Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Robin Kenyatta was born Robert Prince Haynes on March 6, 1942 in Moncks Corner, South Carolina but grew up in New York City, learning to play the alto saxophone. He played with Bill Dixon in the 1960s and playing with his project “The October Revolution in Jazz”. Later that decade he played with Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, Roswell Rudd, Sonny Stitt, Archie Shepp and Buddy Miles among others.
By the 1970s he was playing with Alan Silva and Andrew Hill; for a brief time he experimented with instrumental pop music during this decade as well. He moved to Europe during the Seventies, finding it easier to make a living as a jazz musician.
Later in his career he would play with musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, B. B. King, Dr. John and George Benson; played the Montreux Jazz Festival and went with his own groups on a European tour.
Kenyatta would go on to lead a jazz school in Lausanne, Switzerland during this period. In 2002 Kenyatta returned to the USA becoming active as a director of music in Boston. He died on October 28, 2004 at the age of 62 in Lausanne, leaving behind a catalogue of thirteen albums as a leader and eight as a sideman.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Donald Rafael Garrett was born on February 28, 1932 in El Dorado, Arkansas but was raised in Chicago, Illinois. While in high school he first studied clarinet and then bass under Captain Walter Dyett. By the late 50s he was working closely with Muhal Richard Abrams, becoming a member of his Experimental Band in the Sixties.
It was during this time that he worked with Ira Sullivan, Eddie Harris, Dewey Redman and Rahsaan Roland Kirk but by the mid-sixties he relocated to San Francisco and formed a band called Sound Circus. He stayed on the West coast into the 70s working with such jazz greats as Archie Shepp, Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders and numerous more including performing and recording on four John Coltrane albums – Om, Kulu Se Mama, Selflessness and Live In Seattle.
In 1971 he formed the Sea Ensemble with Zusaan Kali Fasteau and embarked on a world tour for the next several years, the duo funding their travels with Fasteau giving music lessons and Garrett skillfully making bamboo flutes. Throughout his career he studied Turkish music, added flute to his instrumental repertoire, became an educator, writer, researcher and continued to perform and record with Johnny Griffin, Sonny Stitt, Joe Henderson, Billy Bang and other great jazz musicians.
Donald Garrett, multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with John Coltrane and the free jazz musicians and improvisers of the 60s and 70s, passed away on August 17, 1989.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Henry Threadgill was born February 15, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois and first performed as a percussionist in his high school marching band before taking up the baritone saxophone and later a large portion of the woodwind instruments. He soon settled upon the alto saxophone and flute as his main instruments.
He was one of the original members of the legendary AACM – Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in Chicago, working under the guidance of Muhal Richard Abrams before leaving to tour with a gospel band. In 1967, he enlisted in the Army, playing with a rock band in Vietnam through 1968. Discharged in 1969 he returned to Chicago, formed a trio that eventually became “Air”, one of the most celebrated and critically acclaimed avant-garde jazz groups of the 1970s and 1980s.
Threadgill had moved to New York City and began pursuing his own musical visions, exploring musical genres in innovative ways with his first nonet X-75. In the early Eighties, Threadgill created the Henry Threadgill Sextet, his first critically acclaimed ensemble as a leader, with two drummers as a single unit. He has recorded three albums under X-75 for About Time Records, reformed his sextet and released three albums on the Novus label.
Since the 90s Threadgill has continued to compose, create, perform and record music with various group configurations such as “Very Very Circus” and “Zooid” utilizing electric guitars, French horn, Latin percussion, accordion, cello and tuba.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roland Hanna was born on February 10, 1932 in Detroit, Michigan and began private classical piano lessons at an early age but had a strong interest in jazz. After graduation from Cass Technical High School and a two-year stint in the US Army, he continued his musical studies at the Eastman and Juilliard Schools of Music.
He worked with several big names, such as Benny Goodman and Charles Mingus in the 1950s, from 1967 to 1974 was a regular member of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra and was also a member of the New York Jazz Quartet during this decade. He also performed solo, contributed to orchestras, bands, and small groups; provided sensitive, sympathetic accompaniment to such artists Sarah Vaughn (also her musical director), Carmen McRae and Al Hibbler.
Hanna went into semi-retirement for most of the 1980s, though he played piano and wrote the song “Seasons” for Sarah’s 1982 album Crazy and Mixed Up, however, he returned to music later in the decade. Over the course of his career he recorded some 50 albums, formed a record label, became a tenured professor of music at Aaron Copeland School of Music, Queens College and City College of New York, and was knighted by Liberian President William Tubman for his humanitarian services to that country.
Sir Roland Hanna passed away on November 13, 2003 in Hackensack, New Jersey.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lawrence Elliott Willis was born December 20, 1942 in Harlem, New York. He first got into music as a voice major at New York’s High School of Music and Art for gifted students and in his senior year he recorded an opera with the Music and Arts Chorale Ensemble under the direction of Leonard Bernstein.
Due to the barriers presented to Blacks in finding work in the classical arena, Willis changed directions, replacing voice with piano and concentrating on jazz. He taught himself to play piano and by the end of the winter was playing in a jazz trio with two of his classmates, Al Foster and Eddie Gomez.
He then entered and studied music theory at the Manhattan School of Music, was heard by Hugh Masekela and sent to John Mehegan for his first piano lessons ever, and by 19 began gigging regularly with altoist Jackie McLean and after graduating made his jazz recording debut on McLean’s “Right Now!” for Blue Note that featured two of Larry’s compositions.
Throughout his illustrious career pianist Larry Willis has performed and recorded as a leader and sideman on more than 300 recordings of bebop, avant-garde, jazz-fusion and rock with a wide range of musicians, Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Morgan, Carmen McRae, Clifford Jordan, Art Taylor, Shirley Horn, Stan Getz, Cannonball Adderley, Art Blakey, Woody Shaw and a stint of seven years beginning in 1972 as the keyboardist for Blood, Sweat & Tears.
He has composed and arranged for orchestras, big bands and symphonies for the Brooklyn Symphony with the Grammy-nominated Fort Apache Band, Roy Hargrove’s Grammy-winning Crisol Band, Vanessa Rubin and Joe Ford among others. He received the Don Redman award in 2011, and the Benny Golson Jazz Master Award at Howard University in 2012. He is currently still recording and touring around the world.