Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lee Konitz was born October 13, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois. At age 11, he received his first instrument, a clarinet, but later dropped the instrument in favor of the tenor saxophone. He eventually moved from tenor to alto. His greatest influences at the time were the swing big bands, in particular Benny Goodman, who prompted him to take up clarinet. However, on the saxophone he was improvising before ever learning to play any standards.[1]
Konitz began his professional career in 1945 with the Teddy Powell band replacing Charlie Ventura. A month later the band parted ways and between 1945 and 1947 he performed off and on with Jerry Wald. In 1946 he first met pianist Lennie Tristano, working in a small cocktail bar with him. He went on to work through the Forties with Claude Thornhill, Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan.
He played with Miles Davis on a couple of gigs in 1949 and recorded with him on the album The Birth of the Cool. Though his presence in the group angered some unemployed black musicians Davis rebuffed their criticisms. The same year his debut as leader also came in a session that would be titled Subconscious-Lee, release some six years later.
By the early 1950s, Lee recorded and toured with Stan Kenton, but through the decade he recorded as a leader. In 1961, he teamed up with Elvin Jones and Sonny Dallas to record a series of standards on Motion, followed by duets project utilizing sax and trombone, two saxophones, saxophone and violinist Ray Nance or guitarist Jim Hall..
In 1971 Konitz contributed to the film score for Desperate Characters, performed at the Woodstock Jazz Festival, has performed or recorded with Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Elvin Jones, Brad Mehldau, Charlie Haden, Grace Kelly, Gary Peacock, Bill Frisell, Joey Baron and Paul Motian, among numerous others.
In addition to his bebop and cool jazz releases alto saxophonist Lee Konitz has become more experimental as he has grown older, has released a number of free and avant-garde jazz albums , all of which have amassed over some one hundred and twenty to date as a leader. He has recorded some fifty albums as a sideman and continues to perform and tour, often playing alongside many far younger musicians.
Alto saxophonist Lee Konitz died during the COVID-19 pandemic from complications brought on by the disease on April 15, 2020.
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Edward Joseph Blackwell was born on October 10, 1929 in New Orleans, Louisiana. His drumming style was greatly influenced by the second line parade music. His early career began in his hometown in the 1950s playing in a bebop quintet that included pianist Ellis Marsalis and clarinetist Alvin Battiste. For a brief stint he toured with Ray Charles.
Blackwell first came to national attention as the drummer with Ornette Coleman’s quartet around 1960, when he took over for Billy Higgins in the quartet’s legendary stand at the Five Spot in New York City. Known as one of the great innovators of free jazz of the 1960s, fusing New Orleans and African rhythms with bebop.
In the 1970s and 1980s Blackwell toured and recorded extensively with fellow Ornette’s Quartet veterans Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Dewey Redman in the Old and New Dreams Quartet. By the late 1970s he became an Artist-in-Residence at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut and was a beloved figure on the Wesleyan Campus until he died.
In 1981 he performed at the Woodstock Jazz Festival, held in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Creative Music Studio. The Ed Blackwell Project was comprised of members Mark Helias on bass, alto saxophonist and flautist Carlos Ward and Graham Haynes on cornet. He played with Ray Anderson, Karl Berger, Jane Ira Bloom, David Bond, Charles Brackeen, Anthony Braxton, Marlon Brown, Steve Coleman, Anthony Davis, Jane Cortez, Stanley Cowell, Eric Dolphy, Albert Heath, Clifford Jordan, Joe Lovano, Yoko Ono, David Murray, Hilton Ruiz and numerous others.
After years of kidney problems, drummer Ed Blackwell passed away on October 7, 1992. The following year he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.
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Norman Simmons was born October 6, 1929 in Chicago, Illinois. His childhood was filled with the sound of the big band era and he was captivated by the Duke Ellington Orchestra broadcasts he listened to over a neighbor’s radio. He started teaching himself at the family piano, progressing quickly and by age 16 enrolled in the Chicago School of Music, where he completed his studies in four years.
Simmons kept a steady gig leading the house trio at Chicago’s hottest jazz club, The Beehive, where his group would back touring greats like saxophonists Wardell Gray, Lester Young and Charlie Parker. He formed his own group in 1949 and began recording in 1952. Norman’s composition Jan was a hit for tenor saxophonist Paul Bascomb in 1953. In 1966 his arrangement of Ramsey Lewis’ Wade In The Water became a huge commercial success. Later, after leading a nonet at the C & C Lounge, Simmons began accompanying jazz singers in 1958 and quickly earned a reputation as an exceptional accompanist.
Norman became widely known for his work with vocalists Helen Humes, Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Anita O’Day, Dakota Staton, Ernestine Anderson, Betty Carter, and Joe Williams, Norman has also performed and recorded nearly two-dozen albums as a sideman with Johnny Griffin, Red Holloway, Roy Eldridge, Harold Ousley, Warren Vache, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Scott Hamilton, Clifford Jordan, Von Freeman, Cy Touff, Victor Sproles, Wilbur Campbell, Al Grey and Bjarne Nerem.
