Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nino Frasio was born April 26, 1950 in Milan, Italy and his introduction in music was taken in 1964 as a guitarist and banjoist. He graduated in 1976 from the Universitá degli Studi of Milano and studied with professor Enea Vallesi. Like most eenage players of the time he followed the Beatles craze, playing lead guitar where he also disastrously attempted to sing somewhat understandable English.
In 1969 he joined the Italian cast of Up With People! and played many performances on lead guitar and tenor banjo. Leaving the show in 1971, when he started his day job career, and since then has dedicated himself exclusively to classic jazz. His banjo studies had him discovering the other four string tuning and soon was doubling on tenor and plectrum banjo.
After performing on the national Italian TV network on a broadcast of Musica Insieme, he founded the New Orleans styled Olympia Ragtime Band in 1972. a pure New Orleans style band in which he played banjo. Frasio left the band in the early ’80s and started a busy musical career as a free-lance performer with the many jazz bands active in Northern Italy. By 1973 he was enlisted in the Italian Air Force where he began the study of cornet and tuba. Post discharged he chose to play the tuba.
In 1984 Nino joined the Ambrosia Brass Band as a sousaphonist which gained a wide popularity all over Europe playing marches in the style of the great brass bands of New Orleans. He continued freelancing gigs on banjo and guitar, and participated in a long-lasting series of weekly live radio broadcasts.
In the mid-Nineties Frasio went back to playing classic jazz with a new project called the Odd Fellows New Orleans Quartet & Band. Three years later he joined the Jumpin’ Jazz Ballroom Orchestra on banjo and guitar and the ten piece band played a repertory of classic jazz tunes of the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s.
As he aged Nino slowed down his freelance playing and started to look for his old music pals again to play his banjo in a strict New Orleans style. He went on to become a founding member of the Pegasus Brass Band, which performed at several European jazz festivals. He played regularly with the Milano Rhythm Kings led by Giorgio Alberti, then with the Savannah Serenaders, before joining on guitar the Prefisso02 Orchestra, with its beautiful repertoire of early ’40s Italian swing.
Banjoist Nino Frasio, who also plays guitar, tuba and sousaphone, continues to perform with a series of brass bands and orchestras.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jan Hammer was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia on April 17, 1948 to a mother who was a well-known Czech singer, and his doctor father who worked his way through school playing vibraphone and bass guitar. He began playing the piano at the age of four with formal instruction starting two years later. He aspired to follow his father into medicine until a family friend convinced him to develop his musical talents instead.
Forming a jazz trio in high school, he performed and recorded throughout Eastern Europe at the age of fourteen. Upon entrance to the Prague Academy of Musical Arts, he completed many compulsory classes including harmony, counterpoint, music history, and classical composition. He moved to the United States and resolved to become a citizen after receiving a scholarship at Berklee School of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Upon completion of his studies, Jan spent a year touring with Sarah Vaughan, recorded with Elvin Jones and Jeremy Steig, then moved to New York City in 1971 and joined the original lineup of the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
Though he previously recorded as a leader and sideman, his debut solo album, The First Seven Days, dropped in 1975. He formed the Jan Hammer Group in 1976 to support the album tour, which received good reviews from both jazz and rock critics. During the mid 70s to early 80s he recorded and played with Joni Mitchell, Billy Cobham, Santana, Tommy Bolin, Harvey Mason and Stanley Clarke.
Returning to solo work he recorded an album in 1978, formed a new band, known as Hammer, and wrote theme song for a British television series. He formed Schon & Hammer, played benefit concerts, and has received three Grammys and an Emmy nomination. By the Nineties and well into the new millennium, he continued to score and compose for film and television. In 2018 he released his first album of new material in over 10 years: Seasons – Part 1.
Keyboardist, drummer, composer, and record producer Jan Hammer continues to produce and perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bob Meyers was born on March 31, 1945 in Courtlandt Manor, New York. His early influences were classical and chamber music. When he was five he first heard the music of Kenny Clarke, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. It was at that age he began his music studies.
He attended George Washington University in Washington, DC earning his BA in History with minors in Music and Geology. He went on to study with Jack DeJohnette, Frank Dunlop, Henry Adler and Jim Chapin as well as extensive private study as an adult.
As an educator he has taught on both coasts focusing on technique, mechanics, musical application and interpretation on the drum set. Though specializing in jazz many of his students have gone on to be professionally active in jazz, rock and funk.
He has performed with Joe Lovano, John Abercrombie, Judi Silvano, Sheila Jordan, Ray Nance, Jaki Byard, Julian Priester, Gary Peacock, Diane Schurr, Mal Waldron, Kirk Lightsey, Avishai Cohen, Essiet Essiet, Santi Debriano and Vic Juris among numerous others.
As a leader he has recorded eighteen records. Drummer Bob Meyers continues to teach and perform as a leader and a sideman.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Quin Davis was born Quinn Hall Davis on March 12, 1944 in Artesia, California. He toured and recorded with Buddy Rich in 19966 to 1967 and again from 1969 to 1970.
Leaving Rich in 1970, Quin was the solo alto saxophonist with Stan Kenton for three years followed by another three year residency with Harry James until 1976.
Little is known or written about alto saxophonist and flutist Quin Davis after this point in his life.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Patty Waters was born on March 11, 1946 in Iowa and started singing semi-professionally in high school. After school, she sang for the Jerry Gray Hotel Jazz Band, then her family moved to Denver, Colorado. There she started listening to Billie Holiday, whose life and singing had a profound influence on her.
The early 1960s saw her following the recommendation of friends to move to New York City. Albert Ayler heard her in a dining club and introduced her to Bernard Stollman, the owner of the experimental jazz label ESP-Disk. Her most influential albums, Sings released in 1965) and College Tour in 1966 were recorded on this label.
In the late 1960s, she spent time in Europe and then left the music world in 1969 to raise her son in California. Almost 30 years later she recorded the album Love Songs in 1996 and began performing in public again. In 2004 she released You Thrill Me: A Musical Odyssey, a collection of rare and unissued recordings from the years 1962–1979.
She returned in 2019 with the album Live recorded at the First Unitarian Congregational Church in Brooklyn. The album was followed in 2020 by another live recording entitled An Evening In Houston. That same year she released an unissued 1970 LP titled Plays via her own label.
Vocalist Patty Waters, best known for her free jazz recordings in the Sixties and her recording of the nearly fourteen minute version of the traditional song Black Is the Colour (Of My True Love’s Hair from Sings, which is rendered in a haunting, anguished wail, continues to record, perform and tour.
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