Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tamm E. Hunt was born into a musical family in New York City, New York on June 19, 1954. The niece of jazz and blues singer Hannah Sylvester and record company owner Benny Clark, she is the daughter of K.D. Searcy, a tap dancer who danced at the Apollo Theater with Tip Tap & Toe. Growing up around music when she heard Dakota Staton’s The Late Late Show, she knew early on that she wanted to sing jazz.
Despite that prophetic introduction, Hunt started out singing other styles of music. In her childhood she sang with a variety of R&B girl groups. She had some commercial success in the early ’80s singing disco, but then switched to jazz. Inspired by Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan and pianist Dorothy Donegan, she has sung with such notables as alto saxophonist Gary Bartz, tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan, pianists Ronnie Matthews and Larry Willis, bassist Buster Williams, and drummer T.S. Monk among others.
She has performed throughout the U.S. in addition to Europe, Canada, and Japan. Hunt has thus far recorded one CD, Live @ Birdland, for her New Jazz Audience label. She founded the Harlem Jazz Foundation, and has written jazz education programs including Adopt a Kid 4 Jazz and Jazz 4 the Beginner.
She starred in and produced the off-Broadway show Billie Holiday: The Legend, and appeared in a short dramatic film with Bartz called A Jazz Story. Moving to Baltimore, Maryland she has been an important force in the city’s jazz community, both as a singer and behind the scenes. Vocalist Tamm E. Hunt, who is also the executive/artistic director of the Maryland Center for the Preservation of Jazz & Blues, continues to sing, educate and promote jazz.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Erica Lindsay was born June 5, 1955 in San Francisco, California to parents who were both teachers and lived in Europe in the 1960s. She began her studies in composition with Mal Waldron in Munich, Germany when she was fifteen years old. She played clarinet, then alto and tenor saxophone. In 1973, she spent a year of study at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, Massachusetts and then went back to Europe, where she began her music career. She formed a local quartet and went on tour. Since 1980, she has lived in New York.
As a saxophonist she has worked with Melba Liston, Clifford Jordan, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, George Gruntz, and Pheeroan akLaff. Lindsay composed for theater, television, and dance productions and worked with poets and performance artists such as Carl Hancock Rux, Janice King, Janine Vega, Mikhail Horowitz and Nancy Ostrovsky. She leads her own quartet and is the co-leader of a quartet with Sumi Tonooka.
Erica’s 1989 debut album Dreamer was released on Candid Records, with contributions from Robin Eubanks, Howard Johnson, Francesca Tanksley, and Anthony Cox. The 1990s and 2000s saw her playing with Oliver Lake, Baikida Carroll, Howard Johnson, Jeff Siegel, Thurman Barker and the band Trace Elements. Their album Yes – Live at the Rosendale Cafe appeared in 2008.
Saxophonist Erica Lindsay is co-founder of the Artists Recording Collective recording label, a visiting Assistant Professor at Bard College and continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lorne Lofsky was born May 10, 1954 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and began playing rock at school dances but later took an interest in jazz after hearing the album Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. During the 1970s he attended York University in Toronto studying music while working around Toronto’s clubs. He worked with Canadian musicians Butch Watanabe and Jerry Toth and with Pepper Adams, Bob Brookmeyer and Chet Baker when they visited.
In 1980, Lofsky met fellow Canadian, pianist Oscar Peterson, who produced his first album It Could Happen to You. He toured with Peterson in the 1980s, and he toured and recorded as a member of Peterson’s quartet and quintet in the 1990s. Lofsky has also worked with Ed Bickert, Ruby Braff, Rosemary Clooney, Kirk MacDonald, Rob McConnell, Tal Farlow, Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Hartman, and Clark Terry.
In the early-1980s, Lofsky began an important musical association with saxophonist Kirk Macdonald leading to the formation of a quartet. From 1983 to 1991 Lofsky played in a quartet with guitarist Ed Bickert. This collaboration yielded two recordings, one for Concord Records titled This Is New, along with a tour of Spain in 1991.
He has taught at York University, Humber College’s Community Music School and the University of Toronto. Guitarist Lorne Lofsky continues to perform, record, and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Steve Holt was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on May 9, 1954 and exhibited musical ability in early childhood, playing piano at the age of four. By the time he was a teenager, he was a regular on the Montreal club scene.
Self-taught until he entered McGill University, he received instruction from pianist Armas Maiste, whose bebop playing influenced him. Holt became a student of Kenny Barron, traveling regularly to New York City for private lessons. Graduating from McGill in 1981 with that university’s first Bachelor of Music major in Jazz Performance, he taught jazz improvisation there.
