Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rafael Antonio Cortijo was born on December 11, 1928 in Santurce, Puerto Rico and as a child became interested in Caribbean music and enjoyed the works of some of the era’s most successful Bomba y Plena music musicians. Throughout his life, he had a chance to meet and work with some of them and learned how to make his own congas and pleneras, the handheld drums used in bomba y plena music.
He met salsa composer and singer Ismael Rivera when both were youngsters growing up in the Villa Palmeras neighborhood. They became lifelong friends and Rivera impressed with his friend’s conga-playing skills, asked him to join his orchestra, which played at Fiestas patronales all over Puerto Rico.
Becoming well known across Latin America, Rafael attributed his success to the sound of his percussion, as Afro-Caribbean music was known worldwide. As a member of the Conjunto Monterrey, based in Monterrey, Mexico, he later toured with Daniel Santos’ orchestra and worked on radio.
By 1954, as a member of El Combo, Cortijo’s big break came when El Combo’s leader and pianist Mario Román left the band to him. Ismael Rivera, then the lead singer of Lito Peña’s Orquesta Panamericana, joined Cortijo’s orchestra known as Cortijo y su Combo in 1955. From then until 1960, his orchestra played live on Puerto Rican television shows, and sometime during the 60s, they became the house band at La Taberna India.
The orchestra virtually disbanded in 1962 when Ismael Rivera was arrested for drug possession in Panama. Rafael and the other bandmates went on to found Puerto Rico’s salsa group, El Gran Combo. He went on to create another orchestra, El Bonche, where he was joined by his adopted niece, Fe Cortijo, who would become a well-known singer on her own. He and Rivera went on to live in New York City but he soon returned impoverished to Puerto Rico, where he forged a friendship with composer Tite Curet Alonsothe who helped produce a comeback album. In 1974, Coco Records reunited all the former members of “Cortijo y su Combo” orchestra for a one-time-only concert and a subsequent studio recording issued a few months afterward.
Their friendship was so important to Rivera, that when orchestra leader, musician, and composer Rafael Cortijo passed away of pancreatic cancer on October 3, 1982 at his sister Rosa Cortijo’s apartment in the Luis Llorens Torres public housing project in Santurce, Rivera said he would no longer sing.
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The Quarantined Jazz Voyager
With a surge in Covid cases after Thanksgiving travel, I am doubling down on maintaining my social distancing and wearing my mask when I have to go out, otherwise, I remain in quarantine. From the shelves of my jazz collection, I am placing on the turntable the 1971 recording of First Light by trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, his third release on Creed Taylor’s CTI label.
The string arrangements are by conductor Don Sebesky and features performances by Herbie Hancock, Eric Gale, George Benson, Ron Carter, Jack DeJohnette, Airto Moreira, and Richard Wyands. The album is part of a trilogy including his two previous records at the time, Red Clay and Straight Life. First Light won the 1972 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Group.
TRACKS | 42:55- First Light (Hubbard) ~ 11:05
- Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey (McCartney, McCartney) ~ 8:17
- Moment to Moment (Mancini, Mercer) ~ 5:43
- Yesterday’s Dreams (Martin, Sebesky) ~ 3:55
- Lonely Town [from On the Town] (Bernstein, Comden, Green) ~ 7:00
- Fantasy in D” (Walton) ~ 6:55
- Freddie Hubbard – trumpet, flugelhorn
- Jack DeJohnette – drums
- Ron Carter – bass
- Richard Wyands – piano
- George Benson – guitar
- Airto Moreira – percussion
- Herbie Hancock – Fender Rhodes piano
- Phil Kraus – vibraphone
- Hubert Laws – flute
- Wally Kane – flute, bassoon
- George Marge – flute, clarinet
- Romeo Penque – flute, English horn, oboe, clarinet
- Jane Taylor – bassoon
- Ray Alonge – French horn
- James Buffington – French horn
- Margaret Ross – harp
- David Nadien – violin
- Paul Gershman – violin
- Emanuel Green – violin
- Harold Kohon – violin
- Joe Malin – violin
- Gene Orloff – violin
- Matthew Raimondi – violin
- Tosha Samaroff – violin
- Irving Spice – violin
- Alfred Brown – viola
- Emanuel Vardi – viola
- Charles McCracken – cello
- George Ricci – cello
You all know I will be back flying around the globe just as soon as the world becomes safe again from this pandemic. In the meantime, stay safe and healthy.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Lang was born on December 10, 1941 in Los Angeles, California. He obtained a bachelor of music at the University of Michigan in 1963, and studied under Leonard Stein, George Tremblay, Pearl Kaufman and Lalo Schifrin.
Well versed in various music forms, including jazz, classical, pop and R&B, he has collaborated and recorded more than two-dozen albums with Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee, Natalie Cole, Robbie Williams, Dusty Springfield, Solomon Burke, Tom Waits,, José Feliciano, Vince Gill, Bette Midler, Kenny Rogers, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, Amy Grant, Paul Anka, Melissa Manchester, Neil Diamond, Michael Bolton, Barry Manilow, Carole Bayer Sager, and Barbra Streisand.
Pianist and composer Michael Lang, who has composed more than 2000 film scores, continues to play and compose.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gil Rodin was born in Russia on December 9, 1906 and studied saxophone, clarinet, flute, and trumpet in his youth. He played in Chicago, Illinois with Art Kahn in the middle of the 1920s. Moving to California and played with Harry Bastin before joining Ben Pollack in 1927, remaining in his band until 1934.
He simultaneously did studio work and played with Red Nichols’s radio band. Making his only recordings as a leader in 1930-31, amounting to four tracks which included Jack Teagarden on vocals, he also enlisted Eddie Miller and Benny Goodman as sidemen.
After Pollack’s band dissolved in 1934, Gil played with some of the players in the group until Bob Crosby regrouped them into his own ensemble. Rodin remained with Crosby through 1942, when he was drafted. While serving in the Army he played in the Artillery Band and after his discharge in 1944 he played with Ray Bauduc for a year, then with Crosby again.
His major composition was Big Noise from Winnetka, for which he wrote the lyrics with Bob Crosby. The music was written by Ray Bauduc and Bob Haggart. The song appeared in the films Raging Bull, Cannery Row, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Saving Mr. Banks, and What If.
Later in his career, Gil worked radio and television production, with Bill Cosby among others. He produced the soundtracks to the films American Graffiti and The Sting. Saxophonist, songwriter, and record producer Gil Rodin passed away on June 10, 1974.
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Three Wishes
From the Notes of Nica de Koenigswarter:
You can quote Satchmo as saying:
“Health is wealth! If I were sick, and I wanted to borrow a dime, d’you think that cat would cross the street to offer it to me? No, sir! I’d have to have my health to go and get it from him.”
“And people would never get sick if they didn’t get constipated. Why, I’ve never had an operation in my life, because I never let myself get constipated.”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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