Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Don Sickler was born on January 6, 1944 in Spokane, Washington and with his mother’s guidance, an accomplished teacher, started learning accordion and piano at the age of four. At five he wrote his first composition that his parents published in their Sickler Accordion Course books. Taking up the trumpet at age ten, two years later he formed his first jazz combo and by 1957 was leading a nonet, playing for school and college dances. He went on to matriculate through Gonzaga University and the Manhattan School of Music in 1970 with a Master’s Degree in Trumpet Performance.

In New York he played commercially, subbed in Broadway show bands, played in rehearsal bands and jazz lofts though he turned towards music publishing. Don began working at E.B. Marks Music as music editor to managing editor, then moved to production manager of United Artists Publishing’s print division. Though they controlled the music catalogues of Blue NOte and Pacific Records that shaped much of his early life, he became disillusioned by the lack of corporate priority given to jazz. So he left and established his own publishing companies: Second Floor Music and 28th Street Music, which have published the works of over 350 jazz composers including Hank Mobley, Kenny Dorham, Bobby Timmons, Gigi Gryce, James Williams, Bobby Watson and a list too long to name.

After a seven-year hiatus Sickler resumed his playing career by collaborating with Philly Joe Jones that lasted for five years. This association afforded him opportunities to play with Art Blakey, Billy Higgins, Roy Haynes, Ben Riley and Charli Persip and other great players on every instrument. By 1982 he and Philly Joe created Dameronia, an all-star tribute band to Tadd Dameron, releasing two critically acclaimed albums and he transcribed all arrangements.

He would go on to release albums as a leader with Jimmy Heath, Cedar Walton, Ron Carter, Billy Higgins, Roy Hargrove, Mulgrew Miller, Bobby Watson, Ralph Moore, Wallace Roney, Clark Terry, Grover Washington, Joe Henderson,  and Renee Rosnes. As a sideman he has worked with Herbie Hancock, Frank Wess, Wayne Shorter, Christian McBride, Larry Coryell Freddie Redd and Superblue.

Trumpeter, arranger, producer, publisher, music director and educator Don Sickler has won five Grammy Awards beginning with Joe Henderson’s Lush Life in 1992 and has been nominated several times that include J. J. Johnson’s The Brass Orchestra. His tribute album Monk on Monk was DownBeat Magazine’s 1998 Album of the Year. He is currently the musical director for the annual Thelonious Monk International Jazz Instrumental Competition for the Thelonious Monk Institute, conducts workshops, master classes and teaches trumpet, jazz arranging and composition at Columbia University.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

James Robert Haslip was born in the Bronx, New York on December 31, 1951 to Puerto Rican immigrants, Spanish being his first language and learned to speak English in kindergarten. His family moved to Huntington, New York when he was four years old. At age seven, he began playing drums and then moved onto other instruments such as trumpet and tuba until at age 15 when he started playing bass.

Considering himself self-taught though he took music lessons and went to a private music school, he originally went to a local music shop with his father and purchased a right-handed bass and learned to play it upside down, as he is left-handed. Surrounded by music as a young boy, from visiting nightclubs and concert venues, there was always music in the house as well. His older brother listened to classic jazz, his father to Latin and orchestra jazz and his aunt listening to sappy stuff like Jerry Vale and Johnny Mathis. In high school, Jimmy created his first band called Soul Mine with his high school classmates, playing soul music at school dances and parties.

By the early 1970s he toured alongside musicians, and moved to Los Angeles, California in 1976, playing with guitarists Tommy Bolin and Harvey Mandel. A founding member of the jazz fusion group the Yellowjackets, in 2012 he took a year hiatus that turned permanent and has gone on to produce independent projects as well as being involved with the charitable organization Union Station Foundation that serves the needs of the homeless. He has worked with Jeff Lorber, Eric Marienthal, Bruce Hornsby, Rita Coolidge, Gino Vannelli, Kiss, Tommy Bolin, Allan Holdsworth, Marilyn Scott, Chaka Khan, Al Jarreau, Donald Fagen, and Anita Baker.

