Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Douglas Anthony Munro was born July 9, 1953 in Yonkers, New York. He started his musical studies at age seven, taking drum lessons and by age fourteen, he was playing dances in Yonkers and New York City. At 20, he broke his back in a gymnastics accident, which ended his career as a drummer. However, in 1977 the 24 year old underwent a successful back surgery, and began playing guitar to pass the time during recovery
After his recovery he became a guitarist, performed locally and taught guitar lessons. In 1986 he released the LP Courageous Cats. and towards the end of the decade Doug met record producer Joe Ferry, and began a 25 year professional relationship. He would go on to divide his career into arranging, performing, teaching, and producing with Ferry. In 2004 he started a series of four Boogaloo recordings for Scufflin’ Records. The first, Boogaloo to Beck, featured Lonnie Smith, David “Fathead” Newman, and Lafrae Olivia Sci. He would go on to release to Brazilian jazz albums under the Big Boss Bossa Nova title.
The early Nineties saw Doug arranging and producing with Joe Ferry. Their first album, We Remember Pastorius, was a tribute to jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius. He would go on to co-produce and arrange a series of recordings for Shanachie Records. This period saw him delving into ska, receiving two Grammy nominations. In 1997 Munro added orchestrations to the original motion picture soundtrack for the Muhammad Ali documentary When We Were Kings which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Film.
Munro continued to work on over 40 recording albums into the new millennium with Vitamin Records. He has produced lessons for Just Jazz Guitar, Premier Guitar, and TrueFire.com. He founded the jazz studies program in the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College in 1993, and served as the director of the program from 1993-2002. He retired in 2019 as Professor Emeritus and Director Emeritus of the Jazz Studies program at the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College.
Guitarist, arranger, producer, composer, author, and educator Doug Munro specializes in jazz, bebop, Brazilian jazz, jazz fusion, and gypsy swing. Since 1986 he has released over fifteen albums as a band leader and has appeared on over 75 recordings as a guitarist, sideman, producer, and arranger. He has been nominated for two Grammy Awards and was the recipient of two NAIRD Awards by the American Association of Independent Music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John William Heard was born on July 3, 1938 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and in his early years he played saxophone. He began playing bass at the age of 14. His professional career began in a band that included sax player Booker Ervin, drummer J.C. Moses, pianist Horace Parlan and trumpet player Tommy Turrentine. While in high school, he attended special classes at the Carnegie Museum of Art.
Joining the United States Air Force in 1958 John was sent to Germany. Because of his art experience he was given a job of designing posters for events. He also did some art teaching, teaching the wives of officers. He left the Air Force in 1961 and enrolled at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. He returned to music and went to Buffalo, New York with a later move to California.
The Sixties saw him playing double bass with Turrentine, Al Jarreau, Jean-Luc Ponty, Sonny Rollins and Wes Montgomery. The 1970s he was with Toshiko Akiyoshi, Count Baie, Louie Bellson, Joe Henderson, Ahmad Jamal, John Cillins, Blue Mitchell and Oscar Peterson. By the Eghties he had moved on to perform with Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Buddy Montgomery and Pharoah Sanders and Larry Vuckovich. During the decade he teamed with Tom Ranier and Sherman Ferguson to create the group Heard, Ranier, Ferguson in which they released an album in 1983.
Desiring to retire from music in order to spend more time painting, Heard managed to record with Tete Montoliu, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Art Pepper, Clark Terry, Pharoah Sanders, Zoot Sims and Joe Williams. He would return to music, record with Benny Carter, release his album The Jazz Composer’s Songbook and form his group, The John Heard Trio that played at Charlie O’s club in Van Nuys, California. With over 52 recording dates as a sideman with a who’s who list of jazz musicians from the 60’s to 2010, double bassist, bandleader and painter John Heard transitioned on December 10, 2021 at the age of 83.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Pasco Gourley, Jr. was born June 9, 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri. He met saxophonist Lee Konitz in Chicago when both were members of the same high school band and credits Konitz with encouraging him to become a serious musician.
His father started the Monarch Conservatory of Music in Hammond, Indiana, though he didn’t teach and bought his son his first guitar. Jimmy took his first guitar classes at the school and became interested in jazz while listening to the radio, enjoying in particular Nat King Cole. For his first professional experience as a performer, he dropped out of high school to play with a jazz band in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
From 1944 to 1946 Gourley served in the U.S. Navy. Upon his return to Chicago, Illinois he met guitarist Jimmy Raney and wanted to play like him. He worked in bars and clubs with Jackie Cain & Roy Kral, Anita O’Day, Sonny Stitt, and Gene Ammons. Through the G.I. Bill he received tuition for three years to any college in the world.
Beginning in 1951, Jimmy spent the rest of his life in France, working with Henri Renaud, Lou Bennett, Kenny Clarke, Richard Galliano, Stéphane Grappelli, Bobby Jaspar, Eddy Louiss, Martial Solal, and Barney Wilen. He played with American musicians who were passing through, including Bob Brookmeyer, Clifford Brown, Stan Getz, Gigi Gryce, Roy Haynes, Lee Konitz, Bud Powell, Zoot Sims, Lucky Thompson, and Lester Young.
Guitarist Jimmy Gourley, who spent the better part of his life in Paris, France transitioned at the age of 82 on December 7, 2008 in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, France.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mark Whitecage was born on June 4