Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Clifford Edward Thornton III was born on September 6, 1936 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania into a musical family, his uncle pianist Jimmy Golden and his cousin, drummer J. C. Moses. He began piano lessons when he was seven-years-old, and studied with trumpeter Donald Byrd during 1957 after Byrd had left Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and also that he worked with 17-year-old tuba player Ray Draper and Webster Young. Following a late 1950s stint in the U.S. Army bands, he moved to New York City.
In the early 1960s, Clifford lived in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn, New York in an apartment building with other young musicians, including Rashied Ali, Marion Brown, and Don Cherry. He performed with numerous avant-garde jazz bands, recording as a sideman with Sun Ra, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, and Sam Rivers.
During the Seventies, Thornton and others were affected by the compositional ideas of Cecil Taylor, was active in the Black Arts Movement, and associated with Amiri Baraka and Jayne Cortez. This musical and artistic network provided him with a variety of perspectives on ideas such as black self-determination, performance forms, outside playing, and textural rhythm; and giving him access to performers who would provide the abilities some of his later compositions required.
He was included in the dialogue around the developing thought of political artists, including Shepp, Askia M. Touré, and Nathan Hare, as well as the journals Freedomways and Umbra. As an educator, he taught world music at Wesleyan University and created an Artists-in-Residence on campus, giving the academic world-music community exposure to Sam Rivers, Jimmy Garrison, Ed Blackwell, and Marion Brown. He arranged performances by Rashied Ali, Horace Silver, McCoy Tyner, and numerous others
Trumpeter, trombonist, activist, and educator Clifford Thornton, who played free and avant~garde jazz in the 1960 and ‘70s, passed away on November 25, 1989.
More Posts: bandleader,educator,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trombone,trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Huey “Sonny” Simmons was born on August 4, 1933 in Sicily Island, Louisiana and grew up in Oakland, California, where he began playing the English horn. At age 16 he took up the alto saxophone, which became his primary instrument, playing primarily in an avant-garde style, often delving into free jazz.
His then-wife, Barbara Donald, played trumpet on several of his early records, Staying on the Watch and Music from the Spheres; Arhoolie Manhattan Egos, and Contemporary titles Rumasuma and the double album Burning Spirits.
Partnering with Prince Lasha on several recordings, two of which, The Cry! and Firebirds were also released by Contemporary.
Personal problems derailed both his music career and home life, leading to divorce and homelessness. He busked on the streets of San Francisco for many years, until he resurrected his career in the early 1990s and began playing in night clubs again.
His resurgence in the mid-1990s was marked by two albums, Ancient Ritual and American Jungle, for Quincy Jones’ Qwest Records. Along with appearances in European jazz festivals, Sonny has since remained a regular performer at European festivals.
Since 2000 he has been co-leader of The Cosmosamatics with reed player Michael Marcus and is among the few musicians to play the English Horn in a jazz context. Alto saxophone Sonny Simmons died on April 6, 2021 in New York.
More Posts: bandleader,english horn,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ken Hyder was born on June 29, 1946 in Dundee, Scotland. He began playing jazz in Scotland before moving south to London, England where he played at the legendary Little Theatre Club – an avant-garde haunt run by the late John Stevens.
For over 40 years Hyder has been playing and composing music and has produced more than three dozen albums of original material. He formed the group Talisker and recorded six albums with this pioneering and proto-type Celtic jazz group. He has recorded with Elton Dean, Chris Biscoe, Tim Hodgkinson, Paul Rogers, Maggie Nicols, Don Paterson, and Frankie Armstrong.
The 1970s saw him moving away from jazz and into collaborations with musicians from different musical backgrounds including Irish, South African and South American players. Later, he became interested in exploring spiritual aspects of music with spiritual practitioners like Tibetan and Japanese Buddhist monks, and Siberian shamans.
