Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mark Helias was born October 1, 1950 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He started playing the double bass at the age of 20, graduating from Yale University’s School of Music with a Masters degree in 1976 and also studied at Rutgers University.
He has performed with a wide variety of musicians, first and foremost with trombonist Ray Anderson, with whom Helias led the ironic 1980s avant-funk band Slickaphonics. He also led a trio with drummer Gerry Hemingway, formed in the late 1970s, which was later renamed BassDrumBone.
Helias has performed with members of Ornette Coleman’s band, Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, and Ed Blackwell, and with musicians affiliated with the AACM, such as Anthony Braxton and Muhal Richard Abrams.
>Since 1984 Mark Helias has released six recordings under his own name and further six albums leading the archetypal improvising trio Open Loose since 1996. The group comprises Helias on bass, first Ellery Eskelin, then Tony Malaby on tenor saxophone and Tom Rainey on drums.
Double bassist and composer Mark Helias continues to perform and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, The New School, and SIM (School for Improvised Music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mikio Masuda 益田 幹夫, also known as Mickey Masuda, was born on August 14, 1949 in Osaka, Japan. Largely self-taught, he played bass at the age of 16, before switching to piano and performing in various Osaka clubs. Moving to Tokyo, Japan In 1969 he played around the Japanese jazz scene, notably in a quartet with Motohiko Hino, Shunzo Ohno and Terumasa Hino.
Recording his debut album Trace for East Wind Records in 1974, he followed it with his sophomore jazz-fusion album Mickey’s Mouth in 1976. The following years saw Masuda working with a number of Japanese musicians prior to moving to New York City in 1978. He recorded the album Corazón, and worked in New York City with David Matthews. He recorded the trio album Black Daffodils in 1996 with Ron Carter and Lewis Nash, and Blue Dumplings in 1998 with Ron Carter and Grady Tate.
In the field of jazz he was involved between 1972 and 1998 in 46 recording sessions, most recently with Chie Ayado. Pianist Mikio Masuda continues to be active on the jazz scene.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Barbara Gracey Thompson was born on July 27, 1944 in Oxford, England. She studied saxophone and classical composition at the Royal College of Music, but it was the music of Duke Ellington and John Coltrane that made her shift her interests to jazz and saxophone.
Around 1970, Thompson was part of Neil Ardley’s New Jazz Orchestra and appeared on albums by Colosseum. Beginning in 1975, she was involved in the foundation of three bands: United Jazz and Rock Ensemble, a group of bandleaders; Barbara Thompson’s Jubiaba, a nine piece Latin/rock band; and Barbara Thompson’s Paraphernalia, her most recent band with pianist Peter Lemer, vocalist Billy Thompson, bassist Dave Ball, and the late Jon Hiseman on drums.
Awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1996 for her services to music, due to Parkinson’s disease diagnosed in 1997, she retired as an active saxophonist in 2001 with a farewell tour. After a period of working as a composer exclusively, she returned to the stage in 2003.
Following hospitalization with atrial fibrillation, she landed a role in an accident and emergency department featured in an episode of the Channel 4 fly-on-the-wall television documentary “24 Hours in A&E” in October 2020.
Thompson has worked closely with Andrew Lloyd Webber on musicals such as Cats and Starlight Express, his Requiem, and Lloyd Webber’s 1978 classical-fusion album Variations. She has written several classical compositions, music for film and television, a musical of her own and songs for the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble, Barbara Thompson’s Paraphernalia and her big band Moving Parts.
She played the incidental music in the ITV police series A Touch of Frost starring David Jason, and flute on Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. Saxophonist and flutist Barbara Thompson remains active.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jean-François “J.F.” Jenny-Clark was born July 12, 1944 in Toulouse, France. Together with drummer Aldo Romano he provided the rhythm section for Don Cherry’s 1965 European quintet of 1965. During the Seventies he recorded with Steve Lacy, performed in concerts with Keith Jarrett (around 1970) and for Jasper van’t Hof’s Pork Pie group and played with Charlie Mariano.
As a member of Diego Massons ensemble Musique Vivante he was interpreting contemporary music compositions by John Cage, Luciano Berio, Mauricio Kagel, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, or Vinko Globokar.
Along with Albert Mangelsdorff he led the German-French Jazz Ensemble from 1984 to 1987. Since 1985 Jenny-Clark was mainly working in an acclaimed trio with German pianist Joachim Kühn and Swiss drummer Daniel Humair.
His recording as a leader was minimal but as a sideman he recorded over a hundred albums. Double bassist Jean-François Jenny-Clark, one of the most important bass players of European jazz, passed away on October 6, 1998 in Paris, France.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Clinton Joseph Houston was born on June 24, 1946 in New Orleans, Louisiana and spent his early childhood in Washington, D.C. before spending his adolescence in Queens, New York. At the age of 10, he began piano lessons and started playing jazz in his early teens after hearing Cannonball Adderley on the radio. After being turned down for a pianist role in his high school band, he switched to the double bass.
He began playing in bands outside of high school, with Lenny White, George Cables, Billy Cobham, Steve Grossman and Charles Sullivan, all of whom grew up in the same neighborhood. In his early years, he played in a band called the Jazz Samaritans, playing Latin-style music at local parties and drawing inspiration from Art Blakey. At the age of 19, Clint won a Jazz Interactions competition, leading to an encounter with Paul Chambers who encouraged him to pursue his music further.
After high school, he went to the Pratt Institute, then transferred to Queen’s College to study music before eventually obtaining a degree in Graphic Art from the Cooper Union. During his higher education, on weekends he played alongside Cables and White at Slugs’ matinées. This led to them playing extensively with better-known artists. A founding member of musical co-operative Free Life Communications, Clint performed alongside Dave Liebman, becoming more immersed in the loft jazz scene of 1970s New York.
By 1972, Houston was playing alongside Joanne Brackeen in Stan Getz’ band. Their collaborations continued playing in New York clubs recording on many of Brackeen’s early records. He went on to play with Roy Ayers, George Cables, Lenny White, Nina Simone, Roy Haynes, Sonny Greenwich, Don Thompson, Charles Tolliver, Woody Shaw, Pepper Adams, Slide Hampton, Frank Foster, and Roland Hanna. Bassist Clint Houston passed away on June 7, 2000.
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