Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Mario Rivera was born on July 22, 1939 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and learned to play during his childhood. Moving to New York City in 1961 at 22 he started working with singer Joe Valle as his accompanist. He spent two years with bandleader Tito Rodríguez. During his career he worked with Mongo Santamaria, Eddie Palmieri, and Machito.

From the 1970s to the 1990s he worked with Tito Puente. Both appeared in the films Calle 54 and The Mambo Kings. In 1988 he became a member of the United Nations Orchestra led by Dizzy Gillespie. He was also a member of the Afro-Cuban Jazz Band led by Chico O’Farrill. His only solo album, El Commandante, was released in 1996.

He recorded seventy-six albums as a sideman with Willie Colon, Cheo Feliciano, Dizzy Gillespie, Kip Hanrahan, Conrad Herwig, Giovanni Hidalgo, Chico O’Farrill, Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, Típica 73, Africando, Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros, Soledad Bravo, George Coleman, Junior Cook, Rafael Cortijo, Tito Gomez, Jerry Gonzalez, Juan Luis Guerra, La Lupe, Machito, Arturo O’Farrill, Pat Patrick, Bobby Paunetto, Daniel Ponce, Louie Ramirez, Paquito D’Rivera, Alfredo Rodriguez, Mongo Santamaria, Laba Sosseh, Juan Pablo Torres, Stanley Turrentine, Dave Valentin, Fernando Villalona, and Pete Yellin.

Saxophonist Mario Rivera, who also played trumpet, flute, piano, vibraphone, congas, and drums, died from cancer on August 10, 2007 in New York City.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Pierre Cullaz was born July 21, 1935 in Paris, France and was the son of jazz writer Maurice Cullaz. He learned piano and cello in 1949, then moved to guitar as his main instrument.

In 1955 he started his professional career with Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, and Hal Singer. Two years later he worked with Michel Hausser, Sarah Vaughan, Claude Bolling and Stéphane Grappelli.

After serving in the military Pierre became a studio musician and worked with Martial Solal and Eddy Louiss. In 1965 he formed Guitars Unlimited with Victor Apicella, Raymond Gimenez, Francis Lemaguer, and Tony Rallo. The band recorded for Barclay.

Over the course of his career he collaborated with Elvin Jones, Andre Hodeir, Ivan Jullien, and Guy Lafitte, accompanied singer Claude Nougaro and was an arranger for Michel Legrand.

Besides being a musician, he taught guitar at the CIM in Paris and wrote the textbook Methode de Guitare. Guitarist and cellist Pierre Cullaz died on January 1, 2014.

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Jazz Poems

JELLY WROTE

jelly wrote, 

                      you should be walking on four legs

                      but now you’re walking on two,

                      you know you come directly from the

                                    animal famulee

& you do. but dr jive

the winding boy, whose hands only work

was music & pushing

“certain ignorant light skin women” to the corner

was never animal

was never beast in storeyville, refining

a touch for ivory on pool green

with the finest of whorehouse ragtime; use even

for the “darker niggers music. rough,” jelly wrote

“but they loved it in the tenderloin.”

o the tall & chancey, the ladies’

fancy, the finest boy for miles around,

“your salty dog,” but with diamond incisors,

shooting the agate under a stetson sky

his st louis flats winked into

aaah, mr jelly

A.B. Spellman 

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Chris White was born Christopher Wesley White on July 6, 1936  in Harlem, New York and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. In 1956 he graduated from City College of New York, and in 1968 from the Manhattan School of Music. Continuing his education six years later he earned his Master of Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 1994, he did postgraduate Advanced Computer Study at Berklee College of Music.

An occasional member of Cecil Taylor’s band in the 1950s, he was credited on the 1959 Love for Sale album. From 1960 to 1961 he accompanied Nina Simone and subsequently he was a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s ensemble until 1966.

He founded the band The Jazz Survivors and was a member of the band Prism. Throughout his career he collaborated with Billy Taylor, Eubie Blake, Earl Hines, Chick Corea, Teddy Wilson, Kenny Barron, Mary Lou Williams, Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae and Billy Cobham.

Bassist, arranger, producer and educator Chris White, who was on the creative arts and technology faculty at Bloomfield College in New Jersey, died on November 2, 2014.

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Jazz Poems

COLTRANE, SYEEDA’S SONG FLUTE

For M & P.R.

When I came across it on the

piano it reminded me of her,

because it sounded like a

happy, child’s song.

COLTRANE

To Marilyn, to Peter,

playing , making things: the walls, the stairs,

the attics, bright nests in nests;

the slow, light, grave unstitching of lies,

opening, stinking, letting in air

you bear yourselves in, become your own mother

and father

your own child.

You lying closer.

You going along. Days.

The strobe-lit wheel stops dead

once, twice in a life: old-fashioned rays:

and then all the rest of the time pulls blur,

only you remember it more, playing.

Listening here in the late quiet you can think

great things of us all, I think we will all, Coltrane,

meet speechless and easy in Heaven, our names

known and forgotten, all dearest, all come

giant-stepping

out into some wide, light, merciful mind.

John

Coltrane, 40, gone

right through the floorboards,

up to the shins, up to the eyes,

closed over,

Syeeda’s happy, child’s song

left up here, playing.

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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