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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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joni Janak was born August 24 in 1944 in Amarillo, Texas and raised in a musical family. He was taught singing, dancing and piano at the Amarillo College of Music. She gave public recitals from the age of eight and had her first professional singing job at thirteen. Receiving a vocal scholarship to Texas Tech University in Lubbock, he eventually returned to Amarillo and sang with many different bands and with the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra when he was 22.
Heading to Houston, Texas she sang in the Carriage Club at the Sheraton Lincoln Hotel until 1969 when she moved to Denver, Colorado, furthering her career. While there she sang with local and visiting jazz musicians, among them Dale Bruning, Ellyn Rucker, Phil Urso, Peanuts Hucko, Bobby Greene, Todd Reid, the Hot Tomatoes Jazz Band, Howard Davis and Jim Riley.
Meeting Carl Fontana while she worked the El Chapultepec he invited her to Las Vegas, Nevada to work with him. In Vegas she worked with Carson Smith, Tom Montgomery, Vinnie Tano, Bill Berry, Herbie Phillips and Bill Watrous. She also sang on a jazz cruise with the Johnny Carson Tonight Show Allstars, played jazz festivals and concerts
Vocalist Joni Janak continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Warren Daly was born on August 22, 1943 in Sydney, Australia. Early in his career, he visited the United States where he worked with distinguished artists, among them Buddy De Franco.
He co-founder of the Daly-Wilson Big Band with trombonist/arranger Ed Wilson in 1968. In 1975 with corporate sponsorship, the band toured internationally including the Soviet Union. With the band splitting up, Warren formed the Warren Daly Big Band.
In the 1991 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Daly was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) “for service to music as band leader and drummer”.
Drummer Warren Daly continues to perform and record.
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