A part of a combo with Allan Holdsworth, Alan Pasqua, and Chad Wackerman, he has also collaborated with Jing Chi with Robben Ford and Vinnie Colaiuta, and Modereko. Bass player and record producer Jimmy Haslip, who is an early user of the five-string electric bass, continues to produce and perform.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ted Nash was born December 28, 1960 in Los Angeles, California. His trombonist father, Dick, and reedman uncle Ted, were both well-known jazz and studio musicians and both exposed and encouraged the young man. He started playing the piano at seven, by 12 the clarinet, and a year later he picked up the alto saxophone. In high school he studied jazz improvisation with vibraphonist Charlie Shoemake and had his first gig when he was This was followed by a week with Lionel Hampton in Hawaii.

Ted went on to win an audition to play lead alto with the Quincy Jones band, and by the time he turned 17 he had toured Europe, appeared on three records, and was performing regularly with the likes of Don Ellis, Louie Bellson and Toshiko Akiyoshi, as well as leading his own quintet. The following year he moved to New York City, recorded Conception, his debut album as a leader for the Concord label and became a regular member of a variety of ensembles. He worked with the Gerry Mulligan Big Band, the National Jazz Ensemble and for ten years would be a part of the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra.

An accomplished composer his first composition, Tristemente, was recorded by Louie Bellson, he has been commissioned by the Davos Musik Festival in Switzerland to compose works featuring a string quartet in a jazz setting, and commissioned by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to compose the well-received Portrait in Seven Shades. It is dedicated to the representation of seven different artists, each in their own movement and was nominated for a Grammy in 2010. The artists were Claude Monet, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Marc Chagall, and Jackson Pollock.

Composer and alto saxophonist Ted Nash leads an eclectic group called Odeon, and is a member of the Jazz Composers Collective along with Ben Allison, Frank Kimbrough, and Michael Blake.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Cornell Luther Dupree was born on December 19, 1942 and raised in Fort Worth, Texas. Growing up with King Curtis, he graduated from I.M. Terrell High School and began his career playing in the Atlantic Records studio band, recording on albums by Aretha Franklin and King Curtis as a member of his band, The King Pins. He played on the 1969 Lena Horne and Gábor Szabó recording, as well as recordings with Archie Shepp, Grover Washington, Jr., Snooky Young and Miles Davis.

A founding member of the band Stuff, which featured fellow guitarist Eric Gale, Richard Tee on keyboards, Steve Gadd and Chris Parker on drums, and Gordon Edwards on bass, they recorded several albums.  He and Tee recorded together on many occasions, and in addition he recorded with  Joe Cocker, Brook Benton, Peter Wolf,  Hank Crawford, Charles Earland, Eddie Harris, Gene Harris, Donny Hathaway, Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef, Arif Mardin, Les McCann, Jack McDuff, David Newman, Bernard Purdie, Buddy Rich, Marlena Shaw, Sonny Stitt, Stanley Turrentine, Cedar Walton and Charles Williams.

In 2009, Dupree appeared in a documentary titled Still Bill, chronicling the life and times of Bill Withers. Appearing on stage playing a guitar-led version of Grandma’s Hands, Withers joined him from the  audience to sing the lyrics. At the time he was suffering from emphysema and played his guitar on a stool, breathing using an oxygen machine.

Guitarist Cornell Dupree recorded nine albums, wrote a book on soul and blues guitar: Rhythm and Blues Guitar and reportedly recorded on 2,500 sessions before passing away on May 8, 2011 at his home in Fort Worth, Texas awaiting for a lung transplant.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ellen Johnson was born on December 18, 1954 in Chicago, Illinois. Surrounded by music as a child, her mother was a professional singer who played piano and her uncle had played clarinet in Glenn Miller’s Army Air Force Band.

Growing up in Chicago she studied guitar in high school but had originally planned to become a theater actress. However when she took voice lessons, Ellen became hooked on the music, and began singing in a local band while studying jazz with Willie Pickens at a music conservatory. Moving to the San Diego, California she earned a Master’s Degree from San Diego State University in Vocal Performance.

Notable for her work as an educator, Johnson has been teaching part of the voice faculties of the University of San Diego and the Old Globe Theatre, as well as conducted voice clinics since the mid-1980s. She has also performed special concerts of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music.

With a wide range for jazz improvisation, in the mid -’90s she recorded her debut album, Too Good to Title. She also recorded a few songs on Bob Willey’s album Peace Pieces. Vocalist Ellen Johnson continues to perform, and record.

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