Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Attila Cornelius Zoller was born on June 13, 1927 in Visegrád, Hungary. As a child, he learned violin from his father, a professional violinist. While in school, he played flugelhorn and bass before landing on the guitar. Dropping out of school he played in jazz clubs in Budapest while Russia occupied Hungary. He fled Hungary on foot through the Austrian mountains with his guitar in 1948 as the Soviet Union was establishing communist military rule. Settling in Vienna, he became an Austrian citizen and started a jazz group with accordionist Vera Auer.
The mid-1950s saw Zoller moving to Germany and playing with Jutta Hipp and Hans Koller. When American jazz musicians passed through, such as Oscar Pettiford and Lee Konitz, they persuaded him to move to the United States. He moved to the states after receiving a scholarship to the Lenox School of Jazz. One of his teachers was guitarist Jim Hall and his roommate was Ornette Coleman, who got him interested in free jazz.
From 1962–1965, Zoller performed in a group with flautist Herbie Mann, then Lee Konitz and Albert Mangelsdorff. Over the years, he played and recorded with Benny Goodman, Stan Getz, Red Norvo, Jimmy Raney, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Shirley Scott, Cal Tjader, Jimi Hendrix, and in New York City jazz clubs in the 1960s with pianist Don Friedman.
During the Seventies he started the Attila Zoller Jazz Clinics in Vermont, later named the Vermont Jazz Center, where he taught until 1998. He invented a bi-directional pickup, designed strings and a signature guitar series. Between the years 1989 and 1998, he played more and more with the German vibraphonist Wolfgang Lackerschmid. They also did recordings together. He performed with Tommy Flanagan and George Mraz in New York City three weeks before his transition in Townshend, Vermont on January 25, 1998.
More Posts: bandleader,educator,guitar,history,instrumental,inventor,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Maurice Vander born Vanderschueren, on June 11, 1929 in Vitry-sur-Seine, Val-de-Marne, France. He worked in the 1950s with Don Byas, Django Reinhardt, Bobby Jaspar, Jimmy Raney, Stephane Grappelli, Chet Baker, and Kenny Clarke.
In the 1960s he was a session musician for Roger Guerin, Pierre Gossez, and Boulou Ferré, and played with Claude Nougaro and Ivan Jullien. He won the Prix Django Reinhardt in 1962.
Playing with Baker again in the late 1970s he went on to work with Johnny Griffin. His later work included performing and recording with Clarke, Richie Cole, Art Farmer, and Benny Powell.
Pianist Maurice Vander transitioned on February 16, 2017 in Paris, France.
More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Pasco Gourley, Jr. was born June 9, 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri. He met saxophonist Lee Konitz in Chicago when both were members of the same high school band and credits Konitz with encouraging him to become a serious musician.
His father started the Monarch Conservatory of Music in Hammond, Indiana, though he didn’t teach and bought his son his first guitar. Jimmy took his first guitar classes at the school and became interested in jazz while listening to the radio, enjoying in particular Nat King Cole. For his first professional experience as a performer, he dropped out of high school to play with a jazz band in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
From 1944 to 1946 Gourley served in the U.S. Navy. Upon his return to Chicago, Illinois he met guitarist Jimmy Raney and wanted to play like him. He worked in bars and clubs with Jackie Cain & Roy Kral, Anita O’Day, Sonny Stitt, and Gene Ammons. Through the G.I. Bill he received tuition for three years to any college in the world.
Beginning in 1951, Jimmy spent the rest of his life in France, working with Henri Renaud, Lou Bennett, Kenny Clarke, Richard Galliano, Stéphane Grappelli, Bobby Jaspar, Eddy Louiss, Martial Solal, and Barney Wilen. He played with American musicians who were passing through, including Bob Brookmeyer, Clifford Brown, Stan Getz, Gigi Gryce, Roy Haynes, Lee Konitz, Bud Powell, Zoot Sims, Lucky Thompson, and Lester Young.
Guitarist Jimmy Gourley, who spent the better part of his life in Paris, France transitioned at the age of 82 on December 7, 2008 in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, France.
More Posts: bandleader,guitar,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Phillip Rista Nimmons was born on June 3, 1923 in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. He studied clarinet at the Juilliard School and composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada. In 1953 Nimmons formed the ensemble Nimmons ‘N’ Nine, which later he led during his weekly radio show on CBC radio. This ensemble eventually grew to 16 musicians in 1965 and was active intil 1980.
He joined the University of Toronto in 1973 and as an educator, Nimmons has made substantial contributions to the study of jazz. In 1960, Along with Oscar Peterson, he founded the Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto, Canada. He was involved in the development of the jazz performance program at the University of Toronto.
Nimmons received the first Juno Award given in the Juno Awards jazz category, for his album Atlantic Suite. His composition The Torch was commissioned for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and was performed at the Olympics by a big band led by Rob McConnell.
In 1993, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, received the Order of Ontario, the Jazz Education Hall of Fame honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award by SOCAN and the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, Canada’s highest honour in the performing arts, for his lifetime contribution to popular music.
Clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and educator Phil Nimmons, known for playing in the free jazz and mainstream styles, has recorded seventeen albums as a leader and at 98 is still involved in music.
More Posts: clarinet,composeer,educator,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herbie Lovelle was born June 1, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York. His uncle was drummer Arthur Herbert. He began his career in the late 1940s with the trumpeter, singer and bandleader Hot Lips Page. By the 1950s he was playing with the saxophonist Hal Singer, Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers and the pianist Earl Hines.
Through working for both Lucky Thompson and Jimmy Rushing of Count Basie’s Orchestra, he became house drummer at the Savoy Ballroom in New York City for much of the 1950s. He toured with the tenor saxophonist Arnett Cobb and the pianist Teddy Wilson in 1954.
He contributed to the pianist Paul Curry’s album Paul Curry Presents the Friends of Fats in 1959. Then in the early years of television, Herbie performed with the King Guion Orchestra on the Jerry Lester Show and the Ed Sullivan Show. In 1966, he was the lead drummer for the Sammy Davis, Jr. TV show.
During the 1950s Lovelle began playing more R&B and worked as a studio musician recording behind Sam Taylor, Bob Dylan, Pearls Before Swine, Eric Andersen, David Blue, John Denver, Tom Rush, B. B. King, John Martyn, the Strangeloves, the McCoys, and the Monkees. He continued working as a studio musician well into the 1980s.
In 1976, he produced the first album by Stuff, which went platinum in Japan. He also played drums in the 1976 revival of Guys and Dolls. From the 1980s on he acted in film and television, on such shows as Law & Order and Third Watch. His film credits ~ A Man Called Adam, Bella, Mitchellville, The Rhythm of the Saints, Don’t Explain, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, and Down to Earth among others.
His list of recordings as a studio musician extended across genres to some six dozen albums with jazz notables Candido Camero, Buck Clayton , Art Farmer, Herbie Mann, Sonny Stitt, Budd Johnson, Buddy Tate, Chico O’Farrill, Evie Sands, Johnny Hodges, Nat Adderley, Tony Bennett, Illinois Jacquet and numerous others. Drummer, producer and actor Herbie Lovelle transitioned on April 8, 2009 in New York City.