Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Mandel was born John Alfred Mandel on November 23, 1925 in New York, New York. His mother, an opera singer, discovered he had perfect pitch at age five. Piano lessons ensued but Johnny switched to the trumpet and later the trombone.
Johnny studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the Julliard School. By 1943 he was playing trumpet with Joe Venuti, in 1944 with Billy Rogers and then trombone in the bands of Boyd Raeburn, Jimmy Dorsey, Buddy Rich, George Auld and Chubby Jackson. In 1949 he accompanied singer June Christy in the Bob Cooper Orchestra, then with Elliot Lawrence’s outfit, followed by a stint with Count Basie and a move to Los Angeles, California to play with Zoot Sims.
In the late Forties and into the Fifties he wrote jazz compositions like “Not Really the Blues” for Woody Herman, “Hershey Bar” and “Pot Luck” for Stan Getz, “Straight Life” and “Low Life” for Count Basie as well as “Tommyhawk” for Chet Baker. Mandel composed, conducted and arranged the music for numerous movie sound tracks with his earliest credited contribution to “I Want To Live” in 1958 being nominated for a Grammy. Mandel’s most famous compositions include “Suicide Is Painless” from M*A*S*H, “Close Enough for Love”, “Emily”, “A Time for Love”, and “The Shadow Of Your Smile” which won an Oscar for Best Song and a Grammy for Song Of The Year in 1966.
Mandel is a recipient of the 2011 NEA Jazz Masters Award, has won several Grammy Awards for Best Instrumental Arrangements Accompanying Vocals for Quincy Jones’ Velas, Natalie & Nat King Cole’s Unforgettable and Shirley Horn’s Here’s To Life. He has composed music with lyricists Alan & Marilyn Bergman, Paul Williams and Johnny Mercer; and arranged for Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand, Diana Krall, The Diva Jazz Orchestra and Ann Hampton Calloway among numerous others.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Don Cherry was born Donald Eugene Cherry on November 18, 1936 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His father, trumpeter and club owner moved the family to Watts in Los Angeles, California when he was four. He would skip high school at Fremont to play with the swing band at Jefferson High, resulting in his transfer to reform school at Jacob Riis, where he first met drummer Billy Higgins.
By the early 50s Cherry was playing with jazz musicians in Los Angeles, sometimes acting as pianist in Art Farmer’s group. While trumpeter Clifford Brown was in L. A. he would informally mentor him. He became well known in 1958 when he performed and recorded with Ornette Coleman quintet. He co-led The Avant-Garde session with John Coltrane replacing Coleman, toured with Sonny Rollins, joined the New York Contemporary Five and recorded with Albert Ayler and George Russell.
Don’s first recording as a leader was Complete Communion for Blue Note in 1965 with Ed Blackwell and Gato Barbieri. He would begin leaning toward funk/fusion and play sparse jazz during his Scandinavia years. He would go on to play with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, Carla Bley, Lou Reed, and Sun Ra, and then ventured into developing world fusion music incorporating Middle Eastern, African and Indian into his playing.
Cherry appeared on the Red Hot Organization’s compilation CD, Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool, was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame, played piano, pocket trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn and bugle. He recorded some two-dozen albums as a leader and some 48 as a sideman. Don Cherry died on October 19, 1995 at age 58 from liver cancer in Málaga, Spain.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Kennedy, Jr. on November 17, 1923 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and was introduced to the violin by his grandfather. During his induction in the Army he performed with the Camp Lee Symphony Orchestra in Petersburg, Virginia. Returning home he cut his jazz teeth as a member of the Four Strings along with Ahmad Jamal, with Mary Lou Williams supervising their debut recording session.
Kennedy would go on to study and earn degrees at Carnegie Mellon, Virginia State College, Duquesne University. As an educator with the Richmond Public Schools he was the Instrumental Music Supervisor, Supervisor of Music and Supervisor of Secondary Arts and Humanities, Director of Jazz Studies at Virginia Tech and Virginia Commonwealth University developing “An Introduction to African American Music” at the latter.
Joe would be one of the first Blacks to become the Resident Violinist with the Richmond Symphony from 1963 – 1981, traveled abroad with the Benny Carter All-Stars and performed at numerous concerts and festivals throughout the United States, and Europe.
Kennedy performed and recorded several albums as a leader as well as with pianist Ahmad Jamal. He performed with Benny Carter, Toots Thielemans, Billy Taylor and the Modern Jazz Quartet among others. Violinist, composer, arranger and educator Joe Kennedy, Jr., recipient of the 2001 Legacy Award, passed away on April 17, 2004.
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From Broadway To 52nd Street
The music composed by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart seven months earlier for a new two act musical called Spring Is Here opened at the Alvin theatre on March 11, 1929 and ran for 104 performances. It starred Dick Keene, Inez Courtney and John Hundley. Adapted from the play Shotgun Wedding, from this production came two songs destined to become a classic in the jazz world, With A Song In My Heart and Spring Is Here.
The Story: Terry loves Betty, Betty falls for Stacy and attempt to elope but are stopped by her father. Terry flirts with other girls to make Betty jealous. It works and she returns to his arms for the happy ending.
Broadway History: The “Great White Way” is a nickname for a section of Broadway in the midtown section of the borough of Manhattan, specifically the portion that encompasses the Theatre District, between 42nd and 53rd Streets, and encompassing Times Square. However, this was not always the location of the theatre district. In 1880, a stretch of Broadway between Union Square and Madison Square was illuminated by Brush arc lamps, making it among the first electrically lighted streets in the United States.
By the 1890s, the portion from 23rd to 34th Street was so brightly illuminated by electrical advertising signs, that people began calling it The Great White Way. When the theatre district moved uptown, the name was transferred to the Times Square area. The phrase Great White Way has been attributed to Shep Friedman, columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph in 1901, who lifted the term from the title of a book about the Arctic by Albert Paine. The headline “Found on the Great White Way” appeared in the February 3, 1902, edition of the New York Evening Telegram.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Idris Muhammad was born Leo Morris on November 13, 1939 In New Orleans, Louisiana. Learning to play drums in his youth, at fifteen he played on Fats Domino’s 1956 hit “Blueberry Hill” and by sixteen he turned professional, playing primarily soul and R&B during the early sixties. In 1965 he was a member of Lou Donaldson’s band, then went on to become the house drummer for Prestige Records from 1970-72.
As a sideman Idris would play with Johnny Griffin, Nat Adderley, George Benson, Paul Desmond, Pharoah Sanders, George Coleman and the Paris Reunion Band and record with Ahmad Jamal, Grant Green, Grover Washington, Jr., Hank Crawford, Benjamin Herman, Andrew Hill, Freddie Hubbard, Bobbi Humphrey, Gene Ammons, Rodney Jones and Houston Person among others.
Known for his funky playing style, as a leader he has recorded everything from post-bop to dance music for such labels as Prestige, Kudu, Fantasy, Theresa, and Lipstick. He changed his name in the 1960s upon his conversion to Islam and is endorsed by Istanbul Agop cymbals. Drummer Idris Muhammad continues to compose, record and perform.
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