Ken combines folk, ethnic and Celtic music with jazz. He has worked and recorded with Dick Gaughan, Vladimir Rezitsky, Phil Minton, Lindsay L. Cooper, Sainkho Namtchylak, Jo’burg Hawk, Marcio Mattos, Jim Dvorak, John Edwards, Dave Webster, John Rangecroft, Radik Tyulyush, Julian Bahula, Lucky Ranku, Larry Stabbins, Harry Beckett, Art Themen, Gary Windo, Pete McPhail, Keith Tippett, Harry Miller, Nick Evans, Raymond Macdonald, Ntshuks Bonga, Hamish Henderson, Jon Dobie, and Lello Colombo.
Fusion drummer and percussionist Ken Hyder continues with his current projects that include K-Space, with Tim Hodgkinson and Gendos Chamzyryn; Hoots and Roots with Scottish singer Maggie Nicols; RealTime with z’ev, Andy Knight and Scipio; Raz3 with Hodgkinson and Lu Edmonds; A revived Talisker, with Nicols and Raymond MacDonald and a duo with pianist Vladimir Miller.
More Posts: bandleader,drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music,percussion
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sy Johnson was born on April 15, 1930 in New Haven, Connecticut and learned to play the piano in his youth. He first performed in New York City with Charles Mingus at the jazz club Showplace, with Booker Ervin on tenor, Ted Curson on trumpet, Dannie Richmond on drums, and Mingus on bass. and on his first night with Mingus, Eric Dolphy performed on alto, bass clarinet, and flute.
In 1971, eleven years later, Mingus gave Johnson Let My Children Hear Music to arrange, which featured two Mingus pieces, Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife (Are Some Jiveass Slippers) and Don’t Be Afraid, the Clowns Afraid Too. The album’s emergence was heralded with a live concert, Mingus And Friends At Philharmonic Hall, also arranged by Johnson and released as an album.
Performing We Did It on Soul Train in 1973 and continued to work with Mingus until his death from Lou Gehrig’s disease in 1979. Mingus recorded two of Johnson’s compositions, Wee and For Harry Carney, and nominated Johnson for a Guggenheim award following his own in Jazz Composition.
Johnson continues to work with Sue Mingus arranging charts for all the Mingus repertory ensembles—the Mingus Big Band, the Mingus Orchestra and the Mingus Dynasty. He would go on to collaborate with arrangements for Joe Williams, Frank Sinatra, Wes Montgomery, Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Quincy Jones, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Mel Torme, Terry Gibbs, Lee Konitz and Sarah Vaughan, among others.
He has also worked on Broadway and in films such as the1984 movie The Cotton Club. Arranger Sy Johnson is also a jazz photographer, writer, pianist, singer, and teacher.
More Posts: arranger,history,instrumental,jazz,music,photographer,pianist,singer,teacher,writer
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Haslam was born February 22, 1939 in Preston, Lancashire, England and performed around the London free improvisational scene from the late 1960s, but did not begin recording until the 1980s. His first recording was issued in 1984, having been recorded while on tour in Hungary. He put together an ensemble called the Siger Band, included Paul Rutherford, Pete McPhail, Tony Moore, and Nigel Morris.
He played in Mexico in 1986 and in Cuba soon after he was the first British jazz ensemble to play in the latter country. He won the same distinction in Argentina before the end of the decade and has returned repeatedly to this country to perform and record. He founded Slam Records in 1989 to issue his own music; the label also releases material by Steve Lacy and Mal Waldron, among others. During this time his collaborations included work with Lol Coxhill, Paul Hession, Laszlo Gardony, Ruben Ferrero, and Evan Parker.
Haslam founded the British Saxophone Quartet in 1992, with Paul Dunmall, Elton Dean, and Simon Picard rounding out the membership. He also founded an ensemble called Meltdown in 1997, which issued its first record in 2001. Baritone saxophonist George Haslam who also plays the tárogató continues to perform in the avant-garde jazz idiom.
More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone