Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Andrzej Trzaskowski was born on March 23, 1933 in Kraków, Poland. He began playing piano at age four and founded his first jazz band, Rhythm Quartet. He attended Jan III Sobieski High School, passed his final exams cum laude, and eventually was admitted to Jagiellonian University where he earned his masters degree with his thesis being on Charlie Parker. Prior to his admittance he earned his living by playing in Kraków, Łódź and Zakopane night clubs.

By 1956 he was performing at jazz festivals and being recognized as the best jazz pianist by a Przekrój poll. From 1958, he played together with Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski in the band Jazz Believers. The following year Trzaskowski moved permanently to Warsaw, established his own hard bop band, The Wreckers, that drew inspiration from the music of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Horace Silver. In 1960, the Trzaskowski’s Trio accompanied saxophonist Stan Getz, and they recorded together the album Stan Getz & Andrzej Trzaskowski Trio.

At the end of the 1950s he began working with Polish cinema, arranging and recording music for the film Night Train, composed or created soundtracks for films and appeared on the screen, playing piano in Innocent Sorcerers in 1960 and Feliks Falk’s Był jazz in 1981. Andrzej moved to the United States in 1961 with a new configuration of The Wreckers and toured the country.

The Andrzej Trzaskowski Quintet would go on to perform with Don Ellis, Ted Curson, and in 1963 the Quintet gave concerts in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, East Germany and Belgium over the next year. By 1963, he began to move away from bop music towards free jazz.

In the Seventies he performed and recorded at the Polskie Radio Jazz Studio, and became the head of Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra Studio S-1. From 1992 he lectured at the Jazz Department of the State Music School of Warsaw and during the last years of his life he composed almost exclusively for cinema and television. In 1995, he was awarded the Cross of Merit for his artistic career.

Pianist, composer and musicologist Andrzej Trzaskowski, who from the mid-1950s onward was regarded as an authority on syncopated music,  died in Warsaw on September 16, 1998, aged 65.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jon Hassell was born March 22, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee and received his master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. During this time he became involved in European serial music, especially the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen. After finishing Eastman he enrolled in the Cologne Course for New Music where he met avant-guardists Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay.

Returning to the States in 1967 he met Terry Riley in Buffalo, New York, and performed on the first recording of Riley’s seminal work In C in 1968. He pursued his Ph.D. in musicology in Buffalo and performed in La Monte Young’s Theatre of Eternal Music in New York City, contributing to the 1974 LP Dream House 78′ 17″.

Back in Buffalo in the early Seventies, Hassell was introduced to the music of Indian Pandit Pran Nath, His work with Nath awoke his appetite for traditional music of the world. He collaborated with Brian Eno, worked with David Sylvian, Peter Gabriel, contributed to Tears For Fears album The Seeds of Love, and composed for film and television.

Trumpeter Jon Hassell, who coined the term Fourth World, utilized circular breathing and electronic processing, died from natural causes on June 26, 2021, at the age of 84.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Brian Colin Dee was born in London, England on March 21, 1936.  He came to prominence in 1959 playing at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London. At that time he was playing with Lennie Best, Dave Morse and Vic Ash.

He later joined the Jazz Five and played opposite Miles Davis on a nationwide tour and was voted Melody Maker’s ‘New Star of 1960’. Brian also appeared at the Establishment Club in 1962 where his trio played opposite Dudley Moore.

Throughout an uninterrupted career, Dee has played with many jazz musicians, including Ben Webster, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Benny Carter, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Chet Baker, Al Grey, Sonny Stitt, Victor Feldman and Joe Newman.

From the late 1960s onwards, Dee was in demand as a session musician, appearing on many orchestral recordings. Subsequently, he went on to play with the Ted Heath Orchestra, for the last 10 years of its existence and was also a member of Laurie Johnson’s London Big Band.

Renowned as a fine accompanist to singers, Brian has recorded or appeared alongside Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Johnny Mercer, Elton John, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine, Joe Williams, Jimmy Witherspoon, Mark Murphy, Cleo Laine and Annie Ross. He was musical director for Lita Roza, Cilla Black, Rosemary Squires, and Elaine Delmar.

Working with Irving Martin they composed the theme for Return of the Saint. In 1978, their Good Times album was released on Bruton Music BRG 4.

Pianist and musical director Brian Dee, who played organ and/or harmonium on four of Elton John’s early albums, at 87 years old, continues to perform.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Michael Josef Longo was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on March 19, 1937 to parents who had a musical background. His father played bass, his mother played organ at church, and his music training began at a young age. Around four years old he heard Count Basie and Sugar Chile Mike, and the latter led him to begin researching boogie woogie bass lines. His parents took him for formal lessons at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music at four. He moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida soon after and by the age of 12, he won a local talent contest.

He received a scholarship from the Ft. Lauderdale Symphony Orchestra in 1955, a Downbeat Hall of Fame Scholarship in 1959 His career began in his father’s band, then Cannonball Adderley helped him get gigs of his own. Their working relationship pre-dated Adderley’s emergence as a band leader, having approached the white teenager to be the pianist at his black church in a town that was largely segregated. This led to recordings with Cannonball in the mid-1950s but he was too young to go to clubs with him. Longo played at Porky’s which was later portrayed in the movie of the same name. He would go on to receive his Bachelor of Music degree from Western Kentucky University.

He was a fan of Oscar Peterson from a young age and he studied with the pianist from 1961 to 1962. He received a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1972. During the 1960s he began to lead the Mike Longo Trio, which would remain active for the next 42 years. He would go on to play with Roy Eldridge, Paul Chambers and Dizzy Gillespie, who first heard him playing with Red Allen at the Metropole. He would become musical director for the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet and later the pianist for the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Band. From 1966 until 1993 his music career would be linked to Gillespie who he was with on the night he died and later delivered a eulogy at his funeral.

Longo also taught a master class to upcoming jazz musicians, and his big band, the New York State of the Art Jazz Ensemble, would play and provide upcoming musicians a chance to learn on stage. A big part of his mission was to re-establish the apprenticeship relationship in teaching jazz.

He recorded two dozen albums as a leader, four with Dizzy and one with LeeKonitz. In 2002 he was inducted into Western Kentucky University’s Wall of Fame in 2002.

Pianist, composer, educator and author Mike Longo died in Manhattan from complications of Covid~19, three days after his 83 birthday on March 22, 2020.

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Jazz Poems

FALL DOWN in memory of eric dolphy All men are locked in their cells. Though we quake In fist of body Keys rattle, set us free. I remember and wonder why? In fall, in summer; times Will be no more. Journeys End. I remember and wonder why? In the sacred labor of lung Spine and groin, You cease, fly away To what? To autumn, to Winter, to brown leaves, to Wind where no lark sings; yet Through dominion of air, jaw and fire I remember! Eric Dolphy, you swung A beautiful axe. You lived a clean Life. You were young– You died. Calvin Hernton 

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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