Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Francisco Aguabella was born on October 10, 1925 in Matanzas, Cuba. Demonstrating a special aptitude for drumming at an early age, he was initiated into several Afro-Cuban drumming traditions, including batá, iyesá, arará, olokún, and abakuá. Aguabella also grew up with rumba.
He is one of a handful of Cuban percussionists who came to the United States in the 1940s and 50s. In the 1950s, he left Cuba to perform with Katherine Dunham in the Shelley Winters film Mambo filmed in Italy. He immigrated to the United States in 1953, performing and touring with Peggy Lee for the next seven years.
During his long career, he performed in Europe, Australia, South America, and throughout the United States, including the White House. Aguabella enjoyed extensive music performing and recording careers, delighted many audiences with his masterful and powerful rhythms.
Francisco performed with many great jazz artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Eddie Palmieri, Cachao, Lalo Schifrin, Cal Tjader, Nancy Wilson, Poncho Sanchez, Bebo Valdes, Carlos Santana, and numerous others. He is featured in two documentaries, Sworn to the Drum and Aguabella. He has also appeared with his ensemble on television programs.
During the Seventies, he was a member of the Jorge Santana Latin rock band Malo. Francisco was a widely recognized master conguero and bata artist, a caring and knowledgeable instructor. Aguabella was a faculty member at the annual Explorations in Afro-Cuban Dance and Drum workshop hosted by the Humboldt State University Office of Extended Education in Arcata, California. While living in Los Angeles, California, he taught Afro-Cuban drumming to undergraduate and graduate students at the University of California, Los Angeles.
A prolific session musician and recorded seven albums as a leader, throughout his career, he played congas, bata, quinto, coro, shekere, drums, claves, bongos, timbales, cajon, and other assorted percussion instruments. Percussionist Francisco Aguabella, who received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, passed away in Los Angeles on May 7, 2010 of a cancer-related illness.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Masahiko Satoh was born on October 6, 1941 in Tokyo, Japan and the family home contained a piano. He started playing at the age of five, and twelve years later he began playing professionally accompanying singers, magicians, and strippers at a cabaret in the Ginza district.
By 1959 Satoh began playing in Georgie Kawaguchi’s band, together with alto saxophonist Sadao Watanabe and tenor saxophonist Akira Miyazawa. After graduating from Keio University, at the age of 26 he moved to the United States to study at the Berklee College of Music. During those two years of study, he read about composing and arranging, earned money working in a food shop, and played the piano in a hotel.
1968 had Masahiko writing and conducting the music for a series of pieces that were combined with dance and performed around New York City. After returning to Japan, he recorded Palladium, his first album as a leader, and appeared on a Helen Merrill album.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, his career led him to perform in a free, percussive style. Masahiko played at the 1971 Berlin Jazz Festival as part of a trio, using at the time an unusual ring modulator to alter the sound. During that period he recorded with Attila Zoller, Karl Berger, and Albert Mangelsdorff. He wrote the psychedelic music for the 1973 anime film Belladonna of Sadness.
He went on to write arrangements for recordings led by, among others, Helen Merrill, Kimiko Itoh, and Nancy Wilson. He arranged for strings and quartet on Art Farmer’s 1983 album Maiden Voyage, formed a large group, named Rantooga, that combined various forms of folk music from around the world, and composed for film, television, and advertisements. By the early 1990s pianist, composer, and arranger Masahiko Satoh composed music for a choir of 1,000 Buddhist monks and now spends 70% of his time arranging and composing, the rest on playing and recording.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rashid Bakr was born Charles Downs on October 3, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois but grew up in Bronx, New York from the age of four. His decision to become a musician came from the profound influence of John Coltrane had on him, along with his uncle, drummer Papa Jo Jones. As a child surrounded by jazz musicians growing up, he was given his first set of sticks by Art Blakey and was soon sitting in with his uncle in a Dixieland band.
He attended Queens College studying chemistry and psychology and on to Brooklyn College grad school gaining a degree in clinical psychology. While in college he never missed a Coltrane or Miles Davis performance and his father bought him his first drum set.
During the Seventies, after college and a stint in the Army saxophonist Bobby Zankel took him to an auspicious audition for him with Cecil Taylor, becoming part of his big band. He was active in the New York City loft jazz scene, performing at venues such as Rashied Ali’s Ali’s Alley and Sam Rivers’ Studio Rivbea. He was a member of Ensemble Muntu with Jemeel Moondoc, among others.
In 1976, Bakr performed in a production of Adrienne Kennedy’s A Rat’s Mass directed by Cecil Taylor at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in the East Village of Manhattan. Also in the production were Jimmy Lyons, Andy Bey, Karen Borca, David S. Ware, and Raphe Malik. Taylor’s production combined the original script with a chorus of orchestrated voices used as instruments. 1981 saw him with Taylor touring Europe for three years before returning to New York City.
Free jazz drummer Rashid Bakr is a member of Other Dimensions in Music with Roy Campbell, Daniel Carter, and William Parker.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Don Grolnick was born on September 23, 1947 in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Levittown, New York. Musical life for him started on accordion but later he switched to piano. A childhood Count Basie concert sparked his interest in jazz and soon after they also saw Erroll Garner perform at Carnegie Hall. Attending Tufts University he opted for a major in philosophy rather than music.
After he left Tufts, he formed the jazz-rock band Fire & Ice with guitarist Ken Melville and bassist Stuart Schulman, his friend since childhood. They opened for B.B. King, The Jeff Beck Group, and the Velvet Underground at Boston clubs like the Boston Tea Party and The Ark. This was Grolnick’s first foray into rock and blues as a performer, and began writing within the medium.
Moving back to New York City in 1969 he joined Melville in the jazz fusion band “D”. Pianist Don Grolnick passed away at the age of 48 on June 1, 1996 from non-hodgkin lymphoma.
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The Quarantined Jazz Voyager
Alone With The Blues is the first solo album by pianist Ray Bryant. Recorded on December 19, 1958 at the Van Gelder Studios in Hackensack, New Jersey, it was released end of May or early June of 1959 for the New Jazz label. The session was produced by Esmond Edwards.
Though he was equally adept with the blues, he was recognized at the time as a modern traditionalist. All compositions by Ray Bryant except Lover Man (Jimmy Davis, Ram Ramirez, Jimmy Sherman) and Rockin’ Chair (Hoagy Carmichael).
Track Listing | 37:49- Blues No. 3 ~ 7:15
- Joy (Blues No. 2) ~ 3:59
- Lover Man ~ 3:52
- Me and the Blues (Blues No. 1) ~ 5:00
- My Blues (Blues No. 5) ~ 7:40
- Rockin’ Chair ~ 5:16
- Stocking Feet ~ 4:47
- Ray Bryant ~ piano
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