Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John McLaughlin was born on January 4, 1942 into a family of musicians in Doncaster, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. As a child he took up the guitar at the age of 11, exploring styles from flamenco to the jazz of Tal Farlow, Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. Moving to London, England from Yorkshire in the early Sixties, hestarted playing with Alexis Korner and the Marzipan Twisters before moving on to Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, the Graham Bond Organisation, and Brian Auger.
During this period he often supported himself with session work, which he often found unsatisfying but which enhanced his playing and sight-reading. Also, he gave guitar lessons to Jimmy Page. In 1963, Jack Bruce formed the Graham Bond Quartet with Bond, Ginger Baker and John McLaughlin. They played an eclectic range of music genres, including bebop, blues and rhythm and blues.
By the end of the decade McLaughlin recorded his debut album Extrapolation in London. The album’s post-bop style is quite different from McLaughlin’s later fusion works. He moved to the U.S. in 1969 to join Tony Williams’ group Lifetime. He went on to play on Miles Davis’ albums In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Live-Evil, On the Corner, Big Fun and A Tribute to Jack Johnson.
As his reputation as a “first-call” session player grew, he was tapped to record as a sideman with Miroslav Vitous, Larry Coryell, Joe Farrell, Wayne Shorter, Carla Bley, the Rolling Stones, DExter Godon, Santana, Paco de Lucia and others.
The Seventies saw him put together the Mahavisnu Orchestra, delved into Indian classical music, and recorded with Stanley Clarke on his School Days album. Throughout the rest of the century he continued to perform with Mahavisnu, no longer the orchestra, as well as sideman duties on a variety of albums, performances and genres well into the new century.
He has recorded nineteen albums as a leader, six collaborative albums, twelve live albums, and 45 as a sideman. Guitarist John McLaughlin continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Doug Hammond was born December 26, 1942 in Tampa, Florida. His first major release was Reflections in the Sea of Nurnen on Tribe Records in 1975.
He has worked with musicians including Earl Hooker, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Sammy Price, Donald Byrd, Wolfgang Dauner, Ornette Coleman, Steve Coleman, Nina Simone, Betty Carter, Marion Williams, Paquito D’Rivera, Arnett Cobb, James Blood Ulmer and Arthur Blythe.
In 2010 Hammond wrote and conducted Acknowledgement Suite with Dwight Adams, Jean Toussaint, Roman Filiú, Howard Curtis, Wendell Harrison, Dick Griffin, Stéphane Payen, Kirk Lightsey and Arron James.
As an educator Doug was a professor at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz, Austria. His work has been filmed in a documentary Sparkle of Inspiration by the Austrian director Dieter Strauch.
Drummer, composer, poet, producer, and professor Doug Hammond, who plays in the free funk/avant-garde jazz genres, lives and continues to work in Linz.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bill Reichenbach was born William Frank Reichenbach Jr. on November 30, 1949 in Takoma Park, Maryland. He began playing in high school for bands in the Washington, D.C. area and also sat in with his father’s group, playing with Milt Jackson, Zoot Sims, and others.
He went to Rochester, New York to study at the Eastman School of Music with the legendary teacher Emory Remington and after graduating joined the Buddy Rich band. He would go on to work in the Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band in Los Angeles, California in the mid/late 1970s. After that move he became known for music for television and film.[2]
He played trombone on The Wiz and, with the Seawind Horns including Jerry Hey on Michael Jackson’s albums Off the Wall, Thriller, and HIStory. He was a composer for Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue.
He recorded a solo album, Special Edition, where he is featured on bass trombone as well as tenor. Trombonist, euphoniumist, composer and session musician Bill Reichenbach, who has collaborated on eighty-six albums with artists from Al Jarreau and George Benson to Barbra Streisand, Patti Austin and Bette Midler to Christopher Cross and Selena, continues his career in television, films, cartoons, and commercials.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jesper Thilo was born on November 28, 1941 in Copenhagen, Denmark to a pianist-actress mother and architect father. He started to play clarinet at age 11 and from 1955 to 1960 he played clarinet and trombone in various amateur Dixieland jazz bands with the occasional paid jobs as a musician. Early he knew that he wanted to become a professional jazz musician but to get an education he chose to study classical clarinet at the Royal Danish Academy of Music.
While at the Academy, Thilo joined Arnved Meyer’s orchestra from 1960 to 1964 and again from 1967 to 1974 and it was Meyer who convinced him to shift to saxophone. He would go on to play with Ben Webster, Benny Carter, Harry Edison, Roy Eldridge and Coleman Hawkins. During this part of his career his virile swing style was chiefly inspired by Webster and Hawkins and his own quintet which he put together in 1965 and co-lead with Torolf Mølgaard and Bjarne Rostvold.
From 1966 to 1989, he was a member of the DR Big Band under bandleaders Palle Mikkelborg and Thad Jones. He mainly played alto saxophone but occasionally also tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, baritone saxophone, concert flute, clarinet or bass clarinet. Through the Eighties, Jesper played in Ernie Wilkins’ Almost Big Band. Other collaborators have included Wild Bill Davison and Niels Jørgen Steen.
By 1989, leaving the DR Big Band and Ernie Wilkins’s orchestra he led his own bands with Søren Kristiansen, Olivier Antunes, Hugo Rasmussen og Svend-Erik Nørregaard. He first recorded as a leader for Storyville Records in 1973 and in the 1980s on Storyville his sidemen at various times included Kenny Drew, Clark Terry and Harry “Sweets” Edison, and appeared on the Miles Davis album Aura.
Considered to be one of the top European straight-ahead jazz musicians of the post-1970 period, tenor saxophonist, alto saxophonist, clarinetist and flutist Jesper Thilo continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Robert Conti was born November 21, 1945 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was an autodidact, first performing locally at age fourteen and mentoring with Pat Martino. In 1966, after four years on the road touring North America, he settled in Jacksonville, Florida.
In 1970, he dropped out of the music business to work in the securities field. Six years later he picked up his guitar and by 1979, he signed with Discovery Records. Conti released Solo Guitar as his debut as a leader and his sophomore project Latin Love Affair. By 1982 he left music again for the business world but again in 1985 he released another album. The following year he headlined the Florida National Jazz Festival, with Jimmy McGriff and Nick Brignola as his sidemen.
In mid-1988 he was offered a position under filmmaker Dino De Laurentiis in Beverly Hills, California. After a lengthy recovery from a back injury in late 1988, he was offered a position as resident jazz guitarist at the Irvine Marriott, a job he held until 1998.
Since starting his website in 2000, he has released 30 educational DVDs on jazz guitar, including pro chord melody and improvisation using his No Modes No Scales approach to teaching jazz guitar. Guitarist and educator Robert Conti, who has his own line of solid spruce thinline archtop jazz guitars since 2009, continues to teach, and perform.
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