Three Wishes
Nica threw out the question to Andrew Hill what his three wishes would be and after careful thought replied:
- “To be able to take care of my family the way I want to be able to take care of them.”
- “To be able to play six months out of the year, and to be able to woodshed six months out of the year..”
- “To learn how to be a man.”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Burton L. Collins was born on March 27, 1931 in New York City but raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the 1950s he worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Urbie Green, Neal Hefti, Woody Herman, Elliot Lawrence, Johnny Richards, and Claude Thornhill.
Relocating to New York around 1960 he played in Broadway orchestras and in ensembles with Cannonball Adderley, Albert Ayler, Jimmy McGriff, Blue Mitchell, Duke Pearson, and Stanley Turrentine, among others. With Joe Shepley he formed the group Collins-Shepley Galaxy in 1970, recording two albums, including a Lennon/McCartney tribute. Later in the decade he played flugelhorn with Urbie Green again as well as with Janis Ian, Lee Konitz, David Matthews, and T. Rex’s album Electric Warrior.
Over the course of his career he recorded a hundred albums as a sideman with, among others, Manny Albam, Woody Herman, Duke Pearson, Cy Coleman, Frank Foster, Sal Salvador, Pat Moran, Astrud Gilberto, George Benson, Chris Connor, Manhattan Transfer, Tony Bennett, Luiz Bonfa, Airto Moreira, Paul Desmond, Eumir Deodato and Lalo Schifrin.
He played little after the 1970s, though he appeared on record with Loren Schoenbergin 1987. Trumpeter Burt Collins transitioned on February 23, 2007 in Philadelphia.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
David Owen Mackay was born on March 24, 1932 in Syracuse, New York. He attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut from 1950 to 1954, where he was the first blind student to graduate. He then attended Boston University from 1956 to 1958, where he studied with Margaret Charloff. He also studied with Lennie Tristano in New York City, then at the Lenox School of Jazz where he studied with Bill Evans, and lastly at The Hartford School of Music where he studied with Asher Zlotnik.
By the mid-1960s, Mackay joined the Hindustani Jazz Sextet with Don Ellis, Harihar Rao, Emil Richards, Steve Bohannon, Chuck Domanico and Ray Neapolitan. During this period he played with the Don Ellis Orchestra. The late Sixties saw him and Vicky Hamilton formed a duo and produced two recordings together with instrumentation including flute and saxes from Ira Schulman and guitar from Joe Pass.
In the mid-1970s, Dave along with Bill Henderson, and Joyce Collins formed a unique trio which toured the northwest, recorded two Grammy nominated albums for Discovery, and by 1981 they were performing on the television show Ad Lib. By the end of the decade with Lori Bell, and Ron Satterfield he formed the group Interplay, which garnered them four Grammy npominations. In the 1990s, he teamed up with Stephanie Haynes.
By the turn of the century he teamed with John Giannelli on bass and Joe Correro on drums performing Bill Evans tunes in a celebration of the Life and Music of bassist Scott LaFaro. He then hooked up with bassist Kenny Wild and singer Tierney Sutton. He would go on to perform with Serge Chaloff, Sonny Stitt, Bob Wilber, Bobby Hackett, Jim Hall, Don Ellis, Emil Richards, Shelly Manne, Chet Baker, Joe Pass, Warne Marsh, Kai Winding, Stephanie Haynes, and Tierney Sutton.
As a composer a couple of Mackay’s original compositions were later recorded by Cal Tjader, and by the Baja Marimba Band. He wrote a majority of the music with lyricist Barbara Schill for a hit stage musical comedy titled Is It Just Me, Or Is It Hot In Here?
Pianist, vocalist and composer Dave Mackay, with roots in the works of Art Tatum, Bud Powell, and Bill Evans, who favored the standards of the 1940s and 1950s and the bossa novas of Luíz Eça, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and João Gilberto, transitioned on July 29, 2020.
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Three Wishes
Pannonica asked what three wishes Ronnie Boykins who request and his answer was:
- “Three more!”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael John David Westbrook was born March 21, 1936 in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England and grew up in Torquay. After a spell in accountancy and his National Service he went to art school and studied painting and where he began his first bands in 1958, soon joined by such musicians as John Surman, Lou Gare and Keith Rowe.
Moving to London, England in 1962, Westbrook led numerous bands, large and small, and played regularly at the Old Place and the Little Theatre Club at Garrick Yard, St Martin’s Lane. Together with Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath, Westbrook shared the role of house-band at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club.
Becoming a key figure in the development of British jazz, Mike produced several big-band records for the Deram label, with the newly formed Mike Westbrook Concert Band, which varied in size from 10 to 26 musicians. His music was given exposure on BBC Radio. The British Arts Council awarded him a bursary to develop ‘Metropolis’ for an enlarged Concert Band, and the jazz suite was further broadcast on BBC Radio Three.
The 1970s saw a wide range of different projects beyond his orchestra work including but not limited to carnival processions, jazz-rock, avant-rock. At 80 years old, Westbrook, as part of the celebrations, recorded his first solo piano album for 40 years, titled PARIS.
Pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces Mike Westbrook, who was awarded the OBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire), and recorded his latest album London Bridge Live in Zurich 1990 in 2022, continues to expand his musical horizons.
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