Daily Dose Of Jazz…
René McLean was born on December 16, 1946 in New York City, the son of altoist Jackie McLean. He started playing guitar before receiving his alto saxophone and instruction from his father at age nine. He made his debut with his father’s band in the mid Sixties as well as leading his own bands. His debut as a bandleader and producer began at the age of 16 in 1963.
He later studied music with the Jazz Arts Society, Haryou Act Cultural Program, and the Jazz Mobile, New York College of Music, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and privately with George Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Frank Foster, Kenny Dorham and Barry Harris among others. By the mid -1970’s McLean played in a quintet with Woody Shaw and Louis Hayes and toured with Hugh Masekela in 1978.
René has performed and recorded extensively as a leader and featured sideman with the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band, Lionel Hampton All Stars, Tito Puente Orchestra, Horace Silver, Dr. Bill Taylor, Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba, Abbey Lincoln, Dexter Gordon, James Moody, Yusef Lateef, Jaco Pastorius and Jerry Gonzales’ Forte Apache Band, as well as collaborating with poet-activist Amiri Baraka.
As a music educator McLean has performed, conducted workshops and lectured at numerous universities and cultural programs in the U.S. and Caribbean (including Cuba), as well as in South America, Europe, Lebanon, Japan, Indonesia, South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Mauritius and is presently Professor of African American music of the Jackie McLean Institute at The Hartt School, University of Hartford and Master Artist-in-Residence of Music at the Artists Collective in Hartford, Connecticut.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Diane Schuur was born December 10, 1953 in Tacoma, Washington and was blinded at birth due to retinopathy of prematurity. Encouraged by both her parents to sing, she started when she was a two-and-a-half and by age nine was getting professional gigs. Early heroines were Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington but while attending Washington State School for the Blind she began performing original material and by sixteen had revealed a distinctive voice and began performing.
Diane’s big break came when Stan Getz heard her at the 1979 Monterey Jazz Festival and became a positive influence. In 1982 he invited her to join him at a White House performance and Nancy Reagan invited her back to perform with Count Basie. She began recording in 1984 on her nickname titled album “Deedles” with Getz performing and on her next two albums.
Pianist and vocalist Diane Schuur has performed with Quincy Jones, Stan Getz, B.B. King, Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Ray Charles, Joe Williams, Barry Manilow, Alan Broadbent, Harvey mason, Peter Erskine and Stevie Wonder among others. She has been nominated five times and won two Grammy Awards, and her catalogue of recordings is too extensive to enumerate. Her staying power is evident in her continual performance, touring and recording of both studio and live performances.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Matthew Shipp was born December 7, 1960 in Wilmington, Delaware and began playing piano at six years old. Strongly attracted to jazz, he also played in rock groups while in high school, and then attended the University of Delaware for one year, then the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with saxophonist/composer Joe Marini.
Shipp has been very active since the early 1990s initially becoming most active in free jazz but branched out to explore music that touches on contemporary classical, hip hop and electronica. He has appeared on more than three dozens of albums as a leader, sideman or producer.
Matthew has long been a member of saxophonist David S. Ware’s quartet, has recorded or performed with William Parker, DJ Spooky, Joe Morris, Daniel Carter and Roscoe Mitchell among others.
Pianist Matthew Shipp continuously improves his repertoire from touring the world, writing new compositions and currently collaborating with multi-media artist Barbara Januszkiewicz, exploring new territory through an avant-garde film called “The Composer”.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chip Shelton was born Clarence Elmo Shelton, Jr. on December 2, 1944 in Welch, West Virginia. He studied drums with his multi-instrumentalist record collector father from age 5 to 7. He studied piano from age 8 to 11 and clarinet from age 11 to14 and finally settled on flute. A well-rounded student he found time to participate in choir, dance and sports.
Shelton attended high school in Dayton, Ohio, followed by 3 years of pre-med at University of Cincinnati, experimenting with his own brand of self-taught improvisation on piano, clarinet, and saxophone. At age 20, he became more focused musically and while at Howard University he jammed with notables like Donny Hathaway, Sherry Winston, and Lloyd McNeil, and led his own straight-ahead jazz quintet, the “DMZ Revisited”.
At age 24 Chip moved to New York, studying and/or performed with Bill Barron, James Moody, Hank Mobley, Irene Reid, Jimmy Ponder, Frank Foster, Jimmy Heath, Frank Wess, Hubert Laws, Ernie Wilkins, Joe Newman, and many others around New York and New Jersey.
Chip Shelton has gone on to perform live alongside Greg Bandy, Peter Bernstein, Philip Harper, Herman Foster, Lou Donaldson, and TK Blue. In the 90s he would record for with Rise Up Label, Satellites Records, and performed with Louis Hayes, Bob Baldwin, Roy Ayers, Roy Merriwether, John Hicks, Lynn Seaton and numerous others. He has recorded nearly a dozen albums and continues to compose, perform and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Mbizo Dyani was born on November 30, 1945 in Duncan Village, a township of the South African city of East London. He started playing the piano and singing in a traditional choir at an early age. At 13, he switched to bass, but would use both voice and piano later on.
In the early 1960s, Dyani was a member of South Africa’s first integrated jazz band, “The Blue Notes”; however, in 1964 the band fled South Africa to seek musical and political freedom, rebelling against the apartheid regime that inhibited whites and blacks playing together.
In 1966, Dyani toured Argentina with Steve Lacy’s quartet and recorded. The Forest and the Zoo. He would later move to Denmark and Sweden, recording many albums under his own name. He recorded with Dollar Brand a.k.a. Abdullah Ibrahim, Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, David Murray, Mal Waldron, Don Moye and Brotherhood of Breath among many others.
In the 70s he formed the group “Earthquake Power” and then became very active on the European scene. His Witchdoctor’s Son band recorded for Steeplechase Records and he also recorded with Swedish and Brazilian musicians. Dyani’s main focus of playing entered around African jazz, avant-garde jazz and world fusion.
Double bassist and pianist Johnny Dyani passed away suddenly after a concert in Berlin on October 24, 1986 at age 40. After his death, the remaining members of The Blue Notes reunited to record a moving tribute album, titled Blue Notes For Johnny.