Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Winard Harper was born Hiram Winard Harper on June 4, 1962 in Baltimore, Maryland and started beating on cans at age three and his natural affinity was encouraged by his father. By age five he was making guest nightclub appearances with his older brother Danny’s band. It was his hearing of the Clifford Brown/Max Roach recording that sealed his inspiration to play jazz.
Harper’s first major gig was in 1982 with Dexter Gordon, followed by Johnny Griffin and then spent four years with Betty Carter. It was with the later that he learned much about the music business, preparing him to be a bandleader and giving him the inside track on bookings. This experience gave him the foundation to launch The Harper Brothers along with his brother Philip, and a few of the hottest young talents of the Nineties – Justin Robinson, Javon Jackson, Walter Blanding, Kioshi Kitagawa, Stephen Scott, Kevin Hayes, Michael Bowie and Nedra Wheeler.
The Harper Brothers recorded four albums prior to the dissolution of the band and Winard went on to record seven albums to date as a leader. He has played the sideman to Avery Sharpe, Ray Bryant, Abdullah Ibrahim, Pharoah Sanders, Clifford Jordan, Steve Turre, Joe Lovano, Frank Wess, Jimmy Heath and Wycliffe Gordon. Since the turn of the century the drummer, composer and bandleader continues to perform, tour and record with his own sextet.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ian Shaw was born June 2, 1962 in St. Asaph, Wales and received his music degree from the University of London. He began his professional career singing in the 1980s on the Alternative Cabaret Circuit, while playing in piano bars and at festivals in London and throughout Europe.
In 1990 he began touring Europe and recording with fellow singer Carol Grimes, ultimately collaborating with Claire Martin, Linda Lewis, Liane Carroll and Sarah Jane Morris. By mid-decade he was a regular performing at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and two albums on the club’s Jazzhouse label – Ghosthouse and a Rodgers & Hart tribute Taking It To Hart.
In 1996, Shaw led his own “Very Big Band” on a UK tour and by the late 90s he was performing regularly in USA. In 1999 he released In A New York Minute the first of two albums on the Milestone label, followed by Soho Stories in 2001. He has worked with Cedar Walton, Lew Soloff and Eric Alexander. His next release in 2003, A World Still Turning saw him working with Billy Childs, Peter Washington and Mark Murphy.
Ian continues to work regularly with Claire Martin, co-hosting the 2004 BBC Jazz Awards and appearing on the BBC’s Big Band Special. He won in the Best Jazz Vocalist category at the BBC Jazz Awards in 2004 and 2007. He has cut three more albums – Drawn To All Things, Lifejacket and Somewhere Towards Love. In 2011 Splashpoint Records released The Abbey Road Sessions where Shaw backed by a band. Shaw continues to perform regularly at festivals and jazz clubs in the UK and around the world, has delved into film acting and mounting a one-man show.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Darrell Grant was born on May 30, 1962 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania but his family moved to Denver, Colorado while still a young child. He started piano lessons before his teens and was considered enough of a prodigy to join and tour for two years with the Boulder-based Pearl Street Jazz Band, from the age of fifteen.
At 17 Grant won a scholarship to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York and while at Eastman focused on performance studies over theory, which he covered in his graduate studies in jazz theory and composition at the University of Miami.
Relocating to New York in the mid-’80s, Grant concentrated on a series of low-profile sideman gigs with the likes of Betty Carter, Chico Freeman and Greg Osby before finally stepping out as a bandleader for the first time. His 1994 Black Art was well received and reviewed and sold respectably, and his sophomore project The New Bop was an even bigger critical success.
He has recorded for 32 Jazz, Criss Cross, Monarch, Lair Hill and Origin record labels, has relocated to the Pacific Northwest and has added teaching credits to his resume of performance, composition and bandleader and sideman in Tony Williams’ quintet as he continues in the tradition of bop and post-bop jazz.
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Jazz In Film
The Cool World
The Director: Shirley Clarke
The Writers: Shirley Clarke, Carl Lee, Warren Miller and Robert Rossen
The Actors: Rony Clanton, Carl Lee, Yolanda Rodriguez, Clarence Williams III, and Gloria Foster
The Music: The soundtrack of abstract jazz colorings was never officially released, however, this Dizzy Gillespie re-recording is the next best thing.
The Story: This 1964 film is a powerful, stark semi-documentary look at the horrors of Harlem ghetto slum life filled with drugs, violence, human misery and a sense of despair due to the racial prejudices of American society. There is no patronizing of the black race in this cinematic cry for justice. A fifteen-year-old boy called Duke is ambitious to buy a “piece” (a gun) from an adult racketeer named Priest, to become president of the gang to which he belongs, and to return them to active “bopping” (gang fighting) which has declined in Harlem. It is a clearly patent allegory of an attempt by Duke to attain manhood and identity in the only way accessible to him – the antisocial one.
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Jazz In Film
Bullitt: This 1968 crisp, technically assured thriller was directed by Peter Yates and starred Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Vaughn. The story follows an all guts, no glory San Francisco cop who becomes determined to find the underworld kingpin that killed the witness in his protection. The film featured violent deaths, one of the best car chases in film history and a self-conscious message.
The modernistic music score was composed and conducted by Lalo Schifrin with Howard Roberts – guitar, Bud Shank – flute, Mike Melvoin – piano, Ray Brown – bass, Larry Bunker – drums, Bud Brisbois – trumpet and Milt Bernhart – trombone.
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