Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bronisław Suchanek was born August 30, 1948 in Bielsko-Biała, Poland. During his studies at the Secondary Music School he was a member of the Andrzej Zubek Quartet and from 1967 to 1971 he studied at the Academy of Music. In 1969, while still a student, he began collaborating with Tomasz Stańko’s quintet and recorded two albums and were among the first musicians to inaugurate the first Music Workshop in Chodzież, Poland.
He made his debut on the music scene playing in the Silesian Jazz Quartet, which he co-founded with pianist Andrzej Zubek, trumpeter Bogusław Skawina, Jerzy Jarosik on flute and saxophone, and drummer Kazimierz Jonkisz.
At the end of 1972, Bronisław went with the Klan Band to Finland where he took part in a concert as part of the Helsinki Festival and presented the premiere of free-jazz and rock. In 2016, GAD Records released an album titled Live Finland 1972 with a recording of this concert. In the 1970s he was a member of the Polish Radio Jazz Studio Orchestra.
He has performed and recorded both in Poland and abroad with American jazz musicians such as Don Cherry and Rick Stepton. In the second half of the decade he emigrated to Sweden, where he played in the Swedish Jazz Radio Group. He operated in Scandinavia for over a dozen years, collaborating with the bands Sound of Flowers and Birka.
The 1980s saw him giving concerts and recording albums in Germany and Austria with different formations. In 1995 Suchanek moved to the United States where he taught at the Maine School of Music and played in the Woody Herman Big Band and the Artie Shaw Orchestra.
He recorded an album titled Sketch in Blue in a duet with Dominik Wania. In 2010 he recorded an album titled Jerzy Wasowski Songbook together with Bogdan Hołownia, Jerry Veimola and Joe Hunt. He collaborated with the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra.
Double bassist Bronisław Suchanek, who was awarded the Silver Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis, continues to perform and record in the free jazz and straight-ahead mediums.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mike Metheny was born August 28, 1949 in Lee’s Summit, Missouri and studied music education at the University of Missouri School of Music and Northeast Missouri State University, then played trumpet in the U.S. Army Field Band, Washington D.C. from 1971 to 1974. After his discharge he went to Boston, Massachusetts and became an adjunct lecturer and assistant to the head of the trumpet department at the Berklee College of Music for seven years beginning in 1976.
From 1978 to 1989 Metheny led his own quartet in Boston, and in 1988 he was named Outstanding Brass Player at the annual Boston Music Awards. His debut album was released in 1982 and followed that with eleven more and produced two records with major labels to mixed reviews. Since 2000, his albums have been produced on his own record label, 3 Valve Music.
Mike’s career in music journalism has seen him as editor for Kansas City’s Jazz Ambassador Magazine (JAM) from 1994 to 2003 and has contributed to KC Magazine, Jazziz, and The DaCapo Jazz & Blues Lover’s Guide to the U.S.
He continues to perform primarily in Kansas and Missouri, playing a trumpet synthesizern electronic valve instrument (EVI). With his brother Pat they set up the Metheny Music Foundation with Mike serving as the chairman.
Flugelhornist and trumpeter Mike Metheny, who published the anthology Old Friends Are the Best Friends: the Letters of John McKee and Mike Metheny, continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tom Kennedy was born on August 21, 1960 in St. Louis, Missouri and is the son of a professional trumpet player. He began playing acoustic bass at the age of nine on a double-bass brought home by his older brother, jazz pianist Ray Kennedy. It wasn’t long before he began to perform with such as Freddie Hubbard, James Moody, Nat Adderly, Sonny Stitt and Stan Kenton passing through the Midwest.
Specializing in acoustic jazz until he picked up the electric bass at the age of 17. Soon he was dividing his time between mainstream and progressive jazz fusion. Tom gained a reputation beyond St. Louis and he relocated to New York City, where he quickly found work with multiple groups. He recorded with guitarist Bill Connors and toured with Michael Brecker in the jazz-fusion group Steps Ahead. He went on to have tours and recordings with Tania Maria and Al DiMeola.
In 1998, Kennedy became an integral part of Dave Weckl’s band, a group he toured, composed and recorded with for over nine years. They have continued to perform and record together on various projects for other artists, including Mike Stern, Didier Lockwood, Dave Grusin and Lee Ritenour.
He has recorded six albums as a leader and another twenty as a sideman with Dave Weckl, Bill Connors, Don Grolnick, Ray Kennedy, Al DiMeola, Planet X, Derek Sherinian, and Mike Stern.
Tom has also performed and recorded with top contemporary players Simon Phillips, Steve Gadd, Frank Gambale, Steve Lukather, David Sanborn, Jeff Lorber, Ricky Lawson, Joe Sample, Renee Rosnes and George Garzone and fusion band Planet X.
Double-bass and electric bassist Tom Kennedy, who moved to New York City in 1984 and immersed himself in the hard bop, fusion and swing genres, continues to perform and record.
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Jazz Poems
BIX BEIDERBECKE (1908~1931)
January, 1926
China Boy. Lazy Daddy. Cryin’ All Day.
He dreamed he played the notes so slowly that
they hovered in the air above the crowd
and shimmered like a neon sign. But no,
the club stayed dark, trays clattered in the kitchen,
people drank and kept on talking. He watched
the smoke drift from a woman’s cigarette
and slowly circle up across the room
until the ceiling fan blades chopped it up.
A face, a young girl’s face, looked up at him,
the stupid face of small-town innocence.
He smiled her way and wondered who she was.
He looked again and saw the face was his.
He woke up then. His head still hurt from drinking.
Jimmy ws driving. Tram was still asleep.
Where were they anyway? Near Davenport?
There was no distance in these open fields–
only time, time marked by a farmhouse
or a barn, a tin-topped silo or a tree,
some momentary silhouette against
the endless, empty fields of snow.
He lit a cigarette and closed his eyes.
The best years of his life! The Boring “Twenties.
He watched the morning break across the snow.
Would heaven be as white as Iowa?
DANA GIOIA
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Terence Michael “Terry” Clarke was born August 20, 1944 in Vancouver, Canada. He studied percussion with Jim Blackley and played with Chris Gage and Dave Robbins early in his career. From 1965 to 1967 he toured in a quintet with John Handy, and joined The Fifth Dimension in 1967, remaining until 1969.
In 1970, he moved to Toronto, Canada where he began a longstanding association with Rob McConnell’s group, Boss Brass. He also played with Ed Bickert, Ruby Braff, Jim Galloway, Sonny Greenwich, Jay McShann, Emily Remler, and Frank Rosolino. In 1976, he toured with Jim Hall for the first time and in 1981 did an international tour with Oscar Peterson.
Relocating to New York City in 1985 he played or recorded with Toshiko Akiyoshi, Eddie Daniels, Oliver Jones, Roger Kellaway, Helen Merrill, Ken Peplowski, and Joe Roccisano, among others. He played with the Free Trade ensemble in 1994, a quintet composed of Clarke, Ralph Bowen, Neil Swainson, Renee Rosnes, and Peter Leitch.
Returning to Toronto in 1999, he joined The Rob McConnell Tentet. His 2009 debut album It’s About Time won a Juno Award for Traditional Jazz Album of the Year. Drummer Terry Clarke, who recorded 29 albums as a sideman and was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2002, continues to perform and record.
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