Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mike Stern was born Michael Sedgwick on January 10, 1953 in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in Washington, D.C. He attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston and when he was twenty-two, he became a member of Blood, Sweat & Tears, spending three years with the band. During this stint he appeared on the albums More Than Ever and Brand New Day.
1979 saw him joining Billy Cobham’s fusion band. Two years later he joined Miles Davis, making his public debut in 1981, a performance recorded on the album We Want Miles. He remained with Davis through 1983 until he was replaced by guitarist John Scofield. From 1983 to 1984 he toured with Jaco Pastorius and in 1985 returned to tour with Davis.
Stern’s solo debut, Upside Downside, with Jaco Pastorius, David Sanborn, and Bob Berg, was released on Atlantic Records in 1986. For the next two years he was a member of Michael Brecker’s quintet, appearing on Don’t Try This At Home. His second Atlantic album, dropped in 1988, was Time in Place, and he would go on to release more than a dozen albums.
He formed a touring group in 1989 with Bob Berg, Dennis Chambers and Lincoln Goines. His acclaimed 1993 album, Standards (and Other Songs), led to his being named Best Jazz Guitarist of the Year by the readers and critics of Guitar Player. He was nominated for two Grammy awards, received another Best Jazz Guitarist award, and in 2009 in the first of a series of articles celebrating Down Beat‘s 75th anniversary, Stern was named one of the 75 Great Guitarists of all time.
Serious injuries to his shoulders and right arm after tripping and falling led to the ending of his 2016 European tour. Modifying his playing technique in the summer of 2017 he returned to Europe on tour with a new formation called Mike Stern/Randy Brecker Band, featuring Randy Brecker, Teymur Phell and Lenny White.
Guitarist Mike Stern, who received a Certified Legend Award from Guitar Player magazine, continues to perform, record and tour.
More Posts: bandleader,guitar,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eugene Chadbourne was born January 4, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York but grew up in Boulder, Colorado. He started playing guitar when he was eleven or twelve, inspired by the Beatles and hoping to get the attention of girls. Although he was initially drawn to Jimi Hendrix and played in a garage band, he found rock and pop music too conventional. Gravitating to the avant-garde jazz of Anthony Braxton and Derek Bailey, it was the former musician who persuaded him to abandon his journalism endeavors and pursue music.
During the early 1970s, he lived in Canada to avoid military service in the Vietnam War. Returning to the United States, he moved to New York City and played free improvisation with Henry Kaiser and John Zorn. Around this time, he released his first album, Solo Acoustic Guitar. In the early 1980s, he led the avant-rock band Shockabilly with Mark Kramer and David Licht.
He explored other genres, playing with a Cajun band, a Russian folk band and mixed country, western, and improvisation in the band LSD C&W. For many years Eugene was in a duo, and then worked with Han Bennink, Fred Frith, Elliott Sharp, and Charles Tyler..
Chadbourne invented an instrument known as the electric rake by attaching an electric guitar pickup to a rake. He played a duet of electric rake and classical piano with Bob Wiseman on his 1991 album Presented by Lake Michigan Soda. He also played the instrument on a Sun Ra tribute album.
Banjoist, guitarist and music critic Eugene Chadbourne, who has recorded 39 albums as a leader, continues to perform and record.
More Posts: bandleader,banjo,critic,guitar,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kevin Kraig Toney was born on January 1, 1953 in Detroit, Michigan. Graduating from Cass Technical High School, in his teens he listened to the music of John Coltrane and Art Tatum He attended Howard University where Donald Byrd, head of the jazz studies department, assembled a group of students which became the fusion band the Blackbyrds, led by Toney. The band played with Chick Corea, The Crusaders, Herbie Hancock, and Grover Washington Jr.
