Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cecil Payne was born December 14, 1922 in Brooklyn, New York. He received his first saxophone at age 13, asking his father for one after hearing Count Basie’s version of Honeysuckle Rose performed by Lester Young and took lessons from Pete Brown, a local alto sax player.
Payne began his professional recording career with J. J. Johnson on the Savoy label in 1946. During that year he played with Roy Eldridge, through whom he met Dizzy Gillespie. His earlier recordings would largely fall under the “swing” category, until Gillespie hired him, a relationship that lasted until 1949.
By the early 50s, Cecil found himself working with Tadd Dameron, Illinois Jacquet, James Moody, Machito, Woody Herman, Count Basie and freelancing around New York, frequently performing with Randy Weston. Throughout his fifty plus year career baritone saxophonist he recorded as a leader and a sideman for Decca, Savoy, the Charlie Parker label, Muse, Spotlite and Strata East, and regularly for Delmark Records in the nineties, when he was in his seventies, and on into the new millennium.
Cecil Payne, baritone and alto saxophonist and flautist, passed away on November 27, 2007. Although largely unknown to the public he was one of the pioneers in adapting the baritone saxophone to bebop and post-bop.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
McCoy Tyner was born Alfred McCoy Tyner on December 11, 1938 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the oldest of three children. He was encouraged to study piano by his mother. He began studying the piano at age 13 and within two years, music had become the focal point in his life. His early influences included Bud Powell, a Philadelphia neighbor.
Tyner’s first main exposure came with Benny Golson in 1960, being the first pianist in the Golson/Art Farmer legendary Jazztet. After departing the Jazztet, Tyner replaced Steve Kuhn in John Coltrane’s group the same year during its extended run at the Jazz Gallery. Coltrane had featured one of the McCoy’s compositions, “The Believer”, as early as 1958. He appeared on the saxophonist’s popular recording of “My Favorite Things” for Atlantic Records followed by Live at the Village Vanguard, Ballads, Live at Birdland, Crescent, A Love Supreme and The John Coltrane Quartet Plays on Impulse.
As a leader, Tyner recorded a number of highly influential albums in his own right during and post Coltrane tenure and as a sideman for many of the projects of Impulse and Blue Note. But by 1966, Tyner was rehearsing with a new trio and would now fully embark on his career as a leader. At Blue Note a string of albums were released such as The Real McCoy, Tender Moments, Sahara, Fly With The Wind and Time For Tyner, incorporating different configurations and instruments were utilized like flute, koto, string orchestra, percussion, and harpsichord along with African and Asian elements.
He currently records and has enlisted the talents of Avery Sharpe, Charnett Moffett, Eric Harland, Gerald Cannon, Gary Bartz, Eric Kamau Gravatt. Tyner still records and tours regularly though his schedule has been pared down due to his age.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lester Koenig founded the jazz label, Contemporary Records, in Los Angeles in 1951. It was known for seminal recordings embodying the West Coast sound, but also released recordings by jazz artists known throughout the world. Under his leadership, Contemporary recorded such artists as Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Art Farmer, Benny Golson, the Curtis Counce Group featuring Harold Land, Jack Sheldon, Carl Perkins and Frank Butler; also Ben Webster, Miles Davis, Benny Carter, Chet Baker, Art Pepper, Phineas Newborn, Woody Shaw, Shelly Manne, Hampton Hawes, Barney Kessell and Leroy Vinnegar.
Les maintained extremely high audio standards. In 1956 he hired Roy DuNann from Capitol Records, who, out of the label’s shipping room turned studio, turned out some of the best sounding records of the 50s and 60s using German and Austrian condenser microphones that produced very high output of these microphones, especially close-in on jazz musicians’ dynamic playing. DuNann would achieve his signature sound for the label, a crisp, clear and balanced without distortion or unpleasant “peak presence” by keeping his microphone setups very simple, generally one per musician, and he avoided the use of pre-amplifiers.
In the mid 1960s the company fell into relative limbo, but limited new recordings were made in the late 1970s including a series of albums by Art Pepper recorded at the Village Vanguard in New York. After Koenig’s death in 1977, his son, John ran the label for seven years and continued the legacy producing albums by George Cables, Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson and Chico Hamilton to name a few.
Fantasy Records purchased the Contemporary label and catalogue in 1984 but not before ushering in a number of major figures in the music business such as Nesuhi Ertegun, who went on to exec at Atlantic Records, and writers Nat Hentoff and Leonard Feather among others.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wynton Kelly was born December 2, 1931 in Jamaica but grew up in Brooklyn, New York from age four when his parents emigrated to the United States. He started playing piano professionally as a teenager in R&B groups led by Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, then went on to work with Lee Abrams, Cecil Payne, Dinah Washington and Dizzy Gillespie.
Kelly recorded fourteen titles for Blue Note with a trio in 1951, worked with Dinah Washington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Lester Young during 1951-1952 followed by serving in the military. After his discharge he again worked with Washington, Charles Mingus and the Dizzy Gillespie big band but he would be most famous for his stint in the late 50s with the Miles Davis Quintet from 1959 – 63 and was part of the seminal “Kind Of Blue” replacing Bill Evans on “Freddie Freeloader”, along with notable albums “At The Blackhawk” and “Someday My Prince Will Come”. He would later replace Tommy Flanagan on the “Naima” on Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”.
Wynton left Davis in 1963 and took the rest of the rhythm section bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb with him to form his trio. He recorded as a leader for Blue Note, Riverside, Vee-Jay, Verve and Milestone.
Pianist Wynton Kelly passed away on April 12, 1971 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada of an epileptic seizure. At 39, he was one of the most prolific sideman pianists of his era, performing on scores of jazz albums and a superb accompanist and distinctive soloist who would decades later influence a new generation of jazz pianists.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Hadley Caliman was born December 1, 1932 in Los Angeles, California. While at Jefferson High School he studied with his fellow classmates trumpeter Art Farmer and saxophonist Dexter Gordon, and was known in the Central Avenue corridor as “Little Dex”. It was here during the 50s and by the 60s where he primarily gigged and the tenor was soon seen playing with Mongo Santamaria, the Gerald Wilson Big Band, Willie Bobo and Don Ellis and was briefly a member of a jazz-rock fusion group led by Ray Draper.
By the Seventies Hadley had moved to San Francisco and was performing and/or recording with Joe Henderson, Nancy Wilson, Carlos Santana, Joe Pass, Hampton Hawes, Bobby Hutcherson, Flora Purim, Elvin Jones, Freddie Hubbard, Jon Hendricks, Earl Andreza, Phoebe Snow and Patrice Rushen among others. He later moved to Seattle, Washington where he had been on the faculty of the Cornish College of the Arts and a featured soloist with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra.
Though one can hear Coltrane’s influence in his playing, it never overshadowed the earlier West coast bop or the myriad of musical genres he played that created his modern jazz sound. Tenor saxophonist and flautist Hadley Caliman passed away on September 8, 2010 at age 78 in Seattle, Washington where he had been an active player leading both a quartet and quintet.
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