Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jay Hoggard was born September 24, 1954 in Washington, D.C. but grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. His mother taught him how to play piano at a young age and picked up the saxophone long before age 15 when he started playing the vibraphone. He played with Anthony Davis and Leo Smith in the early 1970s around New England.

After moving to New York City in 1988 Jay worked again with Davis and with Chico Freeman, Sam Rivers, Cecil Taylor, James Newton and Kenny Burrell. He would go on to collaborate and perform over the next few decades with Lionel Hampton, Milt Jackson, Tito Puente, Bobby Hutcherson, Billy Taylor, James Newton, Hilton Ruiz and Oliver Lake.

An international performer Hoggard has played on stages and jazz festivals in Africa, South America, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean and throughout the United States as well as appearing on television. Since 1978 he has recorded more than a dozen and a half sessions as a leader and many dates as a sideman. Vibraphonist Jay Hoggard currently teaches at his alma mater Wesleyan University.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Billy Bang was born on William Vincent Walker on September 20, 1947 in Mobile, Alabama and while he was still an infant his family moved to the Bronx in New York City. As a child he attended a special school for musicians in Harlem and being small in physical size was assigned a violin instead his first choices, the saxophone or drums. It was around this time that he acquired the nickname of “Billy Bang”, derived from a popular cartoon character.

Billy studied the violin until he earned a hardship scholarship to a private high school in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, at which point he abandoned the instrument due to a lack of a music program. He had difficulty adjusting to school life, encountering racism and developing confusion about his identity, and his later onset of schizophrenia.

Bang left the school after two years, attended a school in the Bronx, dropped out when he was drafted, at 18 joined the Army and arrived in Vietnam in time for the Tet Offensive. Returning from the war he became politically active, fell in with an underground group of revolutionaries, purchased weapons and impulsively bought another violin from the same pawnshop.

In 1977, Bang co-founded the String Trio of New York with guitarist James Emery and bassist John Lindberg, exploring his experience in Vietnam in two albums: Vietnam: The Aftermath and Vietnam: Reflections.

Free jazz composer and violinist Billy Bang passed away on April 11, 2011 from complications due to lung cancer. He is survived by a legacy of some three-dozen albums.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

John Fedchock was born on September 18, 1957 in Cleveland, Ohio and earned his degree in music education from Ohio State University. He holds a master’s degree in Jazz Studies and Contemporary Media from the Eastman School of Music.

Fedchock began his career as a trombonist in 1980 working for several years in the Woody Herman Orchestra, becoming noted for his arrangements. He has worked and toured with T.S. Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Louie Bellson, Bob Belden, Rosemary Clooney and Susannah McCorkle among others. He has also been a part of the Manhattan Jazz Orchestra and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band.

An avid educator, he is in demand as a clinician at colleges and universities, was the trombone chair for the IAJE Resource Team, a board member of the International Trombone Association and is a trombone instructor at Purchase College and Temple University. As a leader John recorded his first album in 1992 with the New York Big Band, which remains active to the present. He has followed with a half dozen more recordings and continues to perform, record and tour.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jeffery Smith was born on September 14, 1955 in Queens, New York and began honing his voice at a very early age, under the influence of his mother, a classical singer. At the age of 18, he moved to Los Angeles and worked as a singer, actor and artist, landing several bit parts in television, and film, while performing in the local clubs.

In 1980 he starred in the production of “Hollywood & Highland” and was awarded the coveted 1981 Drama Critic’s Award, from Drama Logue Magazine. Returning to New York in 1985, the baritone co-starred on stage in “Jesus Christ Superstar”, “Hair” and “Capitol Cakewalk”, as well as performing in most of the city’s major clubs through 1991.

By 1991, Smith’s visit to Paris lasted for 7 years and while working with Claude Bolling, he recorded four albums, had two world tours with the big band, sang commercial jingles, and was signed with Universal/Verve for a 3-album deal, all of which received international acclaim. His 1995 debut recording “Ramona” was dedicated to his mother, and his U.S. debut came in 1998 with the release of “A Little Sweeter” on the Verve label.

Jeffery Smith has worked with Wynton Marsalis, the LCJ Orchestra, Dianne Reeves, Kenny Barron, Regina Carter, Ernie Watts, Pete Levin, Winard Harper, Joe Lovano, Dee Dee Bridgewater and TK Blue. He was the founder of the jazz cultivation not-for-profit Tri-Loxodonta Productions, a not-for-profit music organization cultivating jazz in upstate New York. Vocalist Jeffery Smith continued to perform internationally and record until he passed away on July 5, 2012..

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Scott Hamilton was born on September 12,1954 in Providence, Rhode Island. He emerged in the 1970s and at the time he was considered to be one of the few musicians of real talent who carried the tradition of the classic jazz tenor saxophone in the style of Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins as well as Zoot Sims and Don Byas forward.

Hamilton began playing in various rhythm & blues outfits in his hometown, but subsequently shifted to jazz and the tenor saxophone. In 1976 he moved to New York City, in part the recommendation of Roy Eldridge and joined Benny Goodman for a period of time. In 1977 he recorded his debut album for Concord Records, with whom he would have a long recording career in his own name and as one of their Concord Jazz All Stars. He also worked backing singer Rosemary Clooney and others.

In the early 1980s he had formed his own quintet and toured all over the world. By then free from his drinking habit, in 1982 he had matured sufficiently to be able to break away from the spell of mainly Ben Webster and Zoot Sims, whom he had been criticized of imitating. From this point on both his playing and his tone were very much his own.

By the early 1990s Scott was ready for a next step and by 1994 when he released Organic Duke, he had developed a quite singular style: a large, well-rounded but still focused tone and improvising, ostensibly still based on the swing idiom. Tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton has amassed a catalogue of over forty albums and continues to compose, perform and tour.

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