Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bernard “Bunny” Brunel was born in Nice, France on March 2, 1950 and took up the electric and acoustic bass when he was fifteen. A self taught musician, he did attend for a time a classical conservatory to learn the basic technique of playing with the bow on the bass.
Brunel is a founding member of the jazz fusion band CAB along with Dennis Chambers, and Tony MacAlpine. Since their formation in 2000, they have released four studio albums and two live albums. Their second album, CAB 2, received a nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album at the 2002 Grammy Awards. Other musicians who have been members of CAB include Patrice Rushen, Virgil Donati, David Hirschfelder, and Brian Auger.
Bassist Bunny Brunel, who has played with Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter, and who has recorded ten albums as a leader, is involved in musical instrument design, film and television scoring, continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Carl Anderson was born Carlton Earl Anderson on February 27, 1945 in Lynchburg, Virginia, one of 12 children to James and Alberta Anderson. During his junior year of high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, where he served as a communications technician for two years. Honorably discharged and returning home he completed high school, graduating in 1965. He went on to sing at military bases across the United States as part of the World Wide Air Force Talent Contest.
Making his way to Washington, D.C. in 1969, he and some friends formed a group called The Second Eagle with Anderson handling the vocals. They covered jazz and rock tunes that included songs from the album Jesus Christ Superstar, released long before the stage production was launched. In 1971, a talent agent from the William Morris Agency saw Anderson perform some songs from the show at St. Stephen’s Church and recognized his potential as a solo performer.
His global popularity and star power came from his role as Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar both on Broadway and in the film. He also had rolesin The Black Pearl, The Color Purple, The Eddie Capra Mysteries, Cop Rock, Days of Our Lives, and Hill Street Blues.
As a recording artist, Carl was equally prolific, initially signing with Motown Records in 1972, working with Stevie Wonder on his Songs in the Key of Life double album, as well as numerous others. While working the club circuit in Los Angeles, California he was noticed by and signed to Columbia Records and released four albums on their Epic label. He would go on to perform duets with Gloria Loring, Angie Bofill, Linda Eder and Nancy Wilson.
His duet with Loring, Friends and Lovers, reached Number 2 on the charts, and endeared Anderson to soap opera fans, after being performed on Days of Our Lives. He also recorded Between You and Me, as the title theme for the film Her Alibi.
In 2003 he had a minor car accident on his way to perform and while being treated for his injuries, doctors discovered that he had leukemia. Soul jazz vocalist and actor Carl Anderson passed away the following year from the illness on February 23, 2004, in Los Angeles, just four days before his 59th birthday.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Akira Sakata was born on February 21, 1945 in Hiroshima, Japan and first heard jazz on short-wave radio and Voice of America, then became more interested in it from listening to film soundtracks. His serious study of music began in high school where he played clarinet. He played alto sax in a jazz band when at Hiroshima University and trained as a marine biologist before moving to Tokyo, Japan in 1969.
From 1972 to 1979 Sakata was a member of the Yamashita Yosuke Trio and toured internationally with them. In 1986, he performed with the group Last Exit with Bill Laswell. This performance was released as The Noise of Trouble: Live in Tokyo. Laswell went on to play bass on and produce Sakata albums such as Mooko, Silent Plankton and Fisherman’s.com, the last of which also featured the reclusive Pete Cosey on guitar. He later worked with DJ Krush and Chikamorachi with Darin Gray and Chris Corsano.
His career nearly ended in 2002, when he had a brain haemorrhage and he had to relearn the saxophone, only to return to performing after three months, but still had some remaining restrictions years later. Akira is also a television and film actor, as well as being a writer.
Free jazz saxophonist Akira Sakata, who has recorded fifteen albums as a leader, continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Blaise Siwula was born in Detroit, Michigan on February 19, 1950. Growing up in a working/middle-class black neighborhood. His next-door neighbor practiced saxophone in the afternoon and occasionally allowed him inside to watch him play. He began studying the alto sax at the age of 14, playing in the middle school concert band.
Hearing the John Coltrane album Om in 1969 compelled him to take up the tenor saxophone. He was also influenced by hearing Art Pepper in San Francisco, as well as Ornette Coleman, Sonny Stitt, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, Blue Mitchell, Elvin Jones, and Miles Davis in live performances in Detroit in the 1970s. Cecil Taylor’s recordings with Jimmy Lyons were inspirational in a later period along with Ravi Shankar and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in the Seventies.
At college on and off for an extended period from 1968 to 1980, he studied theory and composition at Wayne State University, and earned a BFA. His first personal encounter with jazz musicians came around 1971 while living in a hotel near the downtown campus like drummer Doc Watson. Moving to San Francisco, he started playing free improvised music in coffeehouses and writing poetry. After four years in Northern California, he returned to Detroit before heading for Europe in 1989. Working and traveling as a street musician for three months, then returning to the States and settling in New York City.
After periodic explorations of drama, poetry, architecture, and visual art, and quite unable to secure a recording contract initially, he recorded independently produced cassette tapes. He played with Amica Bunker, the Improvisers Collective, and the Citizens Ontological Music Agenda (COMA) series.
During the decade of the 2000s, Blaise composed music scores, played a number of saxophones, clarinets, flutes, percussion and string instruments, and computer-altered sound files as background for improvisation. His many collaborators have included Doug Walker’s Alien Planetscapes, Cecil Taylor’s Ptonagas, William Hooker’s ensembles, Judy Dunaway’s Balloon Trio, Dialing Privileges with Dom Minasi and John Bollinger, Ken Simon, Karen Borca, Jackson Krall, Tatsuya Nakatani, and William Parker, among others.
Avant-garde alto saxophonist, composer and bandleader Blaise Siwula, who has been a part of New York City’s underground jazz scene, continues to performa and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bob Stewart was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on February 3, 1945. He received his Bachelor of Music Education degree from the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts and his master’s degree in education from Lehman College Graduate School.
Stewart taught music in Pennsylvania public schools and at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City. He is now a professor at the Juilliard School and is a distinguished lecturer at Lehman College.
Stewart has toured and recorded with such artists as Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, Carla Bley, Muhal Richard Abrams, David Murray, Taj Mahal, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Don Cherry, Nicholas Payton, Wynton Marsalis, Charlie Haden, Lester Bowie, Bill Frisell and many others in the United States, Europe, and Eastern Asia.
He was a frequent collaborator with saxophonist Arthur Blythe from the 1970s into the early 2000s, often taking the place of the string bass that traditionally supports a jazz ensemble. In their review of Blythe’s album Lenox Avenue Breakdown, the editors of The Penguin Guide to Jazz called Stewart’s title track solo “one of the few genuinely important tuba statements in jazz. Tubist Bob Stewart continues to be a part of the jazz scene.
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