Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Terry Pollard (August 15, 1931 in Detroit, Michigan and began her career by collaborating with other Detroit musicians, such as Billy Mitchell and Elvin Jones, in the house band at the Blue Bird Inn. Johnny Hill, and the Emmitt Slay Trio.
Discovered by Terry Gibbs, she toured with him in the early 1950s, playing piano and vibraphone. They recorded several albums, including Terry Gibbs Quartet – Featuring Terry Pollard. Pollard appeared with Gibbs on an episode of The Tonight Show hosted by Steve Allen. Her collaborations with Gibbs from 1953 to 1957 marked the height of her career.
Pollard also performed with John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald
Recording a self-titled solo album for Bethlehem Records in 1955, Terry won Down Beat magazine’s New Artist award in 1956. She retired from her full-time music career shortly thereafter in order to raise a family, but she continued to play locally in Detroit and performed with Yusef Lateef, Dorothy Ashby, Don Fagerquist, and Diana Ross and the Supremes among others.
Her contributions to the mid-century Detroit jazz scene were recognized in the book Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit 1920-1960, by Lars Bjorn and Jim Gallert. Pianist, vibraphonist Terry Pollard, who was inducted into the Michigan Jazz Hall of Fame, passed away on December 16, 2009 in Detroit.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edwin James Costa was born on August 14, 1930 in Atlas, Pennsylvania, near Mount Carmel, in Northumberland County. He was taught and influenced on piano by his older, musically trained brother, Bill, and a local piano teacher. He took paid jobs as a pianist from the age of 15, and in contrast to his piano training, he was self-taught on vibes.
In 1949 he played and toured for a few months with violinist Joe Venuti. He then worked for his brother in New York until 1951, when Eddie was drafted into the army. During this time in the armed forces, he performed in Japan and Korea. After his discharge, he returned home and worked around the New York area, including for bands led by Kai Winding, Johnny Smith, and Don Elliott.
n 1957 he was chosen as Down Beat jazz critics’ new star on piano and vibes – the first time that one artist won two categories in the same year. He became known for his percussive, driving piano style that concentrated on the lower octaves of the keyboard.
Costa had an eight-year recording career, during which he appeared on more than 100 albums, with five of them were under his own leadership. As a sideman, he appeared in orchestras led by Manny Albam, Gil Evans, Woody Herman, and others; played in smaller groups led by musicians including Tal Farlow, Coleman Hawkins, Gunther Schuller, and Phil Woods; and accompanied vocalists including Tony Bennett and Chris Connor. Costa died, aged 31, in a car accident in New York City.
His first recording as a leader was in 1956, with his trio featuring bassist Vinnie Burke and drummer Nick Stabulas. Around this time, he was nicknamed The Bear by Burke for his powerful playing. He and Burke joined Tal Farlow and became the resident trio at the Composer Club. In 1957 Costa was again leader, recording Eddie Costa Quintet with Woods, Art Farmer, Teddy Kotick, and Paul Motian. He would go on to record 1958’s Guys and Dolls Like Vibes with Bill Evans, Wendell Marshall, and Motian.
Late at night on July 28, 1962, pianist, vibraphonist, composer, and arranger Eddie Costa passed away in a car crash, involving no other vehicles, on New York’s Westside Highway at 72nd Street in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dave Lee was born on August 12, 1926 in Newington, London, England and took lessons as a child. When his photographer father was transferred during the war to the North East to work on camouflaging military equipment, it was here that he started to perform in local groups. His big break came in 1942 when he won the Melody Maker poll for Best New Jazz Pianist.
A move to South Africa in 1947 had him working as a resident musician for night clubs in Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg. He went on to study at the Johannesburg Conservatory of Music gaining a Mus.Bac. By 1954 Lee invited Johnny Dankworth to perform in South Africa, and it was Dankworth who persuaded him to return to England as a pianist/arranger for the Johnny Dankworth band. From 1955 to 1959 he played on all of the recordings made by the Johnny Dankworth Orchestra.
David performed with Terry and McGhee, the Buddy Tate Quartet and Jack Parnell. He also arranged for Norman Wisdom, Benny Hill, Cleo Laine and Judy Garland. From 1959 he led a trio who recorded a number of successful albums, including A Big New Band from Britain, which was in The Cashbox Top Ten for six weeks. The trio also produced music for the 1960s TV series The Avengers, for which John Dankworth had written the original theme music, and the Trio features prominently in the 1962 episodes The Removal Men. They would go on to appear in several other episodes.
