Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Royce Campbell was born on June 7, 1952 in Seymour, Indiana the son of a career navy man. Growing up in several U.S. cities and abroad including Asia, Europe and the West Indies he was exposed to different music genres as a child. These added to his musical style and approach in jazz composition and playing. Though mainly associated with mainstream jazz, his first love was rock and roll that connected him at age nine to the guitar and Chuck Berry, followed by Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton..
By the time Royce finished high school in the early 1970s, he was certain he wanted to pursue a professional career in music. His uncle, Carroll DeCamp, an arranger/pianist who arranged for Stan Kenton and Les Elgart invited the young guitarist to live with him and study in Indiana, providing most of his musical education in theory and composition. By age 21, he had begun touring with R&B artist Marvin Gaye and developing his talents for stage performance. In 1975 he was hired by a local music contractor to do three concerts with award-winning film composer Henry Mancini in Indianapolis. Soon after Royce became the touring guitarist with Mancini’s orchestra, holding that positing until Mancini’s death in 1994.
Though appearing on recordings as a sideman, and a couple as leader, during the early years of his career, Campbell started recording and touring more on his own during the 1990s, focusing at first on mainstream or straight-ahead jazz. Although he cites Wes Montgomery as his main influence, the horn of Dexter Gordon, and Chet Baker also had a great impact.
In 1993, he produced Project G-5: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery which also featured guitarists Tal Farlow, Jimmy Raney, Herb Ellis and Cal Collins. His 1994 album 6×6 featured guitarists Pat Martino, John Abercrombie, Larry Coryell, Dave Stryker and Bucky Pizzarelli. A follow-up Project G-5: A Tribute to Joe Pass, in 1999, Royce brought together the talents of Charlie Byrd, Gene Bertoncini, Mundell Lowe and John Pisano.
During his career guitarist Royce Campbell has released more than 30 CDs as leader or co-leader among various sideman projects. Fifteen of these CDs have made it onto the US national jazz radio charts. His soloing is documented among other jazz guitarists of the era, in Mel Bay’s Anthology of Jazz Guitar Solos: Featuring Solos by the World’s Finest Jazz Guitarists! He has been inducted into the Indianapolis Jazz Foundation Hall of Fame and continues to record, perform and tour.
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Hollywood On 52nd Street
Harry Warren composed the music and Mack Gordon, the lyrics for the now jazz standard, I Had the Craziest Dream, for the 1942 film Springtime In The Rockies. The film starred Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, John Payne, Cesar Romero, Harry James and His Music Makers and the vocal group Six Hits and a Miss.
The Story: Broadway partners Vicky Lane and Dan Christy have a tiff over Christy’s womanizing. Jealous Vicky takes up with her old flame and former dance partner, Victor Price, and Dan’s career takes a nosedive. In hopes of rekindling their romance and getting Vicky back on the boards with him, Dan follows her to a ritzy resort in the Canadian Rockies, where she and Victor are about to open their new act. But things get complicated when Dan wakes after a bender to find that he’s hired an outlandish Latin secretary, Rosita Murphy, which makes Vicky think he’s just up to his old tricks again.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paquito D’Rivera was born on June 4, 1948 in Havana, Cuba. He performed at age 10 with the National Theater Orchestra, studied at the Havana Conservatory of Music, and at 17, became a featured soloist with the Cuban National Symphony.
Through the Sixties and Seventies Paquito was dissatisfied playing under the constraints placed on his music by a communist Cuban government that described jazz and rock as imperialist music. After meeting with Che Guevara the idea of leaving Cuba became more than a thought. In early 1981, while on tour in Spain, he sought asylum with the American Embassy, leaving his homeland, wife and child behind in search of a better life with a promise to get them out.
With family support already in the States, D’Rivera settled into the New York jazz scene and became something of a phenomenon after the release of his first two solo albums, Paquito Blowin in 1981 and Mariel the following year. Throughout his career in the U. S. his albums have hit the top of the jazz charts and have shown his ability playing bebop, classical and Latin/Caribbean music. He is the only artist to ever have won Grammy Awards in both Classical and Latin Jazz categories.
Paquito also plays with the Ying Quartet, Turtle Island String Quartet, Mark Summer, Alon Yavnai, Yo-Yo Ma, as well as the National, London, Puerto Rico, Costa Rican and Simon bolivar Symphony Orchestras and the London and Florida Philharmonic Orchestras.
With his band, Paquito D’Rivera Quintet consisting of Peruvian bassist Oscar Stagnaro, Argentinean trumpeter Diego Urcola, American drummer Mark Walker and pianist Alex Brown they have won a Latin Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album for Live At The Blue Note for a total of seven and has also won fourteen Grammy Awards.
Alto and soprano saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and bandleader Paquito D’Rivera has to date 72 albums as a leader and another 5 as a sideman playing with Dizzy Gillespie and Lalo Schifrin. He has received the National Medal of Arts, NEA Jazz Master, Jazz Legend Award, Two honorary Doctorates, and the Presidents Award from the IAJE amongst numerous others, continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jack Wilkins was born on June 3, 1944 in Brooklyn, New York. He has played with many jazz greats including Bob Brookmeyer, Stanley Turrentine, Jimmy Heath, Epitaph Mingus and Eddie Gomez as well as singers Mel Torme, Ray Charles, Morgana King, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, The Manhattan Transfer, Nancy Marano and Jay Clayton.
Wilkins’ cover of the Freddie Hubbard standard “Red Clay”, from his 1973 album Windows, was sampled by the hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest on their 1993 album Midnight Marauders and also by Chance the Rapper on the song NaNa, off his 2013 mix-tape Acid Rap. His full cover was subsequently included on the 1998 break beat compilation Tribe Vibes Volume 2.
Wilkins was awarded an NEA grant in recognition of his work with the guitar. He currently teaches at The New School, New York University, Long Island University and the Manhattan School of Music in addition to performing, recording and touring.
Put A Dose In Your Pocket
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Hollywood On 52nd Street
Stormy Weather is both title track composed by Harold Arlen in 1933 and title of the 1943 film starring Lena Horne, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Cab Calloway, Katherine Dunham, Fats Waller, Ada Brown, Dooley Wilson and the Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold. The romantic role of Selina, was invented for the film as Robinson did not have such a romance in real life. The song has been performed by Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Frank Sinatra, Red Garland, Charles Mingus, Don Byas to name a few. But the classic Horne is what you’ll hear.
The Story: The film is based upon the life and times of its star, dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson who plays Bill Williamson, a talented born dancer who returns home in 1918 after fighting in World War I and attempts to pursue a career as a performer. With his perpetually broke friend Gabe Tucker (Dooley Wilson along the way, he meets a beautiful singer named Selina Rogers (Lena Horne) at a soldiers’ ball and promises to come back to her when he “gets to be somebody.” Years go by, and Bill and Selina’s rising careers intersect only briefly, since Selina is unwilling to settle down.
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