Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Lisa Sokolov was born on September 24, 1954 in Manhasset, Long Island and raised in nearby Roslyn, New York. She was exposed to jazz as a child through her father, who played stride piano and listened to recordings of jazz artists including Art Tatum, Mabel Mercer and Stan Getz. She began singing from a young age and soon took up piano, which she studied for many years.

1972 saw Sokolov attending Bennington College in Vermont and studying with Milford Graves, Bill Dixon, Jimmy Lyons, voice teacher Frank Baker, and composers Vivian Fine and Louis Calabro. While there she was exposed to Betty Carter and Meredith Monk who have influenced her style. Obtaining a double major in music/back music, she became interested in free jazz as well as avant-garde jazz, both of which she has incorporated into her vocal style.

After graduation Lisa moved to New York City in 1976, spent several months in Paris, France, returned to pursue graduate work in music therapy, met Jeanne Lee and was subsequently introduced to bassist William Parker and a decade long collaboration was begun.

She was part of the Studio Henry scene, a cooperative performance space, alongsideJohn Zorn, Wayne Horvitz, Robin Holcomb, Elliot Sharpe and David Sewelson. The 1990s saw Sokolov recording music and releasing her debut as a leader, angel Rodeo, followed by her second release six years later in 1999 titled Lazy Afternoon. She has since released five more albums.

As an educator Sokolov has worked as a music therapist, has taught in NYU’s graduate music department and is currently a full arts professor at the Experimental Theater Wing at the Tisch School of the Arts, which is part of New York University, and is recognized in the music therapy world as a pioneer and innovator in the applications of the voice to human potential.

She has worked with Cecil Taylor, William Parker, Robin Holcomb, Rahn Burton, Rashid Ali, Bada Roy, Jeanne Lee, Jimmy Lyons, Wayne Hovitz, Hilton Ruiz, Irene Schweizer, Butch Morris, Blue Gene Tyranny, Jim Mc Neely, Gerry Hemingway and Cameron Brown to name a few. A courageous and adventurous vocalist, Lisa Sokolov continued to sing, compose and perform.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Marion Brown was born on September 8, 1931 in Atlanta, Georgia. He joined the Army in 1953 and three years later attended Clark College to study music. By 1960 he left Atlanta for pre-law at Howard University but after two years moved to New York City and befriended Amiri Baraka, Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Paul Bley, Clifford Thornton and Rashied Ali. During this early Sixties period he recorded several important albums such as Archie Shepp’s Fire Music and New Wave In Jazz, and most notably on John Coltrane’s Ascension.

1967 saw Brown in Paris, France where he developed an interest in architecture, impressionist art, African music and the music of Eric Satie. He became an American Fellow in Music Composition and Performance at the Cite International Des Artists in Paris, composed the soundtrack for Marcel Camus’ film Le Temps fou, a soundtrack featuring Steve McCall, Barre Phillips, Ambrose Jackson and Gunter Hall.

Returning to the US in 1970 he landed in New Haven, Connecticut taking a position as a resource teacher in a child study center in the city’s public school system for a year. He went on to be an assistant professor of music at Bowdoin College, and through the 70s joined the faculties of Brandeis University, Colby College, Amherst College and Wesleyan University, earning a Masters in ethnomusicology at the latter.

Throughout his many educational positions, Brown continued to compose and perform, lending his alto saxophone to the recording of Harold Budd’s The Pavilion of Dreams. He received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, composing and publishing several pieces for solo piano. In 1981, he ventured into drawing and painting and his charcoal portrait of blues guitarist Blind Lemon Jefferson was included in a New York City Kenkeleba Gallery art show called Jus’ Jass, alongside Romare Bearden, Charles Searles and Joe Overstreet.

By the 2000s, avant-garde alto saxophonist Marion Brown had fallen ill due to a series of surgeries and a partial leg amputation. For a time he was in a New York nursing home but in 2005 he moved to an assisted living facility in Hollywood, Florida. He left a catalogue of twenty-five albums as a leader and several more as a sideman before he passed away on October 18, 2010 at age 79.

Dose A Day – Blues Away

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Mike Davis was born on August 9, 1972 in Rosenberg, Texas not far from Houston. Mike grew up in a small Texas town not far outside of Houston called Rosenberg. Though music was in his blood from a very early age, he didn’t begin seriously playing an instrument until around age 14. His began with the bass and soon was playing in his high school big band as well as in the Symphonic band. He borrowed other instruments from the school and began to practice and experiment with clarinet, trombone, trumpet, French horn, drums and piano. Ultimately the bass was his best fit as he discovered his first great jazz album – Chick Corea’s ‘Now He Sings-Now He Sobs’.

Davis studied bass, theory and jazz with Dave Foster, Eric Late, Shelly Berg and Bruce Dudley. He played gigs in Houston with his first influential peers – Todd Harrison, Mike Wheeler, Harry Shepard, Joe LoCascio, Tony Campisi, Woody Witt, Clark Erickson, Ted Wenglisnski. In 1993 Mike began studying jazz, classical bass, arranging, composition, improvisation, table and North Indian classical music. During this time Mike performed regularly with Dave Zoller, Pete Peterson and the Collection Jazz Orchestra, Allison Wedding, Pablo Mayor and many others. He was a regular member of the bands Little Jack Melody and his Young Turks, Sol Caribe and The Great Escape. Mike also formed his original avant-garde ensemble Sand with guitarist Niclas Höglind, saxophonist Jacob Duncan and drummer Chris Michael.

