Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mark Turner was born November 10, 1965 in Fairborn, Ohio, and raised in the small Southern California town of Palos Verdes Estates. His original intent was to become a commercial artist but in elementary school he played the clarinet, followed by the alto and tenor saxophones in high school. He attended California State University, Long Beach in the 1980s playing in the jazz ensembles, and then transferred to and graduating from Berklee College of Music in 1990.
Moving to New York city, Turner worked at Tower Records for an extended period before working full-time as a jazz musician. His debut release Yam Yam on the Criss Cross label hit the airwaves in 1995 and since he has released seven more for Criss Cross, Waner, Fresh Sound and ECM record labels. He is a member of the trio Fly, with bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Jeff Ballard and have released three albums.
Late 2008 Mark was off the jazz scene when a power saw injury injured two fingers on one of his hands sidelined him. Fortunately by late February the next year he was performing again with the Edward Simon Quartet at the Village Vanguard. In 2014 he released his first album as a leader in thirteen years featuring the talents of trumpeter Avishai Cohen, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Marcus Gilmore.
He has worked with Gilad Hekselman’s Quartet, drummer Billy Hart‘s Quartet, recorded extensively with guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, saxophonist David Binney, and pianist Aaron Goldberg, as well as Ryan Kisor, Jonny King, Jimmy Smith, Jon Gordon, George Colligan, Seamus Blake, Lee Konitz, Joshua Redman, Matthias Lupri, Jaleel Shaw, Omer Avital, SF Jazz Collective, Yelena Eckemoff, George Mraz, Joe Locke and Tom Harrell among others. Considered one of the most influential tenor saxophonists of his generation, Mark Turner continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Muggsy Spanier was born Francis Joseph Julian Spanier on November 9, 1906 in Chicago, Illinois. He borrowed the nickname from the manager of the NY Giants, John “Muggsy” McGraw. In the early 1920s, he was playing cornet with The Bucktown Five in Chicago.
He led several traditional hot jazz bands, most notably Muggsy Spanier and His Ragtime Band, that actually played Dixieland. This band set the style for all later attempts to play traditional jazz with a swing rhythm section of key members George Brunies on trombone and vocals, clarinetist Rod Cless, pianists George Zack or Joe Bushkin, Ray McKinstry, Nick Ciazza or Bernie Billings playing tenor saxophone, and Bob Casey on bass.
Muggsy’s theme song was Relaxin’ at the Touro, named for the infirmary in the New Orleans, Louisiana hospital where Spanier was treated for a perforated ulcer in 1938. Saved by Dr. Alton Ochsner he homaged a song titled Oh Doctor Ochsner.
Spanier made numerous Dixieland recordings, co-led a quartet, the Big Four, with Sidney Bechet in 1940 and co-led a traditional band with pianist Earl Hines at the Club Hangover in San Francisco, California in the 1950s. He followed this engagement up playing with the Bob Crosby band. Winding down his career in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s by 1959 he was leading a small band at the College Inn in the Sherman Hotel, then appeared in the Blue Note, Jazz Ltd. and in the Empire Room of the Palmer House, all in Chicago. His last appearance was at the Newport Rhode Island Jazz Festival in 1964.
Cornetist, composer and bandleader Muggsy Spanier passed away on February 12, 1967.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Donald Byron was born November 8, 1958 in The Bronx in New York City. His mother was a pianist and his father played bass in calypso bands. As well as listening to jazz recordings by Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and others, he was exposed to other styles through trips to the ballet and symphony concerts.
He studied clarinet with Joe Allard and studied music at the New England Conservatory in Boston with George Russell. While in Boston, Byron performed and recorded with the Klezmer Conservatory Band, founded by NEC faculty member Hankus Netsky.
