Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Laura Kahle was born on January 20, 1979 in Michigan but her family moved to Australia as a baby where she lived until 2004. She received her Bachelor of Music in jazz trumpet with the great John Hoffman and a Master of Music Studies in Composition @ the QLD Conservatorium of Music.
Moving to New York in 2004 she found herself working with the Danish Radio Big Band in Copenhagen, arranging the music of Jeff “Tain” Watts and Michael Brecker. She recorded “Downstream” was recorded in 2004 with a ten-piece ensemble from Brisbane, “West End Composers Collective”.
In 2006 she had two arrangements premiered by Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra featuring Jeff “Tain” Watts in Rose Hall, New York City. In 2007 she arranged the music of Gil Evans for the Branford Marsalis Septet, and performed in the Allen Room in New York City. By 2011 she recorded “Circular” and continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Magnarelli was born in Syracuse, New York on January 19, 1960. He first started playing music at age 12 with guitar and trumpet lessons, but had a knack for picking out songs on the piano by ear. His early performance experience, from elementary through high school, came via playing the trumpet and guitar in church. Later, while attending Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, he was the pianist and choir director at the Central Baptist Church.
Mags, as he was known, went on to get his bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from the State University of New York in Fredonia in 1986, and that year, he moved to New York City to pursue a career in music. Becoming a regular on the New York and international jazz scene, by 1987 he was touring and recording with Lionel Hampton and Brother Jack McDuff, and was soon seen playing with Toshiko Akiyoshi, Glenn Miller Orchestra, Harry Connick Jr. and the Hard Bop Quintet.
In 1990, Joe was a semifinalist at the Thelonious Monk International Trumpet Competition in Washington, DC. He made his debut as a leader on the Cris Cross label in 1994 with “Why Not”. He followed that excellent album with three others on the label, “Always There”, “Mr. Mags” and “Hoop Dreams”. Joe currently has nine records out as a leader, and has played on numerous jazz labels as a sideman.In 2003-2006, Mags performed with the great Latin jazz conguero Ray Barretto’s New Sextet.
Joe recorded on Ray’s “Time Was, Time Is” (O+ Music), which was nominated for a Grammy. His list of sideman gigs is too long to list but a few are the Vanguard Orchestra, Jane Monheit, Jon Hendricks, Jimmy Cobb, Louis Hayes, Alvin Queen, Dado Maroni, Marty Sheller, Tom Harrell Big Band, The Carnegie Hall Orchestra, Don Sebesky, John Pizzarelli, Aretha Franklin, Rosemary Clooney, Joe Williams, Michael Feinstein, and the Lincoln Center Orchestra.
Trumpeter Joe Magnarelli is currently an adjunct professor of music at the Juilliard School of Music and Rutgers University, and he also conducts clinics and master classes around the world.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mike Ellis was born in New York City in on January 18, 1957 where he was raised by artistically inclined parents during the fabulous Sixties. He began his musical training at age of eight on clarinet, piano and drums. By 19, he was working professionally and teaching.
Ellis paid his dues attending Berklee College, New School and the Institute of Artistic & Cultural Perception (I.A.C.P.) where Billy Pierce, Steve Lacy, Steve Grossman, Alan Silva and David Liebman were particularly helpful and influential as teachers and mentors during his early career.
Ellis’ eclectic approach to music has labeled it “World Jazz”, a term that may seem vague but it sums up what he’s been doing recently with Brazilian and African percussionists, seasoned international jazz artists and Siberian throat singers. After nearly 100 concerts in New York with Speak in Tones, he has performed alongside Antoine Roney, Graham Haynes, Terreon Gully, Phoenix Rivera, Taurus Mateen, Brian Carrott, Curtis Lundy, Bruce Cox, Daniel Moreno, just to name a few.
He recorded his last two projects in Salvador Bahia Brazil “Subaro” Speak in Tones and “Bahia Band” under his own name and on his label AlphaPocket Records. Some of the musicians on these projects include Jerry Gonzalez, Cheikh Tidiane Seck, Mo Brasil, Bira Reis, Adam Rudolf, Jean-Paul Bourelly and Darryl Hall.
