Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bill Pierce, known to many as Billy Pierce, was born September 25, 1948 in Hampton, Virginia. He studied with Joe Viola and Andy McGhee at Berklee College of Music, and with Joe Allard.
In the early 1980s he was recruited by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Through the late Eighties and into the late 1990s he recorded simultaneously as a leader while also in Tony Williams’s quintet in the mid-1980s to early 1990s.
As a leader he has recorded seven albums and another 18 as a sideman with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Geoff Keezer, Kevin Eubanks, Makoto Ozone, Superblue, Tony Williams, and Lazlo Gardony.
As an educator Billy says he likes seeing music being carried on by young people developing, achieving their dreams, and being a part of history. Many of his students have made a name for themselves: Antonio Hart, Mark Gross, Javon Jackson, Walter Smith, Mark Turner, Miguel Zenon.
Saxophonist Billy Pierce, who is the former chair of the Berklee woodwind department, continues to perform, tour and educate.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Franks was born September 18, 1944 in La Jolla, California and grew up with two younger sisters. Neither parent was a musician but they loved swing music, and his early influences included Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Johnny Mercer. At age 14 he bought his first guitar, a Japanese Marco Polo for $29.95 with six private lessons included. Those lessons were the only music education that he received.
While at University High School in San Diego,California he discovered the poetry of Theodore Roethke with his off-rhymes and hidden meter. He began singing folk-rock, accompanying himself on guitar. Studying English at UCLA, Michael discovered Dave Brubeck, Patti Page, Stan Getz, João Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Miles Davis. Never studying music in college or later, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from UCLA in comparative literature in 1966 and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Oregon two years later. He returned to UCLA to teach after a stint in a PhD program in Montreal.
During this time Franks started writing songs, starting with the 1968 antiwar musical Anthems in E-flat and went on to compose music for films. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee recorded three of his songs, on their album Sonny & Brownie. Franks played guitar, banjo and mandolin on the album and joined them in touring. In 1973, he recorded an eponymous debut album, later reissued as Previously Unavailable.
In 1976 he released his second album The Art of Tea featuring the Crusaders and which saw Franks begin a long relationship with Warner Bros. Records. Subsequent albums came in 1977 and 1978 and through the 1980s. His move to New York City featured more of an East Coast sound on his albums and performance. Since then, Franks has recorded more than 15 albums.
He has recorded with a variety of well-known artists, such as Peggy Lee, Dan Hicks, Patti Austin, Art Garfunkel, Brenda Russell, Claus Ogerman, Joe Sample, and David Sanborn. His songs have been recorded by Shirley Bassey, Kurt Elling, Diana Krall, The Manhattan Transfer, Leo Sidran, Veronica Nunn, Carmen McRae, and Natalie Cole, aming other pop and rock artists.
Vocalist and songwriter Michael Franks, who plays guitar, banjo, mandolin, and cabasa, is still active and working on a new project.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
David Liebman was born September 4, 1946 into a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York. As a child he contracted polio and began classical piano lessons at the age of nine and saxophone by twelve. His interest in jazz came when he saw John Coltrane perform live in New York City clubs aand throughout high school and college, Liebman pursued his jazz interest by studying with Joe Allard, Lennie Tristano, and Charles Lloyd. Upon graduation from New York University he began to seriously devote himself to the full-time pursuit of being a jazz artist.
In the early 1970s, he organized the cooperative, Free Life Communication, which became an integral part of the New York loft jazz scene. He landed a place with Elvin Jones’ band then an apprenticeship with Miles Davis from 1970 to 1974. Liebman explored his own music with the groups Open Sky Trio and Lookout Farm.In 1977 he toured the world with pianist Chick Corea, followed by his own quintet over three years.
David has worked with George Mraz, Al Foster, Ron McClure and Billy Hart, Vic Juris, Tony Marino, Bobby Avey, Matt Vashlishan and Alex Ritz, Joachim Kühn, Daniel Humair, Paolo Fresu, Jon Christensen, Bobo Stenson among others. He played with several European orchestras, and his artistic output is straight-ahead classic jazz, chamber music, fusion and avant garde.
As an educator he has published instructional DVDs, has taught at universities and clinics, and has regularly received grantees to study with him funded by the NEA, the Canadian Arts Council, as well as Arts Councils of numerous European countries. In 1989, he was the artistic director of the International Association of Schools of Jazz.
Saxophonist, flautist and jazz educator David Liebman, who received a NEA Jazz Masters lifetime achievement award, continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Douglas Surman was born August 30, 1944 in Tavistock, Devon, England. He initially gained recognition playing baritone saxophone in the Mike Westbrook Band in the mid-1960s, and was soon heard regularly playing soprano saxophone and bass clarinet as well.
His first playing issued on a record was with the Peter Lemer Quintet in 1966. After further recordings and performances with jazz bandleaders Westbrook and Graham Collier and blues-rock musician Alexis Korner, he made the first record under his own name in 1968.
In 1969, he founded The Trio along with two expatriate American musicians, bassist Barre Phillips and drummer Stu Martin. In the mid-1970s, he founded one of the earliest all-saxophone jazz groups, S.O.S., along with alto saxophonist Mike Osborne and tenor saxophonist Alan Skidmore.
During this early period, he also recorded with (among others) saxophonist Ronnie Scott, guitarist John McLaughlin, bandleader Michael Gibbs, trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff, and pianist Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath.
In 1972 he had begun experimenting with synthesizers. The musical relationships he established during the Seventies with pianist John Taylor, bassist Chris Laurence, and drummer John Marshall; singer Karin Krog and drummer/pianist Jack DeJohnette continued for decades.
Since the 1990s, he has composed several suites of music that feature his playing in unusual contexts, and has worked with bassist Miroslav Vitouš, bandleader Gil Evans, pianist Paul Bley and Vigleik Storaas, saxophonist and composer John Warren, guitarists Terje Rypdal and John Abercrombie and trumpeter Tomasz Stańko.
Baritone and soprano saxophonist, clarinetist, synthesizer player, and composer of free jazz and modal jazz, who continues to often use themes from folk music has also composed and performed music for dance performances and film soundtracks.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Stanley Marshall was born August 28, 1941 in Isleworth, Middlesex , England and worked with various jazz and rock bands and musicians, among them J. J. Jackson, Allan Holdsworth, Barney Kessel, Alexis Korner, Graham Collier, Michael Gibbs, Arthur Brown, Keith Tippett, Centipede, Jack Bruce, John McLaughlin, Dick Morrissey, Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean, John Surman, Charlie Mariano, John Abercrombie, Arild Andersen, and Eberhard Weber’s Colours.
From 1999, he worked with former Soft Machine co-musicians in several Soft Machine-related projects like SoftWare, SoftWorks and Soft Machine Legacy. He toured as a member of the band, which operated under the name Soft Machine again, from 2015 to 2023.
Drummer John Marshall, was a founding member of Ian Carr’s jazz rock band Nucleus, and Eberhard Weber’s Colours, died on September 16, 2023, at the age of 82.
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