The Quarantined Jazz Voyager
As social distancing and wearing masks continues to be our current state of affairs I had this thought of how this much we have seen in our lifetime, especially those of us who were born in the middle of the 20th century. So going into my music room I pulled down from the stacks Out of This World, a studio album by saxophonist Teddy Edwards. The album was recorded in Denmark on December 5, 1980 for the SteepleChase label. It was originally released with six tracks in 1981, however, the 1995 compact disc reissue added a seventh track. The session was produced by Nils Winther.
Track List: 57:30 All compositions by Teddy Edwards except where noted.
- No Name No. 1 ~ 6:00
- April Love ~ 6:47
- Out of This World (Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer) ~ 11:07
- Summertime (George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward) ~ 8:29
- That’s All (Bob Haymes, Alam Brandt) ~ 8:00
- Cheek to Cheek (Irving Berlin) ~ 6:05
- Summertime [alternate take] (Gershwin, Heyward) ~ 10:48 Bonus track on CD reissue
- Teddy Edwards – tenor saxophone
- Kenny Drew – piano
- Jesper Lundgaard – bass
- Billy Hart – drums
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Austin Percy Brice Jr. was born on March 25, 1923 in New York City. He started his professional career began around the end of World War II, when he played with Benny Carter, Mercer Ellington, Luis Russell, and Eddie Cleanhead Vinson. Playing frequently in Harlem during the early 1950s he worked with Tiny Grimes, Oscar Pettiford, Tab Smith, Lucky Thompson, and Cootie Williams. In addition to leading sessions at Minton’s Playhouse, he also played with Billy Taylor from 1954 to 1956, George Shearing between 1956 to 1958, sharing screen time in the film The Big Beat, and Kenny Burrell 1958–59.
He played behind Sarah Vaughan on tour from 1959 to 1961, then became Harry Belafonte’s drummer for most of the 1960s, but he also worked with Ahmad Jamal, Carmen McRae and Mary Lou Williams in that decade. He led a group called the New Sounds in the early 1970s, and worked with Sy Oliver and Illinois Jacquet.
Though he led a group that was active in the ’70s, the somewhat anti-jazz vibe lent to the drummer’s decision to concentrate on Broadway orchestra work, settling in for long runs on two hot shows, Eubie and Bubbling Brown Sugar. He was also active accompanying the tap group the Copasetics. He was a first~ call musician for jazz festivals and recording sessions.
The repertoire of the Percy Brice Duo with Tom Smith features songcraft from the ’20s through the ’50s. Drummer and bandleader Percy Brice, also known by his nickname Big P, passed away in November 2020 at the age of 97.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dave Douglas was born on March 24, 1963 in Montclair, New Jersey and grew up in the New York City area, attending Phillips Exeter Academy, a private high school in New Hampshire. He was introduced to jazz by his father and as a young teen was shown jazz theory and harmony by pianist Tommy Gallant. He began performing jazz as a trumpeter during his junior year in high school while on an abroad program in Barcelona, Spain. After graduating from high school in 1981, he studied at the Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory, both located in Boston, Massachusetts.
A move to New York City in 1984 had him studying at New York University with Carmine Caruso, and finished a degree in music. Early gigs included the experimental rock band Dr. Nerve, Jack McDuff, Vincent Herring as well as street bands around New York City. He played with a variety of ensembles and came to the attention of the jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader, Horace Silver, with whom he toured the US and Europe in 1987.
During the late 1980s, Douglas began playing with bands led by Don Byron, Tim Berne, Marty Ehrlich, Walter Thompson, and others in New York. He also played in the composer collectives Mosaic Sextet and New and Used.
Trumpeter, composer, and educator Dave Douglas has more than fifty recordings as a leader and over 500 published compositions. Has led and co-led quintets and sextets as well as electronic ensembles, won a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Aaron Copland award, and received Grammy Award nominations. As a composer, has received several commissions from among others from the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Essen Philharmonie, The Library of Congress, Stanford University and Monash Art Ensemble, which premiered his chamber orchestra piece Fabliaux in 2014.
He has served as artistic director of the Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music at the Banff Centre in Canada, co-founded the Festival of New Trumpet Music in New York, serving as its director. He is on the faculty at the Mannes School of Music and is a guest coach for the Juilliard Jazz Composer’s Ensemble. In 2016, he accepted a four-year appointment as the artistic director of the Bergamo Jazz Festival.
In 2005 Douglas founded Greenleaf Music, a record label for his albums, sheet music, podcasts, as well as the music of other modern jazz musicians. Greenleaf has produced over 70 albums.
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Three Wishes
The Baroness asked Jimmy Forrest of his three wishes and he said:
- “Million… million… million!”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Albert Aarons was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on March 23, 1932 and graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He began to gain attention as a trumpeter by 1956 and started working with saxophonist Yusef Lateef and pianist Barry Harris in the latter part of that decade in Detroit.
After a period playing with jazz organist Wild Bill Davis, he played trumpet in the Count Basie Orchestra from 1961 to 1969. The 1970s saw Aarons working as a sideman for singers Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, and saxophonist Gene Ammons.
Contributing to jazz fusion, playing on School Days with Stanley Clarke, he appeared with Snooky Young on the classic 1976 album Bobby Bland and B. B. King Together Again…Live. Trumpeter Al Aarons passed away on November 17, 2015 at age 83 in Laguna Woods, California.