Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Grachan Moncur III was born June 3, 1937 in New York City, the son of bassist Grachan Moncur II, but was raised in Newark, New Jersey. He began playing cello at age nine but switched to trombone at eleven. In high school he attended Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina and began sitting in with touring musicians, establishing lasting friendships with Art Blakey and Jackie McLean.
After high school he toured with Ray Charles in 1959, gained membership into the Art Farmer/Benny Golson Jazztet in ’62, and then worked with Sonny Rollins. He took part in two classic McLean sessions in the early 1960s, One Step Beyond and Destination Out, to which he also contributed the bulk of compositions that led to two influential albums of his own for Blue Note Records – Evolution with McLean and Lee Morgan and Some Other Stuff with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.
Moncur joined Archie Shepp’s ensemble and recorded with other avant-garde players such as Marion Brown, Beaver Harris and Roswell Rudd. In 1969 while in Paris he recorded two albums as a leader for the BYG Actuel label, New Africa and Aco Dei de Madrugada, as well as appearing as a sideman on numerous other releases of the label. In 1974, the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra commissioned him to write a jazz symphony, Echoes of Prayer, and he has gone on to work with Cassandra Wilson, Frank Lowe, John Patton, Mark Masters, Joe Henderson, Tim Hagans, Gary Bartz and perform occasionally with the Paris Reunion Band.
The prolific composer and trombonist continued to perform, tour and record until he died from cardiac arrest on his 85th birthday in Newark, New Jersey on June 3, 2022.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Omar Sosa was born on April 10, 1965 in Camaguey, Cuba and began studying marimba at age eight, then switched to piano and studied jazz while attending the Escuela Nacional de Musica in Havana.
In 1993 Omar moved to Quito, Ecuador, then San Francisco, California two years later. The following years saw him deeply involved in the local Latin jazz scene and a long collaboration with percussionist John Santos. He made a series of recordings with producer Greg Landau, including the groundbreaking Oaktown Irawo, featuring Tower of Power drummer Dave Garibaldi, Cuban saxophonist Yosvany Terry and Cuban percussionist Jesus Diaz.
Omar works outside jazz and Afro-Cuban traditions incorporating Latin rhythms, North African percussions, spoken word, rap and classical music. He music ranges from big band, improvisation and world to free jazz and avant-garde.
He won The 10th Annual Independent Music Awards in the Jazz Album category for Ceremony in 2011. Inspired by various musical elements and motifs from Kind Of Blue, Sosa wrote a suite of music honoring the spirit of freedom in Davis’ seminal work. The CD received a nomination for Best Latin Jazz Album at the 56th annual Grammy Awards.
In 2015 he returned to his Cuban roots with the release of Ilé. Joining him on the project were three musicians with whom Omar shares a close connection: fellow Camagüeyanos, Ernesto Simpson on drums, and Leandro Saint-Hill on alto saxophone, flute and clarinet, and Mozambican electric bassist Childo Tomas – collectively known as Quarteto AfroCubano. Pianist, composer and bandleader Omar Sosa has recorded with Carlos “Patato” Valdes, Pancho Quinto and numerous world musicians, worked on several film scores, and now lives in Barcelona, Spain.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Booker Little, Jr. was born in Memphis, Tennessee on April 2, 1938. He studied trumpet and music at the Chicago Conservatory from 1956 to 1958 during which time he worked with local musicians like Johnny Griffin. A move to New York offered him the opportunity to work with Max Roach and Eric Dolphy, recording with the later on the 1960 Far Cry session and leading a residency at the Five Spot in 1961. This collaboration would produce three classic albums for Prestige Records.
It was during this stint that he began to show promise of expanding the expressive range of the “vernacular” bebop idiom started by Clifford Brown in the mid-1950s. As a leader he recorded four albums and recorded another eleven as a sideman with Dolphy, Max Roach, John Coltrane, Slide Hampton, Bill Henderson, Abbey Lincoln and Frank Strozier during his short four years from 1958-1961.
Little made an important contribution to jazz as one of the first trumpeters to develop his own voice post Clifford Brown, though stylistically, he is rooted in Brown’s crisp articulation, burnished tone and balanced phrasing. Trumpeter and composer Booker Little died of complications resulting from uremia due to kidney failure at the age of 23 on October 5, 1961 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marilyn Crispell was born March 30, 1947 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and studied classical piano and composition at the New England Conservatory of Music. She discovered jazz through the music of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and other contemporary jazz players and composers like Paul Bley and Leo Smith.
For ten years Marilyn was a member of Anthony Braxton’s Quartet and the Reggie Workman Ensemble. She has worked with the Barry Guy New Orchestra as well as a member of the Henry Grimes Trio, the European Quartet Noir and Anders Jormin’s Bortom Quintet.
A resident of Woodstock, New York since 1977 when she came to study and teach at Karl Berger’s Creative Music Studio, in 2005 she performed and recorded with the NOW Orchestra, a year later she was co-director of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute and a faculty member at the Banff Centre International Workshop in Jazz.
Crispell has performed and recorded nearly two-dozen albums as a soloist and leader of her own groups as well as with John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Robert Cogan, Pozzi Escot, Manfred Niehaus, Larry Ochs, Reggie Workman,Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Steve lacy and Anthony Davis with the New York City Opera, among numerous others.
Pianist Marilyn Crispell, the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, continues to perform, record and teach throughout the U.S., Europe, Canada and New Zealand, and collaborate with videographers, filmmakers, dancers and poets.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jeri Brown was born in Halifax, Missouri on March 20, 1952 and began singing publicly from the age of six. While matriculating through college in Iowa on a four-year scholarship she studied classical voice. As a result of student performances in mid-western U.S. and Europe her voice caught the attention of musical directors and composers looking for an imaginative voice with incredible range effortlessly creating aesthetic touches to their contemporary or avant-garde works.
Along with performances with the Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and several combos, Jeri began incorporating more stylistic renditions of standards from theatre, film and pop culture. This led to her working with Ellis Marsalis, Billy Taylor and Dizzy Gillespie. Upon the suggestion of Joe Lovano, she began to improvise during concert performances.
The short list of jazz artists Jeri has performed and recorded with is not limited to Leon Thomas, John Hicks, Grady Tate, Kirk Lightsey, Betty Carter, David Murray, D.D. Jackson, Billy Hart, Kenny Werner, Pierre Michelot, Onaje Allan Gumbs, Fred Hersch, Tony Suggs, Michel Donato, Winard Harper, Chico Freeman, Rufus Reid and Seamus Blake.
Holding several degrees in Counseling, Education and English, Brown has taught at Cleveland State University, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, The university of Akron, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and several universities in Canada. Not to be limited, she has added documentaries, film and theatre to her arsenal of accomplishments and has written and recorded lyrics in collaboration with Avery Sharpe, Henry Butler, Cyrus Chestnut, Abdullah Ibrahim, and Jimmy Rowles. She continues her lifelong pursuit of excellence performing, composing and recording.
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