recorded with Melba Liston, recorded and played with Max Roach, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie. In 1958 he played with trumpeter Donald Byrd at Le Chat Qui Pêche in Paris and shortly after realized his dream of becoming pianist and composer-arranger for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.
He retired from music in the 1960s to work as a tailor, painter, and designer, but returned in the Seventies to perform and record with Sonny Rollins and again with the Jazz Messengers. Walter recorded with Kenny Clarke, Sonny Criss, Walt Dickerson, Teddy Edwards, Slide Hampton, Jackie McLean, Pierre Michelot, Julian Priester, Hank Mobley, Philly Joe Jones, Art Taylor and Archie Shepp.
Known as an interpreter of the music of Bud Powell, he recorded an album capturing the compositional and piano style of Thelonious Monk. Although few of Davis’ recordings as a pianist remain in print, several of his compositions served as titles for albums by Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Combining traditional harmonies with modal patterns and featuring numerous rhythmic shifts along with internal melodic motifs within operatic, aria-like sweeping melodies, Davis’s compositions included Scorpio Rising, Backgammon, Uranus, Gypsy Folk Tales, Jodi and Ronnie Is a Dynamite Lady.
Occasionally he played the role of the piano player on the CBS television comedy Frank’s Place and contributed to the soundtrack of the Clint Eastwood film Bird. Hard bop pianist Walter Davis Jr. passed away in New York City on June 2, 1990 from complications of liver and kidney disease.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Leroy “Hog” Cooper was born on August 31, 1928 in Dallas, Texas and started his career touring with Ernie Fields’ territory band from 1948 to 1951. With his childhood friend David “Fathead” Newman, the two played together in 1954 in the saxophone section backing Lowell Fulson on his first single Reconsider Baby for Chess Records.
In 1957, Newman recommended Cooper to Ray Charles who joined the band the same summer as bassist Edgar Willis, both musicians staying on with Charles for some twenty years. He also played, recorded or toured with Lightnin’ Hopkins, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, The Righteous Brothers, Dr. John, Del Shannon, Joe Cocker and Bobby Short..
Leroy recorded not only with Ray Charles but also with Newman, Hank Crawford, Curtis Amy, Kenny Neal, Noble “Thin Man” Watts and Nat Adderley. Moving to Orlando, Florida baritone saxophonist Leroy Cooper performed locally in Orlando till he passed away on January 15, 2009 with the Smokin’ Torpedoes & Josh Miller Blues Band.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gilbert Bibi Rovère was born on August 29, 1939 in Toulon, France and grew up in Nice, where he also attended the Conservatory beginning in 1954. He became part of the jazz scene there and for 17 years played the San Remo Festival.
In 1956, a move to Paris saw him working in the jazz clubs and by 1957 he started playing the double bass with Barney Wilen. Over the coming years he accompanied Duke Ellington, Sonny Rollins and Billie Holiday with Mal Waldron. Between 1962 and 1974 he was always part of the combos of Martial Solal and between 1962 to ‘63 he joined Bud Powell, Kenny Drew, Johnny Griffin, Dexter Gordon and Kenny Clarke.
During the Sixties Bibi went on to play with Art Simmons and Jean-Luc Ponty on his first album Jazz Longplaying. He also worked with the Swingle Singers, René Thomas and Cannonball Adderley. In 1966 he received the Prix Django Reinhardt.
During the Seventies he accompanied Al Haig on his album Invitation and in 1978 he retired from the music industry only to become re-active eight years later, performing with Bud Shank and Jackie McLean. In 1990 he played on Steve Grossman’s album My Second Prime.
On March 13, 2007 double bass and violincello player Bibi Rovère passed away in Menton on the French Riviera.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Addison Farmer was born August 21, 1928 an hour after his twin brother, in Council Bluffs, Iowa reportedly at 2201 Fourth Avenue. Their parents divorced when the boys were four, and their steelworker father was killed in a work accident not long after this. He moved with his grandfather, grandmother, mother, brother and sister to Phoenix, Arizona when he was four.
Addison and his brother moved to Los Angeles, California in 1945 and attended the music-oriented Jefferson High School, where they got music instruction and met other developing musicians such as Sonny Criss, Ernie Andrews, Big Jay McNeely, and Ed Thigpen. They brothers earned money by working in a cold-storage warehouse and by playing professionally. He went on to take bass lessons from Fred Zimmermann, and studied at Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music.
By late 1945, Farmer was with Johnny Alston and His Orchestra recording for the Bihari Brothers’ Modern Music label, backing Jeanne De Metz. Shortly afterwards he recorded on the Blue Moon label with Al “Cake” Wichard and King Fleming and worked with Teddy Edwards’s band. He played and recorded in several groups with his brother and in ensembles led by Benny Golson, Gigi Gryce, Mose Allison, Jay McShann, Charlie Parker, Gene Ammons, Bob Brookmeyer, curtis Fuller, Hampton Hawes, Curtis Fuller, Stan Getz, Teo Macero, Sahib Shihab, Mal Waldron and Miles Davis.
Bassist Addison Farmer recorded extensively for the jazz label Prestige before passing away suddenly from bed death on February, 20, 1963 in New York City at the age of 34.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bill Dowdy was born August 15, 1932 in Osceola, Arkansas but his family moved to Benton Harbor, Michigan when he was six months old. At a young age he would beat on things as if he were playing the drums, an indication of his future musical career. It was in high school that he learned to play the piano and the drums and in 1949 had a group called Club 49 Trio that group played on the radio in Chicago.
After Dowdy started his own music group, he moved to Battle Creek, Michigan and joined a band before being drafted by the Army. After his discharge he landed in Chicago and took private lessons to improve his musical skills. Over time he became a professional drummer, playing with many blues bands. He continued traveling from New York City to Los Angeles, California to Canada and the South.
Bill joined the jazz trio, The Three Sounds and recorded over ten jazz albums from the 1950s through the early 1970s. He also played with Lester Young, Lou Donaldson, Nat Adderley, Johnny Griffin, Anita O’Day and Sonny Stitt among others.
Drummer, bandleader and teacher Bill Dowdy, whose idols included Gene Krupa, Max Roach, Roy Haynes, and Tony Williams, passed away on May 12, 2017.