A gifted performer on clarinet, bass clarinet and saxophone, but on many of his albums he subordinates his own playing to the exploration of a particular style. Don is representative of a new generation of conservatory-trained jazz musicians who explore and record in a rich array of styles. His debut album in 1992, Tuskegee Experiments, bring classical avant garde and jazz improvisation together, while his albums like Ivey Divey are a more straight-ahead exploration of the traditional jazz, for which he has been nominated for a Grammy Award for his bass clarinet solo on I Want To Be Happy.
A practicing jazz historian and educator Byron recreates in spirit forgotten moments in the history of popular music with albums like Plays the Music of Mickey Katz and Bug Music. He has held professorships at Metropolitan State University of Denver, The University at Albany and MIT teaching composition, improvisation, music history, clarinet, and saxophone.
In 2001, Byron performed for the Red Hot Organization’s compilation album Red Hot + Indigo tribute to Duke Ellington, was named a 2007 USA Prudential Fellow and won a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has won the Rome Prize Fellowship and his Seven Etudes for solo piano made him a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Musical Composition.
Byron is a member of the Black Rock Coalition, has recorded with Allen Toussaint, Marc Ribot, Vernon Reid, Bill Frisell, Joe Henry, Hamiet Bluiett, Craig Harris, Mandy Patinkin, Ralph Peterson, Reggie Workman, David Murray, Steve Coleman, Bobby Previs, Anthony Braxton, Marilyn Crispell, Cassandra Wilson, Uri Caine and many others.
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Don Byron, who plays primarily clarinet, bass clarinet and saxophones, continues to perform, tour, record and educate, while venturing outside his jazz roots and into klezmer music, German lieder, cartoon jazz, hard rock/metal and rap.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alvin Batiste was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on November 7, 1932 and learned to play the clarinet. He was the first Black student to be invited to play with the New Orleans Philharmonic on Mozart’s Concerto. His childhood friend was fellow musician Ed Blackwell and in 1956, he spent time in Los Angeles, California working with Ornette Coleman.
Batiste released five albums as a leader with his debut, Musique D’Afrique Nouvell Orleans, hitting the streets in 1984. His final album, Marsalis Music Honors Series: Alvin Batiste, was a tribute produced by Branford Marsalis and also features Russell Malone and Herlin Riley.
Alvin worked as a sideman with Cannonball Adderley, Henry Butler, Billy Cobham, Marlon Jordan, the Clarinet Summit with John Carter, David Murray and Jimmy Hamilton, Mark Whitfield, Wynton Marsalis on the latter’s Crescent City Christmas Card. Though he could have risen to the top as a performer, he chose a life of teaching and mentoring.
As an educator he taught at his own jazz institute at Southern University in Baton Rouge. In addition, several well-known musicians studied under him such as Branford Marsalis, Randy Jackson of American Idol, Donald Harrison, Henry Butler, Charlie Singleton of Cameo, Ronald Myers and Woodie Douglas of Spirit.
He went on to host the radio show Jazz Sessions on WBRH, has held workshops and clinics around the globe as well as performing in concert in West Africa, Europe and the United States. Clarinetist, composer, arranger and educator Alvin Batiste, who performed in the avant-garde genre of jazz, passed away on May 6, 2007.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Amos White was born on November 6, 1889 in Charleston, South Carolina and grew up an orphan playing in the Jenkins Orphanage band in his teens. In addition, he traveled with minstrel shows and circuses.
After attending Benedict College, he returned to the orphanage to take a teaching position. During World War I, White played in the 816th Pioneer Infantry Band in France, then settled in New Orleans, Louisiana after the war.
Working as a typesetter, he played jazz in his spare time, working with Papa Celestin and Fate Marable among others. In the 1920s, he appeared on many records by blues singers such as Bessie Smith and Lizzie Miles, and played in the Alabamians. In 1928, he became the leader of the Georgia Minstrels.
In the 1930s, White moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he played with his own group and with local dance groups, including Felipe Lopez’s. Later in the decade he relocated to Oakland, California, where he played locally into the 1960s in marching bands.
Trumpeter Amos White passed away on July 2, 1980 in Oakland, California.
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