With his composing career beginning in the 1950s, he was writing jingles for television ads, then teamed up with lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and wrote hit songs Bangers and Mash, Goodness Gracious Me, and Kinky Boots and music for the West End stage musical Our Man Crichton in 1964.
His film music career began in 1960 with low-budget features, but gradually he progressed to fine orchestral scores for important movies. In 1983, Lee was elected BBC Jazz Society Musician of the Year, and in 1990 was one of the founders of jazz-only radio station 102.2 Jazz FM. Still busy in his 90s, pianist, arranger, orchestra leader, songwriter and film composer David Lee’s novel Nothing Rhymes with Silver about a fictional jazz pianist was published in 2007.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
William Marcel “Buddy” Collette was born in Los Angeles, California on August 6, 1921. Raised in the Central Gardens area of Watts in a house his father built, he was surrounded by people of all different ethnicities. His father played piano, his mother sang and the melting pot of Watts framed the way he saw his position as a black man in the future.
He began playing piano at age ten, in middle school, the saxophone. That same year, he formed his first band with Charlie Martin, Vernon Slater, Crosby Lewis, and Minor Robinson. The following year, Collette started a band with Ralph Bledsoe and Raleigh Bledsoe, then started a third group which eventually included bassist Charles Mingus. Becoming very good friends, Collette helped Mingus find his less wild, more reserved side. When he was fifteen, Collette became a part of the Woodman brothers’ band, along with Joe Comfort, George Reed, and Jessie Sailes.
While in high school, Buddy began traveling to Los Angeles, competed in a battle of the band and lost to a band that included Jackie Kelson, Chico Hamilton, and Al Adams. However, afterward, he was asked to join the winning band, and later, Charles Mingus joined this band. By 19, he started taking music lessons from Lloyd Reese, who taught him and the other musicians how to manage themselves in the music world.
After serving as a U.S. Navy band leader, he played with the Stars of Swing with Woodman, Mingus, Lucky Thompson, Louis Jordan, and Benny Carter. In 1949, he was the only black member of the band for You Bet Your Life, a TV and radio show hosted by Groucho Marx. In the 1950s, he worked as a studio musician with Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, and Nelson Riddle.
In 1955 he was a founding member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet, playing chamber jazz flute with guitarist Jim Hall, cellist Fred Katz, and bassist Carson Smith. He was also an educator teaching Mingus, James Newton, Eric Dolphy, Charles Lloyd, and Frank Morgan. He helped merge an all-black musicians’ union with an all-white musicians’ union.
Flutist, saxophonist, and clarinetist Buddy Collette, 1994 co-founder of the JazzAmerica program, a non-profit organization that aims at bringing jazz into classrooms in middle school and high schools in the greater Los Angeles area tuition-free, passed away in his beloved hometown on September 19, 2010.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Huey “Sonny” Simmons was born on August 4, 1933 in Sicily Island, Louisiana and grew up in Oakland, California, where he began playing the English horn. At age 16 he took up the alto saxophone, which became his primary instrument, playing primarily in an avant-garde style, often delving into free jazz.
His then-wife, Barbara Donald, played trumpet on several of his early records, Staying on the Watch and Music from the Spheres; Arhoolie Manhattan Egos, and Contemporary titles Rumasuma and the double album Burning Spirits.
Partnering with Prince Lasha on several recordings, two of which, The Cry! and Firebirds were also released by Contemporary.
Personal problems derailed both his music career and home life, leading to divorce and homelessness. He busked on the streets of San Francisco for many years, until he resurrected his career in the early 1990s and began playing in night clubs again.
His resurgence in the mid-1990s was marked by two albums, Ancient Ritual and American Jungle, for Quincy Jones’ Qwest Records. Along with appearances in European jazz festivals, Sonny has since remained a regular performer at European festivals.
Since 2000 he has been co-leader of The Cosmosamatics with reed player Michael Marcus and is among the few musicians to play the English Horn in a jazz context. Alto saxophone Sonny Simmons died on April 6, 2021 in New York.
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