Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roberta Donnay was born on August 10, 1966 in Washington, DC and began singing professionally at sixteen, knapsack wandering through Europe and borrowing guitars. Moving to San Francisco and sang with different bands, studied Latin and vocal jazz along with guitar and released her first indie album Catch The Wave in the Bay area.
She sat on the Board of Governors of the San Francisco chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences alongside Orrin Keepnews, produced the temp track for the documentary Journey of the Universe, and her songs have been featured on such television shows as The Unit, Nash Bridges, The Young and the Restless, One Life To live, All My Children and That’s Life.
She has appeared with Ernestine Anderson, Booker T, Peter Coyote, Johnny Lange, Tommy Castro, Eddie Money, Neil Young and Huey Lewis among others. Her song “One World” was selected as the theme for the 2003 World Aids Day in South Africa. An avid activist she composes about the human condition, not limited to women’s issues, racial injustice, government and environmental destruction. With seven albums as a leader or collaborator, vocalist Roberta Donnay continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Regina Carter was born on August 6, 1966 in Detroit, Michigan and is the cousin of jazz saxophonist James Carter. She began piano lessons at the age of two after playing a melody by ear for her brother’s piano teacher. After deliberately playing the wrong ending note at a concert, the piano teacher suggested she take up the violin, was enrolled at the Detroit Community Music School when she was four years old and she began studying the violin, piano, tap and ballet.
As a teenager, she played in the youth division of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and took master class with Itzhak Perlman and Yehudi Menuhin. Carter attended Cass Technical High School with jazz vocalist Carla Cook who introduced her to Ella Fitzgerald. She also played with the Detroit Civic Orchestra and the group Brainstorm.
She went on to study at the New England Conservatory of Music, switched to jazz, transferred to Oakland University, studied with Marcus Belgrave, in addition to taking viola, oboe and choir lessons. After graduating, she taught strings in Detroit public schools, moved to Europe and spent two years in Germany making connections, working as a nanny and teaching violin on a U.S. military base.
In 1987 Carter came to prominence in the all female pop-jazz quintet Straight Ahead. After three albums she went solo and moved to New York City working with Aretha Franklin, Lauryn Hill, Mary J. Blige, Billy Joel, Dolly Parton, Max Roach, and Oliver Lake and became a member of the String Trio of New York. She released her debut self-titled album in 1995 and has since followed up with a series of acclaimed recordings.
Regina is an active educator and mentor, has taught at numerous institutions, including Berklee College of Music and Stanford Jazz Workshop among others. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellows grant, has created her own violin voice and currently leads a quintet.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eric Alexander was born August 4, 1968 in Galesburg, Illinois and began as a classical musician studying piano at six, clarinet at nine, switching to alto saxophone three years later. While at Indiana University he switched to the tenor saxophone and jazz before transferring to William Paterson University where he studied with Harold Mabern, Rufus Reid, Joe Lovano, Gary Smulyan, Ralph LaLama, Norman Simmons, Steve Turre and many others.
Alexander first achieved fame by finishing second behind Joshua Redman and ahead of Chris Potter at the 1991 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. He was quickly signed and began recording his more than three-dozen albums as a leader and collaborator.
Influenced primarily by Sonny Stitt, Dexter Gordon and George Coleman, playing in the hard bop and post-bop styles, he has worked with such notables as Ron Carter, Joe Farnsworth, Pat Martino, Peter Bernstein, Vincent Herring, Grant Stewart and Mike LeDonne among others. Alto saxophonist Eric Alexander continues to record and tour as a leader, extensively with the sextet One For All.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herb Harris was born in Washington D.C. on July 8, 1968. He began his musical journey on clarinet at age 12. Upon entering high school, he switched to alto saxophone, playing the instrument in the marching band, and then switched to tenor saxophone at age 17.
His interest in jazz peaked when he heard a recording of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. Early on, he admired the sound and style of Dexter Gordon, followed by Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt and Charlie Parker.
Upon graduating high school, Harris spent several years of study at Florida A&M University. It was while attending the university that Harris met and jammed with Marcus Roberts, eventually playing with Roberts, touring the States and Europe and recording with him on Deep in The Shed.
Harris also spent a short period in the Nineties with the Wynton Marsalis Septet with whom he toured the States, Europe, and South America. He has appeared on the soundtrack “Tune In Tomorrow”, was featured in the group of saxophonists dubbed the “Tough Young Tenors” on the album “Alone Together”, was a member of the second edition of the Jazz Futures, and saxophonist Herb Harris embarked on his first tour as a leader in the spring of 2002. He continues to perform, tour, compose and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tanya Kalmanovitch was born in Fort McMurray, Alberta on July 5, 1970 and learned to play the viola as a child and would go on to master the violin. She attended and graduated in 1992 from Juilliard School with a degree in viola performance and soon after debuted her jazz chops with the Turtle Island String Quartet.
Her 2003 debut recording with her quartet Hut Five was hailed by the Montreal Gazette as “an exceptional recording, one of the more engaging recordings heard in some time” and was garnished with a number of stars by DownBeat magazine. Actively performing in New York City since 2004, Tanya has been named “Best New Talent” by All About Jazz New York, while Time Out New York identified her from a small pool of suspects as “the Juilliard-trained violist who’s been tearing up the scene”.
Tanya has performed with Mark Turner, Benoît Delbecq, Mark Helias, Dominique Pifarély, Andy Laster, Tom Rainey, Ernst Reijseger, Mat Maneri, and the Turtle Island String Quartet, Martin Hayes, John Cage and Shujaat Husain Khan. She has travelled frequently to India where she has studied Karnatic music with violinist Lalgudi G. J. R. Krishnan and veena player Karaikudi S. Subramanian while conducting doctoral dissertation research on jazz exotica.
Teaching regularly at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London UK, the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag NL, and as a member of the faculty of the department of Creative Improvisation at Boston’s New England Conservatory, she also conducts workshops on improvisation.
She is a founding member of the Brooklyn Jazz Underground, a collective of ten independent bandleaders based in New York City. She is also the Canadian representative to the International Association of Schools of Jazz, a founding member of the Jazz String Caucus of the International Association for Jazz Education, and a mentor to the Sisters in Jazz Program. Violist and violinist Tanya Kalmanovitch now lives in the spaces between modern jazz, classical music and free improvisation as she continues to compose, perform and educate.