In 1998 Mike moved to New York City and focused on jazz performance playing with the likes of Lynne Arriale and Steve Davis, Cheryl Pyle, Tom Chang, Rez Abbasi, Dave Phelps, the SoHa Big Band, Jonathan Kreisberg, Dave Wood, Billy Eric and Mike Freeman. He moved into the pop rock and folk genres as a producer, editor and mixer but eventually returned to his own creative endeavors. Launching Tmpf Records he released three albums, I See Better With My Eyes Closed, It Won’t Get Dark and Fortunes and Hat-tricks, Vol. 1, as a leader of a quartet, duo and trio respectively.

Over the years bassist Mike Davis has perform and recorded with Airto Moreira, Norah Jones, Steve Gadd, Ed Thigpen, Doc Cheatham, Bobby Womack, Ellen Greene, Peter Erskine and Poncho Sanchez to name a few. He continues to compose, perform, collaborate and record.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Tisziji Muñoz was born July 15, 1946 in Brooklyn, New York. He learned to play guitar as a child using a single-line playing style, due to a childhood wrist injury. Spirit-taught, the avant-garde jazz virtuoso and extreme guitarist is best known for his uniquely original guitar sound and playing style, likened to that of a spiritual tornado.

Tisziji became interested in jazz in 1968 when he was introduced to the music of John Coltrane while enlisted in the US Army 440th General’s Band. Upon discharge he pursued his musical interests in Canada and took a lead role in the development of Toronto’s underground music scene, where he began a long lasting working relationship with pianist Paul Shaffer and performed as guitarist in the musicals Hair and Godspell.

In the mid-70’s, Muñoz returned to New York City and began collaborating and performing with saxophonist Pharoah Sanders followed by projects and releases with Ravi Coltrane, Dave Liebman, Marilyn Crispell, Paul Shaffer, Steve Kuhn, Lam Sobo John Medeski, Bernie Senensky, Chris Caswell, Henry Kaiser, Ra Kalam Bob Moses, Don Pate, John Lockwood, David Finck and the late greats Rashied Ali, Lew Soloff, John Hicks, Nick Brignola and Hilton Ruiz.

Tisziji has performed at the Montreal Jazz Festival, appeared on The late Show with David Letterman, played Carnegie Hall, The Village Vanguard and Gate, Iridium, Dizzy Club coca Cola and Jazz at Lincoln Center among other venues.

An accomplished author, Tisziji has independently published numerous written works encompassing his own Heart-Fire Sound realization and embracing the subjects of spirituality, genius, creativity and time mastery. His books and music have radically transformed the manner in which musicians think and play music, validating the spirit of the genuine creative artist – from the inside out. Avant-garde jazz guitarist continues to compose, record and perform.

Dose A Day – Blues Away

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Albert Ayler was born on July 13, 1936 in Cleveland Heights, Ohio and was first taught alto saxophone by his father Edward, who was a semiprofessional saxophonist and violinist. They played alto saxophone duets in church and often listened to jazz records together, including swing era jazz and then-new bop albums. He attended John Adams High School adding oboe to his instruments, followed after graduation with studies at the Academy of Music with jazz saxophonist Benny Miller. It was during his teenage years that he picked up the nickname “Little Bird” because of his understanding of bebop style and mastery of standard repertoire.

In 1952, at the age of 16, Ayler began playing bar-walking, honking, R&B style tenor with blues singer and harmonica player Little Walter, spending two summer vacations with the band. By 1958 he was in the Army, switched from alto to tenor sax, playing in the regiment band and jamming with other enlisted musicians, including tenor Stanley Turrentine. Stationed in France a year later, he was further exposed to the martial music that would be a core influence on his later work. After his discharge from the army, Ayler tried to find work in Los Angeles and Cleveland, but his increasingly iconoclastic playing, which had moved away from traditional harmony, was not welcomed by traditionalists.

In 1962 Albert relocated to Sweden, where his recording career began, leading Swedish and Danish groups on radio sessions, and jamming as an unpaid member of Cecil Taylor’s band. It was here in Copenhagen that he recorded My Name Is Albert Ayler with Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen and Ronnie Gardiner. 1963 saw his return to settle in New York City, develop his personal style, record his debut as a leader titled Witches and Devils and begin a relationship with ESP-Disk Records in 1964, recording his breakthrough album Spiritual Unity with Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray, which was also the label’s first jazz album. His trio would go on to record with Don Cherry, John Tchicai and Roswell Rudd on the soundtrack to New York Eye and Ear Control, which was followed by a tour with his trio plus Cherry producing the albums The Copenhagen Tapes, Vibrations, and The Hilversum Session.

In 1966 Ayler signed with Impulse Records at the urging of Coltrane but his radically different music never found a sizable audience. However his first set titled Albert Ayler in Greenwich Village with his brother Donald, Michael Samson, Beaver Harris, Henry Grimes and Bill Folwell too Ayler back to the alto on his tribute tune “For John Coltrane”. He first sang on a recording in a version of “Ghosts” performed in Paris in 1966. He would go on to record three albums of lyrics and vocals of his girlfriend Mary Maria Parks and introduce regular chord changes, funky beats and electronic instruments.

Avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer Albert Ayler disappeared on November 5, 1970, and he was found dead in New York City’s East River on November 25,1970, a presumed suicide. In tribute, Swedish filmmaker Kasper Collin was so inspired by hiss music and life that he produced a documentary by the name of My Name is Albert Ayler, which includes interviews with ESP-Disk founder Bernard Stollman, along with interviews with his family and band mates.

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