Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gonzalo Rubalcaba was born Gonzalo Julio González Fonseca in Havana, Cuba into a musical family on May 27, 1963. He adopted his great grandmother’s name, Rubalcaba, for professional use as did his father. He began studying classical piano and drums at the age of eight. Earning his degree in music composition from Havana’s Institute of Fine Arts in 1983, he began playing in clubs, music halls and toured France with Orquesta Aragón.
Discovered by Dizzy Gillespie in 1985, he garnered international attention in jazz circles and it was soon afterwards that he began performing regularly at major festivals. That same year he formed his own ensemble, Grupo Projecto. Emigrating to America in 1993, since then he has released twenty-nine albums as a leader on Blue Note, Impulse and 5Passion labels, and another so fifteen albums as a sideman with Ignacio Berroa, Ron Carter, Francisco Céspedes, Chick Corea, Al Di Meola, Richard Galliano, Charlie Haden, Katia Labèque, Tony Martinez, David Sanchez and Pat Martino among others.
Grammy Award-winning Afro-Cuban pianist and composer Gonzalo Rubalcaba has been nominated eleven five times for a Grammy Award, Billboard Music Award, and the Latin Grammy Award and brought home two Grammy Awards and two Latin Grammy Awards for Best Latin Jazz Album at both ceremonies. Settling in South Florida in 1996 he balances touring, recording, composing and teaching as a faculty member of the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mark Taylor was born on May 22, 1961 in Seattle, Washington. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington then moved to New York City to get his Masters from the Manhattan School of Music. While there he performed with an array of musicians including Dick Oatts, Jim McNeely, Bob Brookmeyer, Garry Dial, David Liebman, Don Sickler, Steve Turre, Sir Roland Hanna, Bob Mintzer, John Riley, Steve Slagle, and Ted Rosenthal and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
Mark performs and records extensively with such diverse and award winning groups as Matt Jorgensen +451, Jim Knapp Orchestra, Frieze of Life, Victor Noriega Trio + 2, Tom Varner’s Tentet and Quintet, Thomas Marriott, Wayne Horvitz, Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, and the Randy Halberstadt Quintet, as well as having appeared locally with Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, and Ernestine Anderson, Sam Yahel, Maria Schneider, the Seattle Symphony and Pacific Northwest Ballet, among many more.
As a leader, Taylor has released two projects on Origin Records titled After Hours and Spectre which was named NW Jazz Recording in 2009 and a year earlier was honored as the NW Jazz Instrumentalist, both by Earshot Jazz Magazine.
Putting on his educator cap, he has served on the music faculty at Pacific Lutheran University, has full schedule of private students and is a guest artist and clinician for festivals, workshops and clinics throughout the region. One of the most in demand saxophonists in the Pacific Northwest, alto saxophonist Mark Taylor continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kyle Eastwood was born on May 19, 1968 in Los Angeles, California and is the son of actor Clint Eastwood. Growing up with a father’s love of jazz for the music of Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk and the Stan Kenton Big Band, he developed a similar love for jazz that was prominent in the home. This was coupled with a father and mother who played piano and a and grandmother who taught music at Northwestern University. Attending several Monterey Jazz Festivals in his youth with his dad, got him access backstage to meet people who a great influence on him like Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughan.
Eastwood began playing electric bass in high school, learning R&B, Motown, and reggae tunes by ear. After studying with French bassist Bunny Brunel, he began playing gigs around the New York and Los Angeles areas, eventually forming the Kyle Eastwood Quartet. In 1996 he contributed to Eastwood After Hours: Live at Carnegie Hall performance and ultimate recording, then two years later released his debut CD as a leader, From There to Here, on the Sony label. He moved on to record with the UK’s Candid Records and then to Rendezvous.
He has contributed music to nine films The Rookie, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Changeling, Gran Torino, Invictus and J. Edgar and has been nominated for a Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Original Score for the film Letters from Iwo Jima. He has also contributed to the score of the documentary Homme Less about homeless photographer Mark Reay. Bassist and bass guitarist Kyle Eastwood currently has eight albums released, tours around the world playing clubs and festivals and continues to write, compose, arrange and perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Clare Teal was born May 14, 1973 in Kildwick, Yorkshire and developed an interest in jazz from an early age, through her father’s collection of 78 rpm records. She became obsessed with big band singers like Ella Fitzgerald and big bands like Joe Loss. Taking music lessons first on the electronic organ, then more formally on clarinet, before studying music at Wolverhampton University. While there she found herself without a clarinet for an unexpected examination.
Deciding to sing, after graduation, she started a career in advertising, singing in her spare time with amateur and semi-professional bands. She recorded her first album Nice Work in 1995 but her big break came when she was asked to stand in for Stacey Kent at a weekend festival in Llandrindod Wells. This led to a three-album contract with the jazz label Candid Records and her popularity soared, with appearances on radio and television bringing her to the attention of a wider public. In 2004 Clare released her debut album Don’t Talk for Sony Jazz in what was the biggest recording deal by any British jazz singer. It topped the jazz charts and entered the UK Top 20 UK Albums Chart.
While the majority of her recordings are cover versions of standards, her albums feature original songs and contemporary cover versions, Teal has toured throughout the UK and the world, with her pianist, trio, mini big band, or Hollywood Orchestra. She has worked with the Hallé Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and the John Wilson Orchestra as well as other top big bands.
Her concerts have been broadcasted across the BBC radio and television network, opened for Liza Minnelli, collaborated with Van Morrison, won British Jazz Vocalist of the Year for three years and BBc Jazz vocalist of the Year among others. Vocalist and songwriter Clare Teal has recorded fifteen albums and continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Matt Lavelle was born on April 11, born 1970 in Paterson, New Jersey and began his music career with a high school big band tour of the Soviet Union in 1988. He followed this with a five-year period of study with Hildred Humphries, a Swing era veteran who played with Count Basie, Billie Holiday and others.
During this period of study he played trumpet in Hildred’s band, then made his move on New York City and played straight-ahead jazz until 1995 when he relocated to Kingston, New York and studied the bass clarinet. Four years later Lavelle returned to New York seeking out what is known as the Downtown community. He has studied with Ornette Coleman adding alto clarinet to his instrumental arsenal.
Lavelle has played and toured with William Parker, Sabir Mateen, as well as with his own trio, an improvisation collective known as Eye Contact. He was key in the resurgence and return of avant jazz man Giuseppi Logan, helping him return to playing after a 45-year absence, and recording a new record released in spring 2010.
trumpet, flugelhorn and bass clarinet player Matt Lavelle, who has released a dozen albums as a leader or in duo and has recorded another ten as a sideman, continues to perform, record and tour.
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