Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Manfred Schoof was born April 6, 1936 in Magdeburg, Germany and studied music in Kassel and Cologne, Germany where one of his teachers was the big band leader Kurt Edelhagen.
Schoof performed on Edelhagen’s radio program and toured with Gunter Hampel In the 1960s he started a free jazz band with Alexander von Schlippenbach and Gerd Dudek which became the basis for Manfred Schoof Orchestra. From 1969 to 1971 he was a member of the George Russell Orchestra.He has also worked with Jasper Van’t Hof and the Globe Unity Orchestra.
He composed classical music for the Berlin Philharmonic. His group has participated in performances of Die Soldaten, an operatic work by the contemporary composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann. He was featured in a profile on composer Graham Collier in the 1985 Channel 4 documentary Hoarded Dreams.
Since 2007 he has been chairman of the Union Deutscher Jazzmusiker. Trumpeter and composer Manfred Schoof has been a professor in Cologne since 1990.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jake Hanna was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on April 4, 1931 and first performed in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the house drummer at Storyville nightclub in Boston, Massachusetts for a number of years in the 1950s and 1960s. Through the decades beginning in the late Fifties he played with Toshiko Akiyoshi, Maynard Ferguson, Marian McPartland, and Woody Herman’s Orchestra.
He appeared with the Mort Lindsey Orchestra on Judy Garland’s multi Grammy Award-winning 1961 live album, Judy at Carnegie Hall. He did extensive work as a studio musician both in and out of jazz, including an eleven year period from 1964 to 1975 as the drummer for the big band of the Merv Griffin Show. Jake recorded several albums with Carl Fontana for Concord Jazz in the mid-1970s and also played in Supersax. Later in his career he did much work as a sideman for Concord.
Drummer Jake Hanna transitioned from complications from blood disease on February 12, 2010 in Los Angeles, California at the age of 78.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alan Haven was born Alan Halpern on April 1, 1935 in Prestwich, Lancashire, United Kingdom. His early work was performed on a Lowrey organ. He collaborated with John Barry on two Bond movies ~ From Russia With Love and Dr. No, and Barry wrote an extended jazz organ solo for his Oscar-winning theme from The Lion in Winter and recorded it as a single.
He released several albums in the 1960s and 1970s, initially on Fontana Records, CBS Records including a recording of a live set at Ronnie Scott’s in London, England. He released Live at Annie’s Room and Mastersound, remastered and re-released three of Alan’s previous albums Organ Show, Images and Collector’s Item.
Local musicians, including Eric Delaney, organized a big band night featuring Alan. With his wife Karen they produced four albums which were Two, Day By Day, Libra and By The Seaside, which was released in 1992.
Organist Alan Haven transitioned on January 7, 2016.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Vass was born March 31, 1937, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and acquired his first saxophone at age 18. After honing his chops on the local club scene, he relocated to New York City in 1963, working a series of day jobs while moonlighting as a musician.
Vass first appeared on record in 1968 via Sunny Murray’s Hard Cores. With 1971’s Soul Story, he began an extended collaboration with the great soul-jazz organist Charles Earland. His most notable partnership paired him with avant-jazz pianist Andrew Hill, beginning with 1975’s Divine Revelation.
He played on Roberta Flack’s Feel Like Makin’ Love. He also lent his talents to recording sessions with Muhal Richard Abrams, Rashied Ali, Charles Mingus, Lionel Hampton, Ronnie Boykins and Woody Shaw. Never leading a recording date of his own, in the autumn of his career Jimmy worked as a music instructor and led his own New York-based group playing standards and originals.
Alto and soprano saxophonist and flutist Jimmy Vass, who emerged as one of the premier jazz sidemen of the 1970s, transitioned on September 21, 2006, at the age of 69.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ladislav Déczi was born on March 29, 1938 in Bernolákovo, Czechoslovakia and showed an interest in the trumpet while in elementary school. He went through several music ensembles in high school and during his military service performed in Prague, Czechoslovakia. After his discharge he remained in Prague and started performing with the Rokoko Theater Sextet and then with the Jazz Outsiders. He then went on to work with Karel Velebny’s S+HQ and as the frontman for the Reduta Quartet.
By the mid-Sixties he founded Jazz Celulla, joined the Czechoslovak All Star Band, the Jazz Orchestra of the Czechoslovak Radio, and the Dance Orchestra of the Czechoslovak Radio. He recorded several solo albums, composed orchestral compositions.
Emigrating to America in 1986 he again took the frontman space for Celula New York. He performed with Elvin Jones, Bill Watrous, Junior Cook, Dave Weckl and Sonny Costanzo. He recorded several duo albums with Sarka Dvorak and composed an abundance of music for film and television productions. He has won several awards during his career and has toured Eastern Europe especially his homeland, Germany and Austria.
Trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Laco Déczi, who also paints, continues to perform, compose and record.
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