Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Frank Traynor was born on August 8, 1927 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He formed his first band, the Black Bottom Stompers, in 1949 and in 1951 he joined the Len Barnard Band. That same year he was voted best trombonist in the Make Way for the Bands poll and made his first recordings with this band.

Traynor became a regular feature at Athol’s Abbey, an underground bar and grill on the corner of St Kilda Road and Park Street. In 1963, Traynor recorded an EP with Judith Durham titled, Judy Durham. Frank and his band the Jazz Preachers were also a feature of the Melbourne City Council’s – Free Entertainment in the Parks.

Founding the Melbourne Jazz Club in 1958, and not limiting his entrepreneurial skills to just jazz he also established and ran the Frank Traynor’s Folk and Jazz Club from 1963–75, which played a central role in the Australian folk revival.

Trombonist Frank Traynor led Australia’s longest continuously running jazz band, the Jazz Preachers, from 1956 until he was diagnosed with leukaemia and passed away on February 22, 1985 in Melbourne.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jerry Tachoir was born August 7, 1955 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. A chance meeting with Gary Burton led to him matriculating through Berklee College of Music, studying with Burton and graduating summa cum laude in 1976.

Tachoir has been nominated for a Grammy, released several albums with his band, the Group Tachoir, and as an educator he has taught privately for over a quarter of a century, held clinics and master classes and authored  A Contemporary Mallet Method: An Approach to the Vibraphone and Marimba,

He has released an instructional vibraphone video titled Master Study Series and the Vibraphone Vol. I and II. Vibraphone and marimba player Jerry Tachoir has led his quartet for twenty-five years throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe, and continues to compose, record and tour.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Abbey Lincoln was born Anna Marie Wooldridge on August 6, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Calvin Center, Cass County, Michigan. One of many singers influenced by Billie Holiday, her 1956 album debut, Abbey Lincoln’s Affair – A Story of a Girl in Love, was followed by a series of albums for Riverside Records.

1956 saw lincoln’s first foray into acting in which she appeared in The Girl Can’t Help It, interpreting the theme song and working with Benny Carter. She would go on to be featured in movies and television shows like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Nothing But a Man, The Name of the Game, Mission: Impossible, Short Walk to Daylight, Marcus Welby, M.D., All in the Family, Mo’ Better Blues and For Love of Ivy, in which she received a Golden Globe nomination. Her song For All We Know is featured in the 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy.

Never straying far from music or the struggle for equality, in 1960 she sang on Max Roach’s landmark civil rights-themed recording, We Insist! Her lyrics often reflected the ideals of the civil rights movement and helped in generating passion for the cause in the minds of her listeners. She explored more philosophical themes during the later years of her songwriting career and remained professionally active until well into her seventies.

During the 1980s, Abbey’s catalogue of creative output was smaller and she released only a few albums. During the 1990s and until her death, however, she fulfilled a 10-album contract with Verve Records. These albums are highly regarded and represent a crowning achievement in Lincoln’s career. Devil’s Got Your Tongue (1992) featured Rodney Kendrick, Grady Tate, J. J. Johnson, Stanley Turrentine, Babatunde Olatunji and The Staple Singers, among others.

Vocalist, activist, songwriter, composer and actress Abbey Lincoln passed away eight days after her 80th birthday on August 14, 2010 in a Manhattan nursing home after suffering deteriorating health ever since undergoing open-heart surgery in 2007. She left a small but vital catalogue to the jazz canon.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jemeel Moondoc was born August 5, 1951 in Chicago, Illinois and studied clarinet and piano before settling on saxophone at sixteen. He became interested in jazz largely due to Cecil Taylor and at the University of Wisconsin–Madison became one of his student.

Following graduation he moved to New York City, where he founded Ensemble Muntu with William Parker, Roy Campbell, Jr., and Rashid Bakr. The group had its own Muntu record label for a time but eventually faced financial difficulties. He worked with Parker again on his 1998 album New World Pygmies.

Alto saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc, a proponent of a highly improvisational style, has recorded nineteen albums as a leader, two with the Jus Grew Orchestra, three with Denis Charles and Steve Swell and continues to compose, perform and record.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz..

Herb Ellis was born Mitchell Herbert Ellis in Farmersville, Texas on August 4, 1921 and raised in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. He first heard the electric guitar performed by George Barnes on a radio program which inspired him to take up the guitar. He became proficient on the instrument by the time he entered North Texas State University, majored in music, but with no guitar program he studied string bass. With a lack of funds he dropped out in 1941 and toured for six months with a band from the University of Kansas.

In 1943, he joined Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra and it was here that he got his first recognition in the jazz magazines. Leaving Gray for the Jimmy Dorsey band, he got his initial opportunities to recorded solos. Ellis remained with Dorsey through 1947, traveling and recording extensively, but with a six-week hole in the schedule, he John Frigo and Lou Carter took a gig in Buffalo that lasted six months and where the group Soft Winds was born he wrote the classic jazz standard Detour Ahead.

The group fashioned themselves after the Nat King Cole Trio. and stayed together until 1952. Herb then replaced Barney Kessel in the Oscar Peterson Trio in 1953. His prominence not only with his performing with the trio alongside Ray Brown until 1958 but also because he was the only white person in the group in a time when racism was still very much widespread.

With the addition of a drummer, the Oscar Peterson Trio, served as the house rhythm section for Norman Granz’s Verve Records. They supported the likes of Ben Webster, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Sweets Edison, Buddy Rich, Lester Young, Benny Carter, Victor Feldman, Mel Brown, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong among numerous others.

The trio were a mainstay of Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts as they swept the jazz world, from 957 to 1960 Ellis toured with Ella Fitzgerald, and along with fellow jazz guitarists Barney Kessel, Charlie Byrd and Tal Farlow, he created another ensemble, the Great Guitars.

In 1994 he was inducted into the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame, received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of North Texas College of Music. Guitarist Herb Ellis, released twenty-two albums as a leader before passing away from Alzheimer’s disease at his Los Angeles home on the morning of March 28, 2010, at the age of 88.

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