The band released seven albums, three were certified gold and had two hits. Rock Creek Park and Unfinished Business, the latter earned Kevin a Grammy Award nomination. He has recorded several albums as a leader, has worked with Kenny Burrell, Hubert Laws, David “Fathead” Newman, James Newton, Sonny Rollins, Frank Sinatra, Sonny Stitt, Gerald Wilson and Nancy Wilson among numerous others.
As an arranger and conductor with Patti Austin, Babyface, Gloria Gaynor, Edwin Hawkins, James Ingram, Enrique Iglesias, Michael McDonald, Brian McKnight, Freda Payne, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder, Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis Jr., and produced his daughter, Dominique Toney’s debut album.
In the same roles he worked in theater for Ain’t Misbehavin’, Five Guys Named Moe, Harlem Suite, The Magic of Motown, Sophisticated Ladies, and Wild Women Blues. He wrote the music for the film Kings of the Evening.
Pianist and composer Kevin Toney, who has recorded eleven albums as a leader, nine as a member of The Blackbyrds and eighteen as a sideman, continues to perform, tour, and record.
More Posts: arranger,bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Allan Vaché was born December 16, 1953 in San Antonio, Texas but was raised in Rahway, New Jersey. He graduated from Rahway High School in 1971.
Vaché played with the Jim Cullum Jazz Band of San Antonio, Texas, for seventeen years and was a regular on the Riverwalk – Live from the Landing radio show on Public Radio International, which featured the Cullum band. He performed with Cullum on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor.
He is a featured performer on Gershwin’s “Porgy & Bess” with the Cullum band, released on CBS Masterworks. Allan toured Mexico for the U.S. State Department with the live show of Porgy & Bess, and has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and The Kennedy Center.
He has performed with or appeared on stage with Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, Pete Fountain, Clark Terry, Benny Carter, Milt Hinton, Bob Haggart, Yank Lawson, Bucky Pizzarelli, Gene Krupa, Jake Hanna, Scott Hamilton, Herb Ellis, and many others.
He has several recordings as a soloist on the Arbors, Audiophile, Chesky, and Nagel-Heyer record labels. Vaché has performed in Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America. Clarinetist Allan Vaché continues to perform and record.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lyle David Mays was born November 27, 1953 in Wausaukee, Wisconsin. While growing up he had four main interests: chess, mathematics, architecture, and music. His mother played piano and organ, and his father taught himself to play guitar by ear. His teacher allowed him to practice improvisation after the structured elements of each lesson were completed. At the age of nine, he played the organ at a family member’s wedding, and fourteen he began to play in church. During his senior year of high school he was introduced to jazz pianist Marian McPartland.
He attended the University of North Texas where he composed and arranged for the One O’Clock Lab Band and was the composer and arranger for the Grammy Award-nominated album Lab 75. After leaving the University of North Texas, Mays toured the US and Europe with Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd.
In 1975 he met Pat Metheny at the Wichita Jazz Festival, with whom he soon co-founded the Pat Metheny Group. Mays had an extraordinary career as a core musical architect and sound designer of the group for more than three decades. The group had 23 Grammy nominations, winning the award 11 times.
In 2010 Lyle decided to retire from public music performance and became a software development manager because of changes in the music industry. He composed and recorded children’s audiobooks, composed several contemporary classical pieces and formed his own band.
As an amateur architect, he was influenced by fellow Wisconsinian, Frank Lloyd Wright and designed his own house, home studio, and his sister’s house. Mays brought intellectual and organic architectural concepts in his music and sound design based on the innovative integration of many different sources to create a completely new soundscape.
He recorded seven as a leader, two as member of the One O’Clock Lab Band and 14 with the Pat Metheny Band, and as a sideman, seventeen. Mays won eleven Grammys as a member of the Pat Metheny Group and whose important influences were the 1968 recordings of Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival and Filles de Kilimanjaro by Miles Davis
Pianist and composer Lyle Mays, who was posthumously awarded the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition in 2022 for his composition Eberhard, transitioned in Los Angeles, California on February 10, 2020 at age 66.
More Posts: bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano