Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Melton S. Mustafa was born on November 23, 1947 in Miami, Florida, the younger brother of Jesse Jones, Jr. He started playing the trumpet in junior high school and as a teenager played in a five-piece R&B/calypso band led by his brother. As a young adult in the Sixties, he studied at Berklee College of Music and Mississippi Valley State College before graduating from Florida A&M with a degree in music education.
During this period he started played behind Sam and Dave, Betty Wright, Lattimore, the Marvelettes and Joe Simon. His love for jazz never waning, his visibility on the Miami jazz scene increased when Melton joined hard bopper multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan. By the 80s he was playing with the Duke Ellington Orchestra led by mercer Ellington, Jaco Pastorius, James Williams, Bobby Watson and John Hicks and Mingus Dynasty among others.
Mustafa joined the Count Basie Orchestra in 1984 and stayed for eight years. In 1992 he formed his own big band and a couple years later signed with Contemporary/Fantasy releasing his debut album Boiling Point. He followed up with his sophomore project St. Louis Blues in 1997. Never far from jazz standards and ballads his quintet recorded his latest CD titled The Softer Side, Scenes from Miami Vol. 1 featuring Duffy Jackson on drums, Dennis Marks on bass and Jim Gasior on piano.
He produces his Annual Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival at the university that has welcomed Jon Faddis, Abraham Laboriel, Benny Golson, Dr. Nathan Davis, Dr. Grover Washington Jr., Dr. James Moody, Idris Muhammad, George Cables, Wallace Roney, Patrice Rushen, Geri Allen, Jimmy Owens, Billy Cobham, Herbie Mann, Dr. Billy Taylor, Clark Terry, Curtis Fuller, Nestor Torres, Winard Harper, Najee, Randy Brecker, and others.
As an educator he is the Director of Jazz Studies at Florida Memorial University, teaching Music Theory, Jazz Composition and other jazz related courses. The hard bop, post bop, soul and swing trumpeter, composer, arranger and producer and educator Melton Mustafa continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lynn Baker was born Malcolm Lynn Baker on November 9, 1955 in Salem, Oregon. When he was seven he started taking piano lessons and by the fifth grade was in band class and in sixth grade his mother bought him a tenor saxophone but didn’t practice much until he got in junior high. It was there that he soon took first chair and held it throughout his high school years.
By 1973 Baker was attending Oregon College of Education but in his sophomore year transferred to the University of Oregon seeking a better jazz program without success. However it offered him the opportunity to play with a young John Zorn, which would have a powerful impact on his music aesthetic. Eventually he would transfer to Western Oregon University, Mt. Hood Community College and finally transferring back to and graduating from Oregon College of Education.
He joined a local Top 40 band led by Ricky Santos for a while, then moved to Eugene, Oregon and joined the Experimental Jazz Ensemble followed by gigs playing with dance bands and a rock/Latin fusion band. An award winning composer, performer and educator Lynn released his debut album Azure Intention in 2010 on the Origin Records label. His sophomore project LectroCoustic followed three years later.
As an educator Baker has taught at Indian University and Carleton College and is currently the director of jazz studies and Commercial Music Program at the Lamont School of Music, University of Denver, directs the Lamont Jazz Orchestra, coaches combos and teaches jazz improvisation and composition, jazz history and jazz technique. Tenor saxophonist Lynn Baker continues to perform in between his teaching duties.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Patricia Barber was born on November 8, 1955 in Chicago, Illinois to professional musician parents and raised in South Sioux City, Iowa. She began playing classical piano at age six and by the time she graduated high school jazz was completely in her blood.
She enrolled in the University of Iowa with a double major of classical music and psychology but the jazz voice in her head grew louder. In 1984 she returned to Chicago and landed a five night week gig at the Gold Star Sandine Bar and since the mid-90s performs regularly at the Green Mill.
Starting her professional career as a pianist, as Barber’s stock rose, she then began to add vocals to her repertoire, centered in a fairly low register and a traditional blues-jazz style. Mixing original compositions and standards with classic rock covers, she has recorded and released a dozen compact discs, including a three CD box set covering her 1994-2007 years. She has released a classic Cole Porter collection of his songbook in her unique way of interpretation.
Vocalist, pianist and songwriter Patricia Barber has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and teaches master classes worldwide in between her performing, touring and recording.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kitty Margolis was born November 7, 1955 in San Mateo, California. As a child she listened to underground radio to hear the sounds of Ramsey Lewis, Beach Boys, John Lee Hooker and Santana, and Tower of Power was a local band playing at her high school dances. She would go to the Fillmore and Winterland and hear Miles Davis, Grateful Dead, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, John McLaughlin, Charles Lloyd to name a few. But an outing with her uncle to the Village Vanguard and it was a Rahsaan Roland Kirk performance that changed her life.
She went on to San Francisco State and studied jazz and recording studio arts and was soon gigging with her teachers John Handy and Hal Stein. Hanging out at Todd Barkan’s Keystone Korner she met all the heavyweights, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner, Betty Carter, Cedar Walton, Freddie Hubbard, Flora Purim, Airto, Horace Silver, Red Garland and many more. She even had the oppoertunity to sing Charlie Parker’s solo on Billie’s Bounce and got thumbs up from her idol Eddie Jefferson. In 1989, she made her well-received debut at the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival.
She released her debut studio album Evolution in 1993 and with guest performers Joe Henderson and Joe Louis Walker made a name for herself in the jazz community. On the heels of this album release Kitty won honor of Talent Deserving Wider Recognition in that year’s Down Beat critics’ poll, which she would repeat in 1995 and 1997. Her sophomore album, 1997’s Straight Up With a Twist, was her most eclectic outing yet, featuring quirky interpretations of standards, plus guest appearances by Roy Hargrove and Charles Brown.
Recording in between continuous performance and touring vocalist and record producer Kitty Margolis has taken time to co-found her own record label Mad Kat with Madeline Eastman. She has subsequently released five albums with a couple of live dates in San Francisco among them.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bob Belden was born James Robert Belden on October 31, 1956 in Evanston, Illinois but was raised in South Carolina. He studied saxophone and later attended the University of North Texas.
In 2008, he arranged and produced Miles from India, a world fusion music record based on the compositions of Miles Davis. In the record, he assembled alumni of Davis and musicians of India. As producer he is mostly associated with the seminal reissue of the recordings by Miles Davis for Columbia Records.
In addition to his work as arranger, composer, conductor and A & R director, Belden contributed numerous liner notes for noted recordings, such as Lou’s Blues by Lou Marini and the Magic City Jazz Orchestra, with some of his liner notes receiving Grammy Awards.
Shortly before his death, Bob became the first American musician in 35 years to bring a band from the States to Iran to perform. He may be best-known for his Grammy Award winning jazz orchestral recording, Black Dahlia. He recorded nine albums as a leader and performed and recorded as a sideman or collaborated with Paquito D’Ribera, Tim Hagans, Nicolas Payton, Sam Yahel, John Hart and Billy Drummond to name a few.
Tenor and soprano saxophonist, arranger, composer, bandleader and producer Bob Belden died of a heart attack on May 20, 2015, at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan at the age of 58.
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