Steve’s 1983 debut album, The Lion’s Eyes was nominated for a Juno Award. He has worked with Larry Coryell, Eddie Henderson, and Archie Shepp. Moving to Toronto, Canada in 1987 he worked as an equity analyst and for a time he also continued playing clubs at night. He released three albums in the early Nineties ~ Christmas Light, Just Duet and Catwalk.
At the end of the decade Holt returned his concentration to music full-time and three years later his fifth album, The Dream, was released. He turned his attention to music production and stopped performing jazz live until 2014. A move to the countryside reignited his interest in jazz performance and in 2017 he opened a health food store in Warkworth, Ontario that operates as a jazz venue once a week.
Pianist Steve Hunt continues to play jazz while maintaining outside interests.
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The Quarantined Jazz Voyager
Contrary to the announcement that the pandemic is over and the unmasking the country has clearly exhibited, a variant is still present and this Jazz Voyager is getting out remains distant from crowds and enclosed spaces. So we will continue to listen to great music.
My selection this week is the Complete Studio Recordings, a two compact disc set whose songs were recorded between 1956 and 1958 by the Curtis Counce Quintet composed of Counce, Jack Sheldon, Harold Land, Carl Perkins and Frank Butler went into the studio of Contemporary Records and recorded twenty-four songs. Though the group was short~lived, their impact produced a powerhouse two-disc set of music comprising the main recordings on the Contemporary label.
The group’s expressed purpose was to develop a West Coast answer to the soulful, hard-bop East Coast sound. Each of the musicians was among the most gifted on his instrument, yet the focus was always on a collaborative result that would reflect undiscovered possibilities within a familiar post-bop idiom. Seldom does a group of musicians come together and play so seamlessly that they sound like one voice speaking. The contribution of each of the five principals, therefore, invites close scrutiny.
The beauty of the recorded disc is that it is a lasting tribute to the musicians who performed on this recording. Lester Koenig at Contemporary Records was known for extremely high audio standards and turned out some of the best-sounding records of the day thanks to the expertise of engineer Roy DuNann. The audio on these Contemporary dates is rich in depth and detailing, allowing the listener to pick out each of the subordinate motifs and subtle moving harmonies. The engineering created a naturally ambient soundscape inviting the listener to partake of the worthy.
The caveat is that this music appeared on previously released albums by Curtis Counce and this is an opportunity to pick up the excellence of 24 tracks of music in a one~stop shop. This represents African-American indigenous art of the highest order. Released by Gambit Records in 2007 and definitely one for the collector.
Track Listing | 150:00+
Disc 1- Landslide (Harold Land) ~ 8:37
- Time After Time (Sammy Cahn/Jule Styne) ~ 6:32
- Mia (Carl Perkins) ~ 4:55
- Sarah (Jack Sheldon) ~ 11:38
- Fifth For Frank (Gerald Wiggins/Cal Tjader) ~ 7:14
- Big Foot (Charlie Parker) ~ 9:07
- Sonar (Kenny Clarke/Gerald Wiggins) ~ 7:28
- Stranger In Paradise (Robert Wright/George Forrest) ~ 7:04
- Woody’n You (Dizzy Gillespie) ~ 6:18
- Pink Lady (Jack Sheldon) ~ 4:41
- Councelation (Curtis Counce) ~ 6:05
- Love Walked In (George Gershwin/Ira Gershwin) ~ 4:56
- Too Close For Comfort (Larry Holofcener) ~ 5:38
- How Deep Is The Ocean (Irving Berlin) ~ 6:37
- Complete (Curtis Counce) ~ 5:52
- Nica’s Dream (Horace Silver) ~ 8:00
- How Long Has This Been Going On (George Gershwin/Ira Gerswin) ~ 3:18
- Mean To Me (Fred E. Ahlert/Roy Turk) ~ 4:31
- I Can’t Get Started (Vernon Duke/Ira Gershwin) ~ 8:01
- Larue (Clifford Brown) ~ 5:04
- Carl’s Blues (Carl Perkins) ~ 5:54
- Night In Tunisia (Dizzy Gillespie/Frank Paparelli) ~ 8:17
- Love Walked In (George Gershwin/Ira Gershwin) ~ 2:55
- Sophisticated Lady (Duke Ellington) ~ 4:10
- Fifth For Frank (Gerald Wiggins/Cal Tjader) ~ 1:56
- The Butler Did It (Frank Butler) ~ 4:39
Personnel
- Jack Sheldon ~ trumpet
- Harold Land ~ tenor saxophone
- Carl Perkins ~ piano
- Curtis Counce ~ bass
- Frank Butler ~ drums
- Gerald Wilson ~ trumpet (replaces Sheldon on three tracks of disc 2)
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