Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ornette Coleman was born March 9, 1930 hailing from Fort Worth, Texas where he began performing R&B and bebop on the tenor. He found his way out of Texas taking a job with traveling shows, first Silas Green and then rhythm and blues. After his tenor was destroyed in an attack, Ornette switched to alto that has remained his primary instrument.
From the beginning Coleman was ear was unorthodox, his approach to harmony and chord progression was less rigid than that of bebop musicians who considered him out-of-tune. However there were some who heard the same sound and by the 50s he was making music with Paul Bley, Don Cherry, Billy Higgins, Don Payne, Walter Norris, Shelly Manne and Charlie Haden.
Regarded by some as iconoclastic, others like conductor Leonard Bernstein and composer Virgil Thomson saw his genius and innovation. Ornette became one of the major influences in the free jazz movement and a major player in the genesis of avant-garde jazz. Throughout the sixties and seventies he played with Freddie Hubbard, Eric Dolphy, Scott LaFaro and Ed Blackwell and introduced brief thematic dissonant fanfares, regular but complex pulse and solos where band mates were able to chime in as they wish.
His friendship with Albert Ayler influenced his development of the trumpet and violin. His evolution continued and subsequent quartets included his son Denardo, Sunny Murray, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones, and Dewey Redman. It also forwarded his sojourn into electrified instruments, adopting a jazz-fusion mode fashionable at the time and bringing in such artists as Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. He has brought to his recordings Pat Metheny, Geri Allen, and Joachim Kuhn but seldom appeared as a sideman.
Ornette Coleman is a saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer whose timbre is easily recognized with his keen, crying sound drawing upon the blues. In 2007 he won a Pulitzer for his album Sound Grammar and honored with a Grammy for lifetime achievement He continued to push the envelope with younger musicians from radically different cultures until his passing on June 11, 2015 in Manhattan, New York.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Edward Coleman, born March 8, 1935 in Memphis, Tennessee, taught himself to play alto saxophone during his teen years inspired by Charlie Parker. Growing up his classmates were Harold Mabern, Booker Little, Frank Strozier, Hank Crawford and Charles Lloyd.
He began his career working with Ray Charles and by 1953 joined B. B. King where he switched to tenor. Moving to Chicago with Booker Little in 1956 he started working with Gene Ammons and Johnny Griffin before joining Max Roach in ’58. Coleman recorded with Jimmy Smith, Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, Eddie McFadden, Kenny Burrell and Donald Bailey before moving to New York with Max Roach.
Subsequent gigs with Ron Carter, Slide Hampton, Jimmy Cobb and Wild Bill Davis led him to become a part of the Miles Davis Quintet, recording among others Seven Steps to Heaven, My Funny Valentine and Four and More. This was followed up with his joining Herbie Hancock on his seminal work Maiden Voyage.
A foray into Hollywood placed Coleman on the sets of Freejack with Estevez, Jagger and Hopkins and on the Preacher’s Wife set with Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston.
The hard bop tenor, bandleader, composer and educator George Coleman has an impressive list of performances and recordings too numerous to name but suffice it to say he has worked with everyone from Mingus to Jamal to Hampton from the 60’s to the present day. He continues to lead his own groups, performing and recording regularly both as a leader and sideman.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Leslie “Wes” Montgomery was born on March 6, 1923 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Although he started learning guitar relatively late at the age of 19 and not skilled at reading music, Wes had an incredible ear, learning by listening to the recordings of his idol Charlie Christian. He began his self-taught education in 1943 using his thumb instead of a pick and by the end of the decade he was touring with Lionel Hampton.
Montgomery’s recording can be divided into three periods. His Riverside recordings from 1959-1963 were spontaneous small group sessions; the orchestral dates with arranger Don Sebesky and producer Cecil Taylor at Verve were from ’64 to ’66; and the Creed Taylor years of simple pop melodies underscored with strings and woodwinds. The later sessions produced three best-selling albums that introduced AM radio listeners to jazz and his performances were as freewheeling as his earlier Riverside records.
Considered one of the seminal figures of jazz guitar in the company of innovators like Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt; Wes alongside Tal Farlow, Johnny Smith, Jim Raney and Barney Kessell put guitar on the map as a bebop/post-bop instrument. He is credited with influencing future guitar lions Pat Martino, George Benson, Emily Remler, Kenny Burrell, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Pat Metheny.
During his career he would team up with his brother Monk who played string and electric bass and Buddy, who played vibes and piano, releasing a number of albums as the Montgomery Brothers. His career garnered him two Grammy nominations, a Grammy award, Down Beat’s New Star award, and Down Beat Critic’s Poll award for best jazz guitarist from ‘60 to ‘63 and from ‘66 to ‘67. At the height of his career and his success, Wes Montgomery succumbed to a heart attack on June 15, 1968 in his hometown of Indianapolis.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Pee Wee Moore was born Numa Smith Moore on March 5, 1928 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Attending Hampton Institute as a pre-med major, after one semester switched to music taking up the saxophone, joining the Royal Hamptonians and touring on a USO circuit. While asleep in the back seat driving back to New York, Pee Wee lost his left eye in a car accident. However this had no effect on his playing.
In the 30’s Moore played with the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra, recorded with Floyd Ray and sat alongside Dizzy Gillespie in the Les Hite big band from 1939 to 1942. His first recordings with Dizzy Gillespie’s ensemble occurred from 1946-47.
Throughout the fifties Moore played with Lucky Millinder, Louis Jordan, Illinois Jacquet, James Moody, Mary Lou Williams and Dizzy Gillespie, whom he recorded several albums with for Verve. He worked with pianist Bill Doggett in the mid-sixties.
Moore moved back to Raleigh to care for his ailing mother and recover from alcohol addiction. Earning a living as a handyman, he continued to play throughout the rest of his life at various venues in the Raleigh-Durham area. On April 13, 2009 jazz saxophonist Pee Wee Moore passed away at the age of 81.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Zenzile Miriam Makeba was born on March 4, 1932 in the Prospect Township of Johannesburg, South Africa. Known to her many fans as simply Miriam Makeba or Mama Afrika, her career spanned more than 50 years.
As a child, she sang at the Kilmerton Training Institute in Pretoria, while attending for eight years followed by touring with an amateur group. Her professional career began in the 1950s with the Manhattan Brothers prior to her forming her own group, The Skylarks, singing a blend of jazz and traditional melodies of South Africa.
By 1959 she was performing in the musical King Kong with her future husband Hugh Masekela and though she became a successful recording artist, she received a pittance for her work without residual royalties. However in the same year her big break arrived when she was given a short guest appearance in the indie anti-apartheid documentary “Come Back, Africa” and she made such an impression that the director managed a visa for her to leave the country for the Venice Film Festival.
Traveling to London she met Harry Belafonte who assisted her in gaining entry to and fame in the United States. She released many of her most famous hits there including “Pata Pata”, “The Click Song” and “Malaika”. In 1966, Makeba, in collaboration with Belafonte received a Grammy for Best Folk recording “An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba” that dealt South African apartheid.
Miriam went on to perform at the 1974 Rumble In The Jungle between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, on Paul Simon’s Graceland, authored an autobiography, starred in Sarafina, guest appeared on the Cosby Show, took part in Amandla: A Revolution in Four Part Harmony and returned to South Africa under the persuasion of Nelson Mandela.
She was awarded the Dag Hammarskjöld Peace Prize, was named Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, was awarded the UN Gold Otto Hahn Peace Medal and voted 38th in the top 100 Great South Africans. While on a concert stage taking a stand against injustice against humanity singing her hit song “Pata Pata”, she succumbed to a heart attack on November 9, 2008.
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