Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Herman Davis Burrell was born September 10, 1940 in Middletown, Ohio and grew fond of jazz at a young age after meeting Herb Jeffries. He studied piano and music at the University of Hawaii from 1958 to 1960, then starting in 1961 he attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. 1965 saw him walking across the stage to receive  degrees in composition/arranging and performance. While in Boston, he played with Tony Williams and Sam Rivers.

After graduation Dave moved to New York City, where he worked and recorded with Grachan Moncur III, Marion Brown, and Pharoah Sanders. He also started the Untraditional Jazz Improvisational Team with saxophonist Byard Lancaster, bassist Sirone, and drummer Bobby Kapp. Three years later he co-founded The 360 Degree Music Experience with Moncur and Beaver Harris, recording two albums with the group. The following year, Burrell began an association with Archie Shepp, with whom he would play the 1969 Pan-African Festival in Algiers, Algeria. They would go on to record nearly twenty albums.

Burrell’s debut as a leader was an album titled High Won-High Two that was released in 1968.  This was followed by Echo and La Vie de Bohème recorded in Paris in 1969, and Round Midnight for Nippon Columbia.

In 1978, with Swedish poet and lyricist Monika Larsson he composed a jazz opera entitled Windward Passages, with an album of the same name, based on the opera, released in 1979. Their touring and recording collaborations resulted in four more albums. He would later appear on seven David Murray albus recorded between 1988 and 1993.

Burrell tours and performs as a soloist and as a leader of a duo, trio, and larger ensembles. His recordings have received high praise  from Down Beat, Village Voice, Jazz Times and others. Into the new millennium he has continued to perform, record and release several albums including a live recording in Italy. In 2022, pianist Dave Burrell donated his archive to the Center for American Music in the University of Pittsburgh Library System. He continues to be active in jazz.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Makanda Ken McIntyre was born Kenneth Arthur McIntyreon on September 7, 1931 in Boston, Massachusetts to a father whoplayed mandolin. He started his musical life on the bugle when he was eight years old, followed by piano. In his teens he discovered the music of Charlie Parker and began playing saxophone at nineteen, then clarinet and flute two years later. Serving in the Army in 1953, for two years he played saxophone and piano in Japan.

Following his discharge Ken attended the Boston Conservatory where he studied with Gigi Gryce, Charlie Mariano, and Andy McGhee. In 1958 he received a degree in flute and composition with a master’s degree the next year in composition. He also received a doctorate (Ed.D.) in curriculum design from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1975.

1960 saw McIntyre recording as a leader with Eric Dolphy. The following year and for the next six he taught music in public schools. He took oboe lessons in New York before playing with Bill Dixon, Jaki Byard, and the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra. He went on to spend three years with pianist Cecil Taylor. During the 1970s he recorded with Nat Adderley and Beaver Harris and in the 1980s with Craig Harris and Charlie Haden.

In 1971, he founded the first African American Music program in the United States at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury, teaching for 24 years. He also taught at Wesleyan University, Smith College, Central State University, Fordham University, and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

In the early 1990s, while performing in Zimbabwe, a stranger handed him a piece of paper with the word “Makanda” written on it, which translates to many skins in the Ndebele language and many heads in Shona. He changed his name to Makanda Ken McIntyre. At the age of 69 on June 13, 2001 he transitioned from a heart attack in New York City.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Fred Hess was born in Abington, Pennsylvania on September 3, 1944 but was raised in New Jersey. He studied at Trenton State College with his early studies with saxophonist Phil Woods, a stint with bandleader Fred Waring, and composing music for the world premiere of a Sam Shepard play. 

As a composer, his influences encompass avant-garde classical sources, as well as Anthony Braxton and the members of the AACM. Moving to Boulder, Colorado in 1981, he founded the Boulder Creative Music Ensemble. Fred then completed further studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, taking his doctorate in composition in 1991. 