Music has taken him around the world, from Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall to the Tokyo Jazz club scene and everything in between. Currently residing in Paris, he attends to his professorial and compositional duties while remaining active on the Parisian jazz scene performing regularly at Paris Clubs such as the Duc des Lombards, Sunset and the Baiser Sale. A few of his regular sidemen include John Betsch, J.J. Avenel, Michael Felberbaum, Brice Wassy, Bobby Few, Alain Jean Marie, Munir Hossn. All this, soprano saxophonist Mike Ellis accomplishes when he is not busy with projects in Brazil and New York.
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Hollywood On 52nd Street
“Thank Heavens For Little Girls” is from the 1958 Academy Award-winning film Gigi. Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner composed the song and lyrics and it went on to win the Academy Award for Best original Song in 1958. A cover version by Billy Eckstine peaked at #8 in the UK Singles Chart in 1959. The film starred Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jordan.
The Story: Set in turn-of-the-20th century Paris, the film opens with Honoré Lachaille, a charming old roué among high society. Dodging marriage Honoré is concerned with his bored nephew who enjoys hanging out with his mamita, Madame Alvarez and her precocious and carefree granddaughter Gigi. However she is sent away to be groomed as a courtesan and learn etiquette and charm. The two young people spend a lot of time together with the thought of taking Gigi as a mistress. Finally Gaston finds the thought unbearable with the help of high society. Taking Gigi home, he wanders the streets until finally ending back at Madame Alvarez’s door asking for Gigi’s hand in marriage. They couple are elegant, beautiful, and happily married. Honoré has been a framing device for the film, which can be seen as a romantic victory of love over cynicism.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eartha Mae Kitt was born Eartha Mae Keith on January 17, 1927 to a Cherokee/Black mother and German father on a cotton plantation in North, a small town in Orangeburg County near Columbia, South Carolina.
Raised by Anna Mae Riley, a Black woman whom she believed to be her mother, at age 8 she was sent to live with another family until Anna Mae death due to her man’s refusal to accept the child’s light complexion. She was ultimately sent to live with her biological mother Mamie Kitt in New York City.
Eartha began her career in 1943 with the Katherine Dunham Company, a relationship that lasted until 1948. As a member she appeared in the 1945 original Broadway production of the musical Carib Song. Orson Welles signed her 1950 to her first starring Broadway role as Helen of Troy in his staging of Dr. Faustus, followed by Shinbone Alley. During this decade she starred in films such as Mark of the Hawk, St. Louis Blues and Anna Lucasta.
A talented singer with a distinctive voice and unique style that became enhanced as she became fluent in French, by the early 1950s, she had six US Top 30 hits and a UK Top 10 hit “under The Bridges of Paris” with two more in 1963 and 1983. Kitt recorded such hits as Let’s Do It”, “Champagne Taste”, C’est Si Bon”, “Just An Old Fashioned Girl”, “Monotonous”, “Je Cherche Un Homme”, “Love For Sale” and “Santa Baby” among others.
Success found her way into television taking over the role of Catwoman in 1967 for the 3rd and final season of Batman. But in 1968, her career in America suffered due to President Lyndon B. Johnson after she made anti-war statements at a White House luncheon. It wasn’t until ten years later that she made a successful return to Broadway in the 1978 original production of the musical Timbuktu, receiving the first of her two Tony Award nominations; the second was for the 2000 original production of the musical The Wild Party.
Eartha toured and performed in Europe for many years and her English-speaking performances always seemed to be enriched by a soft French feel. She spoke four languages and sang in seven, which she effortlessly demonstrated in many of the live recordings of her cabaret performances. Over the course of her career from the Seventies until her death, Kitt voiced television commercials, wrote three autobiographies, had disco hits, was embraced by the gay community, continued making movies, making appearances on popular television shows, returned to Broadway and touring companies, and became a darling of the cabaret scene.
Eartha Kitt, actress, jazz singer, cabaret star, dancer, stand-up comedienne, activist and voice artist, winner of three Emmy Awards, and recipient of a Hollywood Walk of Fame Star was a true renaissance woman who screamed her way out of this world, passed away in her home on Christmas Day, December 25, 2008.
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