Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wallace Roney was born May 25, 1960 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and at the age of 4 it was discovered he had perfect pitch. He began his musical and trumpet studies at the Settlement School of Music, then from the age of 7 studied with Sigmund Herring of the Philadelphia Orchestra and under the watchful eye of Eugene Ormandy was regularly presented at the Settlement recitals with the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble.
Having already made his recording debut at 14 by the time he entered the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., Wallace made his mark in D.C. as a gifted local performer by his graduation. He studied with Langston Fitzgerald of the Baltimore Symphony, attended Howard University and Berklee College of Music, took lessons from Clark Terry and Dizzy Gillespie.
Wallace studied with Miles Davis from 1985 until his death in ’91 and credits Miles as having helped to challenge and shape his creative approach to life as well as being his music instructor, mentor and friend and holds the distinction of being the only trumpet player Davis ever personally mentored.
With all of his skills and early accomplishments, Roney early career was bleak, bordering on homelessness, until he got a call to tour with drummers Tony Williams and Art Blakey. This shot in the arm culminated in him becoming one of the most in-demand trumpeters on record, movie and commercial recording sessions. In 1979 and again in 1980, Wallace Roney won the Down Beat Award for Best Young Jazz Musician of the Year. In 1989, and again in 1990, Wallace won Down Beat Magazine’s Critic’s Poll for Best Trumpeter to Watch.
He has played with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter, Elvin Jones, Jay McShann, Walter Davis Jr., Sonny Rollins and Curtis Fuller to name the short list and has recorded on over 250 sessions by the time he turned 40. The hard bop and post bop trumpeter Wallace Roney continued to perform, record and tour until he passed away at age 59 from complications arising from COVID~19 on March 31, 2020 in Paterson, New Jersey.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marc Ribot was born on May 21, 1954 in Newark, New Jersey and worked extensively as a session musician. His early sessions with Tom Waits helped define Waits new musical direction in 1985.
His own work has touched on many styles, including n wave, free jazz and Cuban music. Ribot’s first two albums featured The Rootless Cosmopolitans, followed by an album of works by Frantz Casseus and Arsenio Rodriguez. Further releases found him working in a variety of band and solo contexts including two albums with his self-described “dance band”, Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos.
His relatively limited technical facility is due to learning to play right-handed despite being left-handed. He currently performs and records with his group Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog. Marc’s studio work involves several tracks accompanying the legendary pianist McCoy Tyner’s “Guitars” project. He has performed and recorded with Jack McDuff, John Scofield, Wilson Pickett, Cibo Matto, Bela Fleck, Derek Trucks, Madeline Peyroux, Medeski Martin & Wood, Elton John and many others.
He has toured Europe with his band Sun Ship, had a biographical documentary film called the The Lost String and has also judged the 8th Annual Independent Music Awards to support indie careers in music. He has twenty-one albums as a leader, a filmography that includes five and a biographical documentary about him titled The Lost String. Guitarist Marc Ribot also plays banjo, trumpet, cornet and sings and continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jim McNeely was on born May 18, 1949 in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from the University of Illinois he moved to New York City in 1975. By ’78 he joined the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band, spending six years as a featured soloist.
In 1981 Jim joined Stan Getz’s quartet and for the next four years served as pianist/composer. The early part of the ‘90s he held the piano chair with the Phil Woods Quintet, and from 1996 to the present day McNeely holds the position as pianist/composer-in-residence for the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
Jim has been the chief conductor for the Danish Radio Big Band in Copenhagen, Denmark, is currently artist-in-residence with the HR Big Band in Frankfurt, Germany and continues to appear as guest with many of Europe’s leading jazz orchestras such as The Metropole Orchestra in The Netherlands and The Stockholm Jazz Orchestra in Sweden.
The Grammy award winning jazz pianist, composer and arranger has recorded more than a dozen CDs under his own name, earning nine Grammy nominations between 1997 and 2006. In 2008, he was awarded a Grammy with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra for their album Monday Night Live at the Village Vanguard.
Grammy-winning pianist Jim McNeely leads his own tentet, his own trio, and appears as soloist at concerts and festivals worldwide while serving on the faculties of The Manhattan School of Music, William Patterson University and is musical director of the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Keith Jarrett was born on May 8, 1945, in Allentown, Pennsylvania and had significant early exposure to music. He possessed absolute pitch and displayed prodigious musical talents as a young child. He began piano lessons just before his third birthday, and at age five he appeared on a TV talent program and by seven had given his first classical piano recital. During his teens he began leaning towards jazz, turned down classical training in Paris and attended Berklee College of Music
He started his career with Art Blakey and after his tenure as a Jazz Messenger moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 70s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz-fusion, and classical music; as a group leader and a solo performer. His improvisations draw not only from the traditions of jazz but from other genres as well, especially Western classical music, gospel, blues, blues and ethnic folk music.
Jarrett has received the Polar Music Prize, the Leonie Sonning Music Prize, was inducted into the Down Beat Down Beat Hall of Fame, played with Jack DeJohnette, Charles Lloyd, Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, Dewey Redman, Airto Moreira, Palle Danielson and Jan Garbarek among others.
Jarrett’s compositions and the strong musical identities of the group members gave this ensemble a very distinctive sound. The quartet’s music is an amalgam of free jazz, straight-ahead post-bop, gospel music, and exotic, Middle-Eastern-sounding improvisations. He has played as a soloist, trio, returned also to classical music, incorporates vocalizations of grunts, squeals and tuneless singing. He continues to compose, record, perform and tour.
In 2003, Jarrett received the Polar Music Prize, the first (and to this day only) recipient not to share the prize with a co-recipient,[1] and in 2004 he received the Leonie Sonning Music Prize. In 2008, he was inducted into the Down Beat hall of Fame in the magazine’s 73rd Annual Readers’ Poll. He continues to tour and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jack Walrath was born on May 5, 1946 in Stuart, Florida and began playing the trumpet at the age of nine while living in Edgar, Montana. He graduated from Joliet High School in 1964 and attended the Berklee College of Music. Pursuing a composition diploma program instead of a full degree program, he concentrated specifically upon music classes. During his Berklee years he backed a number of R&B singers in the Boston and Cambridge areas, gigged with his fellow students and worked in the band Change with bassist Gary Peacock.
In 1969 Jack relocated to the West Coast, found work in the Los Angeles jazz scene, became a member of the band Revival, joined the West Coast Motown Orchestra, toured with Ray Charles and by the next year was back in New York City working with mainstream and Latin jazz bands. By 1974 he met and joined Charles Mingus’ quintet that broke new ground in free jazz and non-chordal improvisation. He continues the legacy working with Mingus Dynasty and the Charles Mingus Big Band.
Walrath has been a sideman for such luminaries as Miles Davis, Quincy Jones, Larry Willis, Bobby Watson, Hal Galper, Sam Rivers, Mike Longo, Elvis Costello, Richie Cole and others. He has worked with the WDR Big Band, the Jazz Tribe and the Charlie Persip Superband. He has led ensembles under the names of The Jack Walrath Group, Wholly Trinity, Hard Corps, The Masters of Suspense, and The Jack Walrath Quintet.
Post-bop jazz trumpeter Jack Walrath has amassed a catalogue of twenty-six albums as a leader and 28 as a sideman; has been nominated for a Grammy, received composition grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, has been commissioned to compose for symphony to solo piano and continues to conduct seminars, master classes, music camps and clinics around the world. He has also written an instruction book, 20 Melodic Jazz Studies for Trumpet, and is currently working on an autobiography, CD and record guide.
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