Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Oliver Jackson was born in Detroit, Michigan on April 28, 1933. He played in the 1940s with Thad Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Wardell Gray, and had a variety show with Eddie Locke called Bop & Locke. After working with Yusef Lateef from 1954 until 1956, he moved to New York City, where he played regularly at the Metropole in 1957 and 1958.
Following his stint at the club he worked with Teddy Wilson, Charlie Shavers, Buck Clayton, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Kenny Burrell, Earl Hines and the JPJ Quartet with Budd Johnson through the Sixties.
Later in life he played with Sy Oliver from 1975 to 1980, Oscar Peterson, and then George Wein’s Newport All-Stars. As a bandleader, Jackson led a 1961 date in Switzerland, and recorded at least five albums for Black & Blue Records between 1977 and 1984.
His brother and bassist Ali Jackson performed with him both at the beginning and towards the end of their careers. Drummer Oliver Jackson, who was also known as Bops Junior, transitioned from a heart failure on May 29, 1994 in New York City at the age of 61.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Pierre Courbois was born on April 23, 1940 in Nijmegen, Netherlands and after studying percussion at the Hogeschool der Kunsten in Arnhem, he left for Paris, France which was the center of jazz in Europe in the early 1960s. He worked with pianist Kenny Drew, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, saxophonists Eric Dolphy, Ben Webster, Stan Getz, and Johnny Griffin, and guitarist René Thomas.
Courbois was one of the first musicians in Europe to experiment with free jazz. In 1961 he became the drummer and leader of the original Free Jazz Quartet. In 1965 he started another group, the Free Music Quintet, composed of international musicians. He also played and recorded with Gunter Hampel’s Heartplants Group with Manfred Schoof and Alexander von Schlippenbach.
Founding the first European jazz-rock group, Association P.C. in 1969, they won the Down Beat poll and stayed together until 1975. In 1982 Pierre put together the group New Association, and played with pianists Mal Waldron and Rein de Graaff, horn players Willem Breuker, Hans Dulfer and Theo Loevendie, and Ali Haurand’s European Jazz Quintet with Gerd Dudeck, Leszek Zadlo and Alan Skidmore.
In 1992 Courbois started a quintet and for the first time in his career performed pieces all composed by himself. This ensemble pleasantly surprised both the critics and the public with a return to the Charles Mingus tradition – thematic, melodic ensemble jazz and an experimentation with linear improvisation. Consistently reinventing himself he has gone on to create the Double Quintet, and the Five Four Sextet.
Drummer, bandleader and composer Pierre Courbois, who was awarded the Bird Award, the highest in the Dutch Jazz World and is a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau, continues to perform, record and compose.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Freddie Hill was born Frederick Roosevelt Hill on April 18, 1932 in Jacksonville, Florida. He studied cello and piano as well as trumpet. After four years at Florida A & M on a music scholarship and then spent two years in the army that brought him into contact with the Adderley brothers, among others. He moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue graduate studies at Los Angeles State College and gigs with many artists, including Gerald Wilson and Earl Bostic, followed.
Steady studio work gave him security thanks to Wilson, Matthews, Nelson and H. B. Barnum. However, his opportunities to record as a jazz soloist were few. Playing on the Gerald Wilson Pacific Jazz sessions put him in the company of many outstanding soloists. Hill is prominently heard on Leroy Vinnegar’s Leroy Walks Again!!! And Buddy DeFranco’s Blues Bag, which included Curtis Fuller and Art Blakey.
Besides working with Wilson and Vinnegar, Freddie recorded with Oliver Nelson’s Big Band, South Central Avenue Municipal Blues Band, and The Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra.
Leaving the Los Angeles scene in 1971, he married and moved to the desert. By the end of the decade studio work was drying up and trumpeter Freddie Hill transitioned a forgotten man, date unknown.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph S. Romano was born in Rochester, New York on April 17, 1932 and learned to play clarinet, alto and tenor saxophone as a child. Enlisting in the United States Air Force in the 1950s, then joined the band of Woody Herman in 1956, playing intermittently with Herman into the 1970s, including at major jazz festivals and on several worldwide tours.
In the 1960s, he played with Chuck Mangione, Sam Noto, and Art Pepper and was a recurring sideman on Buddy Rich’s albums between 1968 and 1974. During the Seventies he played with Les Brown, Louie Bellson, Chuck Israels, Sam Noto again, and with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra.
A move to California led him to session work in the 1980s. In addition, he worked with Frank Capp and Nat Pierce. He would later return to his hometown.
Saxophonist Joe Romano transitioned in Rochester on November 26, 2008, from lung cancer, at the age of 76.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gérard Badini was born April 16, 1931 in Paris, France to an opera singing father. He began playing professionally in the early 1950s, playing clarinet in New Orleans jazz-style ensembles with Michel Attenoux, Jimmy Archey, Lil Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Bill Coleman, and Peanuts Holland.
In 1955, he joined Claude Bolling’s ensemble and then joined him on a worldwide tour as members of Jack Diéval’s orchestra. He switched principally to tenor sax beginning in 1958, continuing to work with Roger Guérin and Geo Daly in the late 1950s. In the 1960s he worked with Alice Babs, Duke Ellington, Jean-Claude Naude, Cat Anderson, Paul Gonsalves, Jef Gilson, and François Guin.
He founded his own group, Swing Machine, in 1973, working in this group with Bobby Durham, Raymond Fol, Michel Gaudry, Helen Humes, Sonny Payne, and Sam Woodyard. From 1977 to 1979, Badini lived in New York City, performing with Roy Eldridge, Major Holley, Oliver Jackson, Dick Katz, Clark Terry, Gerald Wiggins, and Reggie Workman.
In 1984, he formed a new big-band ensemble, Super Swing Machine, which he led and played piano in through the late 1990s. Known as Mr. Swing, bandleader, composer, reedist, and pianist Gérard Badini continues to .
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