Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ralph Humphrey was born on May 11, 1944 in Berkeley California. While still a student at California State College Northridge he recorded with the Don Ellis Big Band in 1968, and stayed with the band until 1973.
Leaving Don Ellis and jazz he joined Frank Zappa’s band in 1973 and his drumming can be heard on at least a dozen albums. Humphrey, never far from jazz, played drums for Wayne Shorter, Al Jarreau, and Manhattan Transfer, as well aas pop stars Barbra Streisand, José Feliciano, Bette Midler, Captain and Tenille, Richard Carpenter. His music has been heard in television series such as American Idol, Charmed, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and more.
As an educator he has taught the drum curriculum at the Los Angeles Music Academy. He and Joe Porcaro created the drum program for the Percussion Institute of Technology, a part of the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California. Between 1980 and 1996 he taught the program and headed the department.
Drummer Ralph Humphrey, whose name has been spelled differently in some credits as Humphry or Humphries, continues to perform, record, tour and educate.
More Posts: bandleader,drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Does of Jazz…
Jerry Rusch was born on May 8, 1943 in St. Paul, Minnesota and studied at the University of Minnesota from 1962 to 1964, then played in an Army Reserve band before moving to Los Angeles, California in 1966.
Becoming a fixture in the city he played with Gerald Wilson from 1967, Ray Charles, Clifford Jordan, Joe Henderson, Willie Bobo, Louie Bellson, Teddy Edwards, Frank Foster, and Thad Jones/Mel Lewis. In Europe he played with Joe Haider’s Orchestra from 1982 to 1984.
As a sideman he recorded extensively among his credits are work with Charles Kynard, Benny Powell, Henry Franklin, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and Stan Kenton, as well as Gladys Knight, the Rolling Stones, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, the Temptations, and many others.
Trumpeter Jerry Rusch, who was also credited as Jerry Rush and performed in the hard bop and post bop genres, died of liver cancer in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 5, 2003 at the age of 59, three days shy of his 60th birthday.
More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Collin Walcott was born on April 24, 1945 in New York City, New York. He studied violin and tympani in his youth, and studied percussion at Indiana University School of Music. After graduating in 1966, he went to the University of California, Los Angeles, and studied sitar under Ravi Shankar and tabla under Alla Rakha.
Walcott moved to New York and blended bop and oriental music with Tony Scott in 1967–69. Around 1970 he joined the Paul Winter Consort and co-founded the band Oregon. These groups, along with the trio Codona, which was founded in 1978, combined jazz improvisation and instrumentation with elements of a wide range of classical and ethnic music.
He played with Miles Davis on his 1972 album On the Corner, had three releases under his own name on ECM Records. He taught at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Sitar and tabla player Collin Walcott was killed in a bus crash in Magdeburg, East Germany on November 8, 1984 while on a tour with Oregon.
More Posts: bandleader,educator,history,instrumental,jazz,music,sitar,tabla
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Donald Henri Grusin was born April 22, 1941 and grew up in Littleton, Colorado to a Latvian, classical violinist father. He graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s degree in economics. In the early Seventies he was an economics professor in Guadalajara, Mexico but soon after he taught economics at Foothill College in California.
By the mid Seventies Grusin was touring with Pete Escovedo’s group Azteca alongside his daughter Sheila E in Bogota, Colombia. The trip sparked a lifelong interest in Latin music. In 1975, Quincy Jones invited him to tour with his band, and he left teaching for a career in music.
He worked as a studio musician on albums by Randy Crawford, Billy Eckstine, Joe Pass, and the Pointer Sisters. He formed the fusion group Friendship with Lee Ritenour, Ernie Watts, and Alex Acuña and recorded one album, then released solo albums in 1981 and 1983. By 1985 Don had produced the album Musician for Ernie Watts, winning a Grammy Award.
Grusin’s 2004 live album The Hang received a Grammy Award nomination, and he won Grammy Awards for his work on two albums by the Paul Winter Consort. He won an Echo Award for the album Quality Time, recorded with Peter Fessler.
As a record producer or keyboardist, Grusin has worked with Gerald Albright, Patti Austin, David Benoit, Larry Carlton, Oscar Castro-Neves, Dori Caymmi, Gilberto Gil, Jim Hall, Sérgio Mendes, Airto Moreira, Milton Nascimento, Flora Purim, Nelson Rangell, Brenda Russell, Zoot Sims, Leon Ware, and Sadao Watanabe.
Keyboardist, composer, and record producer Don Grusin, who is Dave Grusin’s younger brother, continues to push the boundaries of jazz and Latin jazz music.
More Posts: composer,history,instrumental,jazz,keyboards,music,record producer
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Czesław Kazimierz Bartkowski was born April 19, 1943 in Łódź, Poland. He has been involved in music since he was six years old. He graduated from the Secondary Music School in Wrocław, Poland in percussion class. He made his official debut in 1960 as a drummer in Jerzy Pakulski’s Far Quartet.
In 1963 he started working with Zbigniew Namysłowski Quartet and also played with Czesław Niemen’s Niemen Enigmatic, and Michał Urbaniak’s Grupa .
He has played in a variety of trios with pianists Adam Makowicz, Wojciech Karolak, Artur Dutkiewicz, Andrzej Jagodziński, tenor saxophonist Tomasz Szukalski, guitarist Marek Bliziński, trumpeter Tomasz Stańko, and double bassists Andrzej Cudzich, Zbigniew Wegehaupt, Adam Cegielski.
Moreover, he took part in the recording of such singers as Ewa Bem, Urszula Dudziak and Stanisław Sojka, and American musicians Freddie Hubbard, Clark Terry, Joe Newman, Art Farmer, Ben Webster, and the Polish band Novi Singers.
He has collaborated with the Polish Radio Jazz Studio and with Sławomir Kulpowicz’s Mainstream and InFormation bands. He has performed in Poland, India, United States, New Zealand, Australia and numerous European countries. He has been a lecturer and participated in jazz workshops.
Drummer and teacher Czesław Bartkowski continues to perform, record and educate..
More Posts: bandleader,drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music