Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roosevelt “Baby Face” Willette was born on September 11, 1933 in New Orleans, Louisiana. His mother was a missionary who played the piano in the church where his father was a minister. His musical roots are therefore in gospel and Baby Face taught himself the piano and started out playing the piano for various gospel groups, and spent his early career touring across the United States, Canada and Cuba.
It was in Chicago that Willette decided to switch from gospel and rhythm & blues to playing jazz. He played piano with the bands of King Kolax, Joe Houston, Johnny Otis and Big Jay McNeely before switching to organ. He was inspired by Jimmy Smith’s work, however, his playing style remained heavily influenced by gospel and soul jazz. Based in Milwaukee he performed with his vocalist wife Jo Gibson at such clubs as The Flame Club, The Pelican, The Moonglow and Max’s among others.
In 1960 he moved to New York City where he met Lou Donaldson and Grant Green, and played on a few Blue Note sessions with them. This led to Willette being signed to the label, which recorded his debut album Face To Face. After stints in New York City, and then California, failing health forced a return to Chicago, where his family resided. This would eventually become his final resting place as he passed away on April 1,1971.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Elvin Ray Jones was born on September 9, 1927 in Pontiac, Michigan. By age two he said he knew he held a fascination for drums watching the drummers in circus marching band parades go by his home. Elvin joined his high school’s black marching band, where he developed his rudimentary foundation. Upon discharge from the Army in 1949 he borrowed thirty-five dollars from his sister to buy his first drum set.
In Detroit, Jones played with Billy Mitchell’s house band at Detroit’s Grand River Street Club before moving to New York in 1955 where he worked as a sideman for Charles Mingus, Teddy Charles, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Wardell Gray and Miles Davis. By 1960 he was working with John Coltrane on his seminal work “A Love Supreme” and the relationship lasted until 1966.
Remaining active after leaving Coltrane, Elvin led several bands in the late sixties and seventies that are considered highly influential groups, notably a trio with saxophonist Joe Farrell and bassist Jimmy Garrison. He recorded extensively for Blue Note under his own name during this period with groups featuring prominent as well as up and coming greats like George Coleman, Lee Morgan, Frank Foster, Steve Grossman, Dave Liebman and Pepper Adams to name a few.
Elvin Jones’ sense of timing, polyrhythms, dynamics, timbre, and legato phrasing brought the drums to the foreground and his free-flowing style was a major influence on many leading rock drummers, including Mitch Mitchell and Ginger Baker. He performed and recorded with his own group, the Elvin Jones Jazz Machine, whose line up changed through the years, and recorded with both his brothers Hank and Thad over the course of his career.
He taught regularly, often taking part in clinics, playing in schools and giving free concerts in prisons. His lessons emphasized music history as well as drumming technique. Elvin Jones died of heart failure in Englewood, New Jersey on May 18, 2004.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wilbur Ware was born in Chicago, Illinois on September 8, 1923. He taught himself to play banjo and bass. In the 1940s, he worked with Stuff Smith, Sonny Stitt and Roy Eldridge. In the ‘50s, Ware played with Eddie Vinson, Art Blakey, Johnny Griffin and Buddy DeFranco.
Ware played simply, strongly, and melodically, with a big, hard-bop percussive sound. His best known for his hard bop percussive style and his most important Wilbur Ware records are three dates with the Thelonious Monk Quartet in 1957-58. The best Monk sides are the three perfect quartet tracks with John Coltrane and Shadow Wilson, followed by the uneven all-star “Monk’s Music” date, where one can hear Ware’s great harmonic insight on “Well You Needn’t”. These dates along with the Sonny Rollins Village Vanguard sets with Elvin Jones are examples of his finest recorded work.
Ware and fellow bassist Israel Crosby were leading examples of the more laid-back “Chicago Sound” approach to the bass during the 1950’s. By 1969, Ware had played with Clifford Jordan, Elvin Jones and Sonny Rollins. He later moved to Philadelphia, where the double-bassist died from emphysema on September 9,1979. He was 56 years old.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Theodore Walter “Sonny” Rollins was born on September 7, 1930 in New York City to parents from the U.S. Virgin Islands. The young Theodore started out at eleven years old on the piano, receiving his first alto saxophone at thirteen and by sixteen switched to the tenor. By high school he was playing in a band with other future jazz greats like Jackie McLean and Kenny Drew.
1949 saw Rollins recording with Babs Gonzales, J. J. Johnson and Bud Powell and through 1954 performed with Miles Davis, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. During this early period in the fifties he was arrested for armed robbery, arrested for violating his parole using heroin and sentenced the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, KY where he kicked his habit, although he was afraid sobriety would impair his musicianship. Little did he know at the time he would soar to greater height.
His early influences Louis Jordan, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young which did so much to inspire the fleet improvisation of be-bop in the 1950s. Rollins drew the two threads together as a fluid post-bop improviser with a sound as strong and resonant as any since Hawkins himself.
Sonny’s widely acclaimed sixth album “Saxophone Colossus” was recorded on June 22, 1956 at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in New Jersey, with Tommy Flanagan, Doug Watkins and Max Roach. This seminal work led to “Tenor Madness” with Garland, Chambers, Jones and Coltrane, and Sonny Rollins volume One & Two.
By 1959, Rollins was frustrated with what he perceived as his own musical limitations and took the first – and most famous – of his musical sabbaticals. To spare a neighboring expectant mother the sound of his practice routine, Rollins ventured to the Williamsburg Bridge to practice. Upon his return to the jazz scene in 1962 he named his “comeback” album “The Bridge” at the start of a contract with RCA Records, recorded with a quartet featuring guitarist Jim Hall, drummer Ben Riley and bassist Bob Cranshaw. This became one of Rollins’ best-selling records.
Over a very lengthy career spanning more than six decades, the Grammy winning saxophonist, Sonny Rollins, has recorded some 50 albums as a leader and two dozen albums as a sideman. He continues to record, perform and tour today.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Clifford Laconia Jordan was born on September 2, 1931 in Chicago, Illinois and began his musical studies on the piano at an early age. While still in his hometown he took up the saxophone and had the opportunity to play with Max Roach, Sonny Stitt and a few rhythm and blues groups into the 50s. By 1957 at the age of 26, he made his move to New York City where he recorded three albums for Blue Note.
Over the course of his career Clifford recorded with Horace Silver, J. J. Johnson, Kenny Dorham, Lee Morgan, Max Roach and Paul Chambers. In 1964 he joined the Charles Mingus Sextet along with Eric Dolphy for the European tour. For a while he lived in Belgium, performed in Paris and toured Africa with Randy Weston.
Jordan’s later years saw him leading his own groups, performing with Cedar Walton’s Eastern Rebellion and even led his own big band. He recorded eighteen sessions as a leader and another 28 as a sideman. Saxophonist Clifford Jordan passed away on March 27, 1993 in Manhattan.
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