He recorded his debut album Sweet Thunder in 1991 and by 2012 had sixteen albums as a leader in his catalog. He was the Director of Music Composition at Metro State College in Denver, Colorado.

In addition to his own projects as a leader, BCME, The Fred Hess Group and the Fred Hess Big Band, he was the founding director of Denver’s Creative Music Works Orchestra and was a member of drummer Ginger Baker’s Denver Jazz Quintet, as well as ensembles led by trumpeter Ron Miles. 

His playing was influenced by Lester Young, John Coltrane, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and Eric Dolphy. Tenor saxophonist Fredd Hess transitioned on October 27, 2018. 

Bestow upon an inquiring mind a dose of a Abington saxophonist to motivate the perusal of the genius of jazz musicians worldwide whose gifts contribute to the canon…

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

John Zorn was born September 2, 1953 in New York City, New York and attended the United Nations International School, where he studied piano, guitar and flute from an early age. Exposed by his families musical tastes in classical, world, jazz, French chansons, country doo-wop and rock and roll records, he spent his teenage years exploring classical and film music, listening to The Doors and playing bass in a surf band. He explored experimental and avant-garde music as well as cartoon soundtracks and film scores. He went on to teach himself orchestration and counterpoint by transcribing scores and studied composition under Leonardo Balada.

After discovering Anthony Braxton’s album For Alto when he was studying composition at Webster College in St. Louis, Missouri, Zorn began playing saxophone and attended classes taught by Oliver Lake. While at Webster, he incorporated elements of free jazz, avant-garde and experimental music, film scores, performance art and the cartoon scores of Carl Stalling into his first recordings.

Leaving Webster after three semesters, John lived on the West Coast before returning to Manhattan where he gave concerts in his apartment and other small NY venues, playing saxophone and a variety of reeds, duck calls, tapes, and other instruments. He immersed himself in the underground art scene, assisting Jack Smith with his performances and attending plays by Richard Foreman

Zorn entered New York City’s downtown music scene in the mid-1970s, collaborating with improvising artists while developing new methods of composing experimental music. Over the next decade he performed throughout Europe and Japan and recorded on independent US and European labels. In 1986 he received acclaim with the release of his radical reworking of the film scores of Ennio Morricone, The Big Gundown, followed by Spillane, an album featuring his collage-like experimental compositions. Spy vs Spy and Naked City both demonstrated his ability to merge and blend musical styles in new and challenging formats.

Having spent time in Japan in the late 1980s and early ’90s John returned to Lower East Side Manhattan to establish the Tzadik record label in 1995,  enabling him to establish independence, maintain creative control, and ensure the availability of his growing catalog of recordings. He prolifically recorded and released new material for the label, issuing several new albums each year, along with recordings by many other artists.

He performs on saxophone with the groups Naked City, Painkiller, and Masada but more often conducts bands like Moonchild, Simulacrum and several of his Masada-related ensembles. He composes concert music for classical ensembles and orchestras, produces music for opera, sound installations, film and documentary, and tours Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer John Zorn continues his exploration of music and adds to his diverse repertoire.

Bestow upon an inquiring mind a dose of a New York City composer to motivate the perusal of the genius of jazz musicians worldwide whose gifts contribute to the canon…

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

In 1970 he played with Albert Ayler at the Fondation Maeght in France. Two years later he toured throughout Europe with Karl Berger, recorded with Mal Waldron for Enja, and with Albert Mangelsdorff. In 1976 Allen played with a German jazz rock group called Embryo and in France he collaborated with Bireli Lagrene.

By 1991 he recorded Life at the Montreux Music Festival in trio-formation with Günter Lenz and Uli Lenz. For over twenty years he played with saxophonist Olaf Schönborn and bassist Mario Fadani in Trio Variety. Since 2009 with tap dancer Kurt Albert and Olaf Schönborn in Melody Rhythm & Tap.

Drummer Allen Blairman was diagnosed with cancer in January and transitioned on April 29, 2022 in Heidelberg, Germany at 81 years of age.

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