Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Louie Bellson was born Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni on July 6, 1924 in Rock Falls, Illinois. He started playing drums at three years of age and at 15 pioneered the double-bass drum set-up. By 17 he triumphed over 40,000 drummers to win the Slingerland National Gene Krupa contest and graduated from high school in 1939.
1943 saw Bellson performing with Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee in the film “The Powers Girl” followed two more by the decade’s end. Between 1943 and 1952, he performed with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James and Duke Ellington, for whom he composed “Skin Deep” and “The Hawk Talks”. In 1952 he married Pearl Bailey, leaving Ellington to be her musical director, a union that lasted 38 years until her death in 1990.
Through the 1950s and 1960s, Louie performed with Jazz At The Philharmonic or J.A.T.P., Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie, again with Duke Ellington and Harry James, as well as appearing on several Ella Fitzgerald studio albums.
Equally adept as a big band or small group drummer, Bellson recorded extensively and led his own big and small bands, occasionally maintaining separate bands on each coast. His sidemen have included Blue Mitchell, Don Menza, Larry Novak, John Heard, Clark Terry, Pete and Conte Candoli and Snooky Young.
Louie Bellson, composer, arranger, bandleader and jazz educator passed away from Parkinson’ s disease on February 14, 2009.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Richard Wyands was born July 2, 1928 in Oakland, California and started working in local clubs when he was 16, graduated from San Francisco State College, and gained experience playing in the San Francisco Bay area.
Although his chordal voicings are a little reminiscent of Red Garland, he spent most of his career as a sideman playing a few early dates for Fantasy and accompanying Ella Fitzgerald and Carmen McRae in 1956. A move to New York in 1958 afforded him the opportunity to gig with Roy Haynes, Charles Mingus, Gigi Gryce’s quintet, Oliver Nelson, Etta Jones, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, and Gene Ammons, among others.
Wyands’ association with Kenny Burrell had him playing and touring extensively from 1964-1977. He has played with many other top musicians, including Freddie Hubbard, Zoot Sims, Frank Foster, the Illinois Jacquet Big Band, Benny Carter, Ernie Andrews, and Milt Hinton, among others.
Pianist Richard Wyands has also headed his own trios, but has only had a handful of sessions as a leader including dates for Storyville, DIW and Criss Cross. The hard bop pianist is best known as a sideman, has led a few of his own trios and continues to perform and tour.
Jazz Is Global – Share
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Andrew Hill was born June 30, 1931 in Chicago, Illinois and took up the piano at the age of thirteen, and was encouraged by Earl Hines. He studied informally until 1952. While a teenager he performed in rhythm and blues bands and toured with jazz musicians, including Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.
Hill first recorded as a sideman in 1954, but made his reputation recording as a leader for Blue Note from 1963 to 1970, featuring important post-bop musicians including Joe Chambers, Richard Davis, Eric Dolphy, Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, Woody Shaw and Tony Williams.
Hill is recognized as one of the most important innovators of jazz piano in the 1960s but rarely worked as a sideman after the 1960s, preferring to play his own compositions, which may have limited his public exposure.
As an educator he held positions at Portland State University, held residencies at Colgate University of Hamilton, Wesleyan University, University of Michigan, University of Toronto, Harvard University and Bennington College.
Returning to New York City in 1990, composer and pianist Andrew Hill, whose unique idiom of chromatic, modal and free improvisation, made his final public appearance on March 29, 2007 at Trinity Church. Suffering from lung cancer during his later years he died in his home on April 20, 2007. In May 2007, he became the first person to receive a posthumous honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gildo Mahones was born on June 29, 1929 in New York City and early in his career the pianist played with Joe Morris and Milt Jackson in the late Forties. After serving in the Army during the Korean War, he played with Lester Young from 1953 to 1956, where he made his recording debut.
By the late 50s he was touring with the Jazz Modes comprised of Charlie Rouse, Julius Watkins, Sonny Stitt and Benny Green. From 1959 to 1964 he played behind Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. When LHR split, Mahones relocated to Los Angeles working both as a studio musician and as a jazz sideman. Yet he would labor in obscurity for many years.
During this time he led his own trio, and as a mainstay in the West Coast jazz world, he appeared on recordings with such luminaries as O.C. Smith, Lou Rawls, James Moody, Harold Land, Frank Wess, Coleman Hawkins, Blue Mitchell, Leon Thomas, Jim Hall, Big Joe Turner, Lorez Alexandria, Benny Carter, Kenny Burrell, Pony Poindexter, Booker Ervin and Jimmy Witherspoon.
He led two record dates for Prestige in 1963 and 1964 and another for Interplay Records in 1990. For many years he was Lou Rawls music director, worked regularly at the Lighthouse and in 2013 played Berkeley’s Jazzschool. He continues to seek work and be active on the jazz scene.
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Pete Candoli was born Walter Joseph Candoli in Mishawaka, Indiana on June 28, 1923. And his professional career began 13 years later when he became a member of the American Federation of Musicians. Quickly finding a spot as lead trumpeter, by 1940 had become a member of Sonny Dunham’s band, a year later in Tommy Dorsey’s band and during this time from ’41 to ’43 he performed in three films – Las Vegas Nights, Girl Crazy and Upbeat In Music. By 1944 he was playing with the Teddy Powell and bringing his younger brother Conte into the major leagues of big band.
After 1945, Candoli worked with several bands including Stan Kenton’s, then drifted into the West Coast jazz and studio scenes. Despite his range, he rarely played lead, reserved instead for feature roles and became a sought after studio musician and favorite collaborator of many influential musicians and performers, including Peggy Lee, Henry Mancini and Frank Sinatra.
Pete was inducted into The International Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997, the “Big Band Hall of Fame” in 2003 and won the Down Beat, Metronome and Esquire “All American Band Trumpet Bronze Award”, and Look magazine named him one of the seven all-time outstanding jazz trumpet players—the others being Louis Armstrong, Bix Biederbecke, Harry James, Bunny Berigan, Dizzy Gillespie and Bobby Hackett.
Candoli’s solo work is notable for his eloquent roles, supportive of the efforts of others, was adroit in the use of staccato and had a reputation for his high-note ability, that was used in West Side Story’s Dance at the Gym sequence. Trumpeter Pete Candoli passed away from complications due to prostate cancer on January 11, 2008.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
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