Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Curtis Counce was born in Kansas City, Missouri on January 23, 1926. Studying violin and tuba early on before settling on the string bass, he went on the road when he was 16, playing with the Nat Towles Band in Omaha.
After some freelancing, Counce moved to Los Angeles in 1945, working with Johnny Otis and making his recording debut the following year with Lester Young. During the ‘50’s he was a key member of the West Coast jazz scene, recording as a sideman with Shelly Manne, Lyle Murphy, Teddy Charles, Clifford Brown, and many others.
In 1956, Counce organized a quintet comprised of trumpeter Jack Sheldon, tenor saxophonist Harold Land, pianist Carl Perkins, and drummer Frank Butler. During a 15-month period, they recorded enough material to document their endeavor, all of which were originally released by Contemporary and fall stylistically between West Coast cool jazz and hard bop.
Changing personnel, the Curtis Counce Quintet recorded a final album for the Dooto label before breaking up in 1958. The bassist continued working in the Los Angeles area until his death on July 31,1963 from a heart attack.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
J. R. Monterose was born Frank Anthony Peter Vincent Monterose, Jr. in Detroit Michigan on January 19, 1927. A few months after his birth, the family moved to Utica, New York and this is where he began formal clarinet studies at thirteen. After hearing the Glenn Miller soloist Tex Beneke J.R. taught himself to play tenor saxophone with his early influences Coleman Hawkins and Chu Berry. He also found harmonic inspiration in pianist Bud Powell and learned chord changes from guitarist Sam Mancuso.
Monterose first stepped into the professional arena playing in upstate New York territory dance bands in the late forties. In 1950 he joined the Henry “Hot Lips” Busse touring orchestra, then the Buddy Rich band in ’51 but left for lack of soloing opportunities.
By the mid to late 50s he was in New York City as a featured soloist with Claude Thornhil’s orchestra and with vibraphonist Teddy Charles’ modernist groups, Charles Mingus’s Jazz Workshop and Kenny Dorham’s short-lived Jazz Prophets. He recorded two sessions with Alfred Lion for Blue Note as a leader, “J.R. Monterose” in 1956 and “The Message” in 1959.
Throughout his life he continued to pursue his ever-evolving craft in small time U.S. venues and during extended stays in the late 1960’s through the mid 1970’s in Belgium, The Netherlands and Denmark with occasional low-profile recordings. His preference for small group work in out of the way places would shape much of his subsequent career, contributing to the musical growth upon which he was always so intently focused but ultimately relegating him to an undeserved obscurity.
He steadfastly refused to be pigeonholed in any particular style and was quoted as saying “ I’ve tried all my life to avoid copying. If I can’t be myself, there’s no point in being in jazz”. Tenor saxophonist J.R. Monterose passed away on September 16, 1993.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wilbert Granville Thodore Hogan Jr., better known as G. T., was born January 16, 1929 in Galveston, Texas. He started out playing saxophone into high school but then switched to the drums. He started playing professionally with Earl Bostic from 1953-55 prior to his move to New York City.
During this period G. T. worked with Randy Weston, recorded with Elmo Hope and was closely associated with Bud Powell during his Parisian sojourn. Over the course of his career he worked with Kenny Drew, Walter Bishop Jr., Ray Charles, Kenny Dorham, Cecil Payne, Wilbur Ware, Julian Priester and Hank Crawford.
A brilliant drummer whose backbeat personified the kind of rhythmic approach that easily made Hogan recognizable as a Texas drummer and whose magnificence shone when teamed with an individualistic pianist. By the 70s he became less active in music but continued into the 90s when he began to suffer from emphysema. Recording on more than 50 albums and credited in a variety of ways as Granville Hogan, Wilbert Hogan, G. T. Hogan, W. T. Hogan and Wilbert G. T. Hogan, the drummer passed away on August 7, 2004 in San Antonio, Texas.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Onzy Matthews was born in Fort Worth, Texas on January 15, 1936, grew up in Dallas until he was 14, when his mother pulled up stakes and moved to Los Angeles for a better job. He graduated from high school at 16 and had already decided he wanted to sing. Nearly every day he walked to a nearby park, where he could play piano for hours in the recreation building.
Augmenting his early gospel roots with healthy doses of smooth California jazz and big band music, Matthews taught himself to accompany his singing on piano until he realized he needed arrangements.
He attended Westlake College of Music, studied ear training and harmony, started singing with a dance band and learning about arranging. After several years of performing, attending concerts and asking questions he had 21 original songs arranged for big band.
His musical career sprang from eight bars of music. As an aspiring singer, pianist and composer in 1963, a young Mr. Matthews gave his first professional arrangement to Les Brown for a tryout with the Band of Renown. Out of the arrangement came 8 bars that sounded good to Onzy and Les Brown advised him to take those 8 bars and start from there. Doing so he went on to become one of the most sought-after arrangers in jazz and pop music. It was later through Dexter Gordon that these first twenty-one were played by the best musicians in Hollywood that turned into a regular Wednesday night jam session. The word spread and he started getting courted by record labels to work with their artists.
Onzy’s first major arranging job was on Lou Rawls’ album Black & Blue, followed by his debut as a leader in 1964 on “Blues With A Touch Of Elegance” for Capitol. About a year later, with his career in full swing, he held a guest spot on a New York radio show hosted by mercer Ellington who introduced him to his dad, friendship was struck and four years later became collaborators, filling the void from Billy Strayhorn’s death.
Matthews tailors the arrangements according to the empathy of the artist by listening to the artist and arranging to bring out things in them they weren’t aware of. This was his magic. After Ellington death in ’74, he moved to Seattle, formed a big band for three years moved between Texas and New York and finally moved to Paris in ’79, put together another big band, played with Miles Davis and finally moved back to Dallas in 1994.
Onzy D. Matthews, whose 35-year career had him working with some of jazz’s most notables, was discovered in his Dallas apartment passed away at his typewriter by jazz singer Jeanette Brantley and her husband Hans Wango on November 15, 1997. He was 67.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Grady Tate was born January 14, 1932 in Durham, North Carolina who began singing at age four, drums at five. However music was not in his immediate future as he earned a degree from North Carolina Central University with a degree in English literature/drama, a minor in psychology and taught English and speech in Washington, DC. Fortunately for the jazz world his desire to pursue an acting career lead him to New York City and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and once in New York his reputation as an outstanding musician resulted in work with Quincy Jones.
Grady Tate’s drumming helped to define a particular hard bop, soul jazz and organ trio sound during the mid 1960’s and beyond. His slick, layered and intense sound is instantly recognizable for its understated style in which he integrates his trademark subtle nuances with sharp, crisp “on top of the beat” timing (in comparison to playing slightly before, or slightly after the beat). The Grady Tate sound can be heard prominently on the many classic Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery albums recorded on the Verve label in the 1960s.
He has been a member of the New York Jazz Quartet, the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson for six years, and his most widely heard vocal performances are the songs “I Got Six”, “Naughty Number Nine”, and “Fireworks” from Multiplication Rock and America Rock part of the Schoolhouse Rock series.
Grady Tate’s popularity as choice sideman of accomplished musicians is due to his remarkable intuitiveness and ability to make any style of music swing tastefully, and his interpretation of many different genres of music, in which he creates his own unique style of jazz led him to work with a host of talent, the short list including Lionel Hampton, Sarah Vaughan, Jimmy Smith, Grant Green, Stanley Turrentine, Lena Horne, Astrud Gilberto, Ella Fitzgerald, Cal Tjader, Bill Evans and Stan Getz.
Grady Tate, baritone vocalist and drummer has been on the faculty of Howard University since 1989.