Simmons’ arrangements have been heard through his work with Johnny Griffin on his White Gardenia and The Little Giant albums as well as Teri Thornton’s Devil May Care sessions. His personal catalogue is small only having five albums as a leader or co-leader.
As an educator he has taught at Paterson State College in New Jersey since 1982 and also participated in the Jazzmobile program for 20 years, fostering music education at New York’s public schools. Arranger, composer, educator, and pianist Norman Simmons continues to perform, record and tour and has been a member of the Ellington Legacy Band since 2002.
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Steve Swallow was born October 4, 1940 in Fair Lawn, New York. As a child, he studied piano and trumpet before turning to the double bass at age 14. While attending a prep school, he began trying his hand in jazz improvisation. While attending Yale and studying composition he left oin 1960, settled in New York and began playing in Jimmy Guiffre’s trio with Paul Bley. By 1964 he was with Art Farmer’s quartet where he began to write and during this period his long association with Gary Burton’s various bands commenced.
The early 1970s saw Swallow switching exclusively to the five-string electric bass guitar, encouraged by his favorite drummer Roy Haynes. Along with Monk Montgomery and Bob Cranshaw was one of the firsts to do so. He was an early adopter of the high C string and use of the upper register.
In 1974-76 Steve taught at the Berklee College of Music, contributed several of his compositions to the Berklee students who assembled the first edition of The Real Book. He later recorded an album of the same name, with the picture of a well-worn, coffee-stained Real Book on the cover. By 1978 he became an essential and constant member of Carla Bley’s band and her romantic partner since the 1980s. He toured extensively with John Scofield in the early Eighties, returning to this collaboration several times over the years.
Swallow has consistently won the electric bass category in Down Beat yearly polls, both Critics’ and Readers’, since the mid-80s. His compositions have been covered by, among others, Bill Evans, Chcick Corea, Stan Getz, Gary Burton and Jim Hall, who recorded his very first tune, Eiderdown. He has performed or recorded with Don Ellis, Dave Douglas, Steve Kuhn, Pete La Roca, Joe Lovano, Michael Mantler, Gary McFarland, Pat Metheny, Paul Motian, Jimmy Raney, Zoot Sims, Tore Johansen and George Russell.
Bassist Steve Swallow, who performs in the genres of cool, fusion, avant-garde, free, post-bop and hard bop jazz, has fourteen albums to his credit as a leader an co-leader and continues to perform, compose, record and tour.
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Howard Roberts was born on October 2, 1929 in Phoenix, Arizona and began playing guitar at the age of 8. By the time he was 15 he was playing professionally locally. He moved to Los Angeles in 1950 and with the help of Jack Marshall he began working with musicians, arrangers and songwriters including Neal Hefti, Henry Mancini, Bobby Troup, Chico Hamilton, George Van Eps and Barney Kessell.
Around 1956 Troup signed Howard to Verve Records as a solo artist and he he decided to concentrate on recording. He recorded both as a solo artist and “Wrecking Crew” session musician, a direction he would continue until the early 1970s. He would go on to play guitar on television themes such as The Twilight Zone, The Munsters, Bonanza, The Brady Bunch, Green Acres, Get Smart, Batman, Beverly Hillbillies, Andy Griffith, Peter Gunn, Mannix, Dick Van Dyke, I Dream of Jeannie, The Odd Couple and Mission Impossible among others. He also performed the theme for the classic Steve McQueen film Bullitt.
In 1961, Roberts designed a signature guitar, which was originally produced by Epiphone, a division of Gibson. The Howard Roberts signature was borne by two other models made by Gibson: the Howard Roberts Custom and the Howard Roberts Fusion III.
By 1963, Roberts recorded Color Him Funky and H.R. Is A Dirty Guitar Player, his first two albums after signing with Capitol Records. They both featured the same quartet with Roberts (guitar), bassist Chuck Berghofer, Earl Palmer on drums and Paul Bryant alternating with Burkley Kendrix on organ. He would go on to record nine albums with Capitol before signing with ABC Records/Impulse Records.
Over the course of his career he recorded with David Axelrod, June Christy, Buddy Collette, Milt Jackson, Hank Jones, John Klemmer, Charles Kynard, Herbie Mann, Thelonious Monk, Lalo Schifrin, Bud Shank, Bob Cooper, Gabor Szabo and Larry Williams, to name a few. As a member of the Wrecking Crew, he was a part of Phil Spector’s ‘Wall of Sound’ and played guitar on some of the most famous songs in pop music history.
From the late 1960s, Roberts began to focus on teaching rather than recording. He traveled around the country giving guitar seminars, and wrote several instructional books. For some years he also wrote an acclaimed column called “Jazz Improvisation” for Guitar Player magazine. he developed accelerated learning concepts and techniques, which led to the founding of Playback Music Publishing and the Guitar Institute of Technology. As a co-founder of GIT, now known as the Musicians Institute, his philosophy remains an integral part of the curriculum.
Guitarist Howard Roberts, who played rhythm and lead guitar, bass and mandolin, passed away of prostate cancer in Seattle, Washington on June 28, 1992. His life in music inspired the opening of Roberts Music Institute in Seattle, Washington, which is currently owned by his son, Jay Roberts.
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