Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Esa Pietilä was born on December 9, 1964 in Finland and started learning the saxophone as a youth, taking his inspiration from Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane. He studied saxophone and composition in the Sibelius- Academy jazz department in Helsinki and privately in United States with David Liebman.
Pietilä started his career as a jazz musician and later on expanded his expression to many different musical genres. Performing with his jazz groups Liberty Ship and Esa Pietilä 3, he also has duo collaborations with contemporary classical & new music chamber musicians, and has soloed with chamber orchestras and other larger ensembles. He performs totally free improvisations at his solo concerts.
He has worked with conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, with Avanti! Chamber Orchestra. Esa has premiered the saxophone concerto of Kalevi Aho, Eero Hämeenniemi and Pietilä´s concerto Graffiti Play for chamber orchestra & contemporary jazz trio.
His jazz collaborators have been Paal Nilssen-Love, Harvey Sorgen, Michael Jefry Stevens, Mathias Eick, Jeff Siegel, Karl Berger, Mark Helias, Brian Melvin, Heiri Kaenzig, Christoph Baumann, Baenz Öster, Franziska Baumann, Mike Nock, Ron McClure, Claudio Fasoli, Anders Begcrantz, Odean Pope, Hilmar Jensson, Raoul Björkenheim. Markku Ounaskari, Ulf Krokfors, Iro Haarla.
Saxophonist and composer Esa Pietilä, who in his home country, received the Yrjö Jazz award in 2016 for his original, genre-defying work in the field of avant-garde jazz, continues to work diversely in the field of contemporary music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rebecca Coupe Franks was born on November 27, 1961 in San Jose, California. It was natural that she started playing trumpet when she was ten, as her brother, mother, grandfather, and great uncle all were trumpeters.
A professional by the time she was 15, Rebecca moved to New York City saw her attending New York University from 1990 to 1991 and practicing on the roof of the music building overlooking Lower Manhattan.
In the early 1990’s, she made a strong impression with her two albums for the Justice label. Her 1992 release Suit of Armor included appearances by saxophonist Joe Henderson, pianist Kenny Barron and bassist Buster Williams. During the 2000s she self-released several records, including Exhibition: Tribute to Joe Henderson.
Trumpeter Rebecca Coupe Franks continues to compose, record, perform and tour with her Groovemobile, which is a five piece band playing a mix of r&b, jazz and soul.
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Requisites
Ghetto Music is the 1968 debut album recorded by trumpeter Eddie Gale and released on the Blue Note label. The album seamlessly blends the new jazz of the ’60s with gospel, soul, and the blues. It was very much representative of the upheaval and turbulence in America at that time, being recorded just five months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The Allmusic Guide awarded the album 5 stars and stated “The aesthetic and cultural merits of Eddie Gale’s Ghetto Music cannot be overstated. This is some of the most spiritually engaged, forward-thinking, and finely wrought music of 1968”.
Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on September 20, 1968. All five compositions are Gale originals: The Rain, Fulton Street, A Understanding, A Walk With Thee and The Coming of Gwilu.
The Band: Eddie Gale – trumpet, thumb piano, steel drum, bird whistle, Russell Lyle – tenor saxophone, flute, Jo Ann Gale Stevens – guitar, vocals, James “Tokio” Reid, Judah Samuel – bass, Richard Hackett, Thomas Holman – drums, Elaine Beener – lead vocals, Sylvia Bibbs, Barbara Dove, Evelyn Goodwin, Art Jenkins, Fulumi Prince, Edward Walrond, Sondra Walston, Mildred Weston, and Norman Wright – vocals.
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Requisites
On March 12, 16 and 30, 1965 four men walked into the recording studio at Atlantic Records and laid down the tracks that would become Sing Me Softly Of The Blues. Produced by Arif Mardin, this Art Farmer Quartet album was released that same year. It is just 34 minutes and 50 seconds long and Farmer’s twentieth album and his 4th recording for Atlantic.
The album is comprised of just six songs: Sing Me Softly of the Blues (Carla Bley) – 6:44, Ad Infinitum (Bley) – 6:21, Petite Belle (Traditional) – 4:08, Tears (Pete LaRoca) – 5:45, I Waited for You (Walter Gil Fuller) – 5:55 and One for Majid (LaRoca) – 5:57.
The quartet personnel are: Art Farmer/flugelhorn, Steve Kuhn/piano, Steve Swallow/bass and Pete LaRoca/drums.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kim Rene Nalley was born November 14, 1971 in San Francisco, California but was raised in New Haven, Connecticut in a musical family that includes jazz drummer and photographer Reggie Jackson and R&B guitarist-vocalist Earl Whitaker. She received piano lessons from her great-grandmother and originally pursued classical voice, studying drama and opera at the Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven. She went on to study classical music at Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
At Holy Cross, Nalley sang with the power rock combo The Limit, which featured Crusader musicians Garrett Scott Flynn, Steve Guerette, Jim Januzzi, Allan Harper and Anthony O’Donnell. Switching to jazz shortly after moving to San Francisco, while attended UC Berkeley, she sang in the Cal Big Band, as well as receiving a See’s Candy’ Scholarship for Outstanding Musicianship.
Kim performed weekly at the Alta Plaza and director Michael Tilson Thomas discovered and recorded her in concert and hired her to sing a program of Gershwin tunes with the San Francisco Symphony. She began performing with the Johnny Nocturne Band for the Rounder/ Bullseye label, went on national and international tours, relocate to Switzerland, but returned to save the club Jazz at Pearl’s from going out of business.
Citing the Little Rascals and Bug Bunny cartoons as her seminal jazz influences, jazz and blues singer, actress, historian and former Jazz at Pearl’s club owner Kim Nalley, known for her powerful 3½ octave range, scatting, r&b, spirituals and folk guitar, continues to perform and record.
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