Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sonny Sharrock was born Warren Harding Sharrock on August 27, 1940 in Ossining, New York. He began his musical career singing doo-wop in his teen years. One of few guitarists in the first wave of free jazz in the 1960s, Sonny was known for his incisive, heavily chorded attack, his highly-amplified bursts of wild feedback, and for his use of saxophone-like lines played loudly on guitar.
He collaborated with Pharoah Sanders and Alexander Solla in the late 1960s, appearing first on Sanders’s 1966 effort, “Tauhid”, made several appearances with flautist Herbie Mann and also made an un-credited guest appearance on Miles Davis’s “A Tribute to Jack Johnson”, perhaps his most famous cameo.
Sharrock released three albums as a leader in the late ’60s through the mid-’70s: Black Woman, Monkey-Pockie-Boo and Paradise. Following the last release he went into semi-retirement for much of the 1970s until bassist and producer Bill Laswell coaxed him out to play on a 1981 effort, Memory Serves. He would go on to join punk/jazz band Last Exit, record and perform with the improvisational group Machine Gun and would record another seven albums under his own name, such as, a solo project Guitar, the metal-influenced Seize the Rainbow, and the well-received Ask The Ages featuring Pharoah Sanders and Elvin Jones.
Best known for composing the soundtrack to “Space Ghost: Coast To Coast for the Cartoon Network, with more than thirty-two albums to his credit as a leader and sideman, guitarist Sonny Sharrock passed away of a heart attack on May 26, 1994 at age 53.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Peter Appleyard was born August 26, 1928 in Lincolnshire, England and became apprenticed to a nautical instrument maker after being forced to leave school due to economical reasons related to the Second World War. At that time the popularity of American Big Band music was growing in England, due to recordings by jazz legends like Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington and Count Basie.
Strongly influencing young Appleyard, he decided to pursue a career as a jazz musician and in the early 1940s began his career playing in the Boys Brigade, a youth organization. He went on to perform as a drummer in several other British dance bands and played in RAF bands.
In 1949 Appleyard moved to Bermuda, spent his holidays in Canada and picked up his first set of vibes, eventually settling in Toronto. He worked as a room booking clerk and a salesman studying music and soon thereafter began playing the vibraphone in concerts with Billy O’Connor in the early 1950s.
From 1954-1956 he played with a band at the Park Plaza Hotel, made numerous appearances on CBC Radio, his own jazz ensemble in 1957 and performed and toured throughout North America, appeared on American television during the 1960s. He would go on to host radio and television programs, work with Benny Goodman’s sextet, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie Orchestra, and continue to perform in Toronto nightclubs and lounges while double as music director for several bands.
In 1982 Appleyard formed the All Star Swing Band that Swing Fever, earning a gold record and a nomination for a Juno Award for Instrumental Artist of the Year. Following Goodman’s death, he formed the Benny Goodman Tribute Band in 1985, leads the “Swing Fever Band”, has had several concert tours for NATO, and has performed for Canadian and American servicemen at the North Pole Christmas Show in Greenland.
With more than two-dozen albums under his belt, vibraphonist Peter Appleyard has received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee award and regularly traveled, toured and performed around the world until his passing of natural causes on July 17, 2013 in Eden Mills, Ontario, Canada. He was 84 years old.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Carrie Smith was born Carrie Louise Smith on August 25, 1925 in Fort Gaines, Georgia and as a member of her church choir performed at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival.
She first won notice singing with Big Tiny Little in the early Seventies, but became internationally known in 1974 when she played Bessie Smith (no relation) in Dick Hyman’s “Satchmo Remembered” at Carnegie Hall. She then launched a solo career, performing into the 80s with the New York Jazz Repertory Orchestra, Tyree Glenn, Yank Lawson, and the World’s Greatest Jazz Band.
Carrie recorded a dozen albums as a soloist for several small labels, starred in the Broadway musical “Black and Blue” from 1989 to 1991 and though not well known in the United States, she had a cult following in Europe.
“Harlem on Parade 77” is an album credited to Smith, Buddy Tate, Doc Cheatham and Hank Jones, featuring Dick Vance, Budd Johnson, Eddie Barefield and Oliver Jackson. She was featured on Winard Harper’s Faith album, Dick Hyman’s Piano Players & Significant Others live recording, and Art Hode’s Authentic Rhythm Section. In 1995 she collaborated with Bross Townsend “I Love Jump Jazz”. Jazz singer Carrie Smith passed away on May 20, 2012.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gil Coggins was born Alvin Gilbert Coggins on August 23, 1928 in New York City of West Indian heritage and started playing piano at an early age. He attended The High School of Music and Art in Harlem and also school in Barbados.
In 1946, Coggins met Miles Davis while stationed in Missouri and after his discharge he began playing piano professionally, working with Davis on several of his Blue Note and Prestige releases. He also recorded with John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Ray Draper and Jackie McLean.
Coggins gave up playing jazz professionally in 1954 and took up a career in real estate, playing music only occasionally. He did not record as a leader until 1990, when Interplay Records released “Gil’s Mood”. He continued performing through the 190s and into the new millennium. On February 15, 2004 pianist Gil Coggins passed away from complications sustained in a car crash eight months earlier in Forest Hills, New York. His second album recorded as a leader, “Better Late Than Never”, was released posthumously in 2007 on the Smalls Records label.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Malachi Favors was born August 22, 1927 in Lexington, Mississippi. He began playing double bass at age fifteen and began performing professionally upon graduating high school. His early performances included work with Dizzy Gillespie and Freddie Hubbard. But by 1965, he was a founding member of the AACM – Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and a member of Muhal Richard Abrams’ Experimental Band.
Malachi was a protégé of Chicago bassist Wilbur Ware. His first known recording was a 1953 session with tenor saxophonist Paul Bascomb and four years later recorded with pianist Andrew Hill. He began working with Roscoe Mitchell in 1966 and this group eventually became the Art Ensemble of Chicago, for which he is most prominently known. Favors also worked outside the group, with artists including Sunny Murray, Archie Shepp and Dewey Redman.
Favors’ most notable records include “Natural and the Spiritual”, “Sightsong” andthe 1994 Roman Bunka collaboration and recording at the Berlin Jazz Fest of the German Critics Poll Winner album “Color Me Cairo”.
At some point in his career Malachi added the word “Maghostut” to his name and because of this he is commonly listed on recordings as Malachi Favors Maghostut.
Most associated musically with bebop, hard bop and particularly free jazz, Favors not only plays the double bass but electric bass, guitar, banjo, zither, gong and other instruments. Malachi Favors died of pancreatic cancer in Chicago, Illinois on January 30, 2004 at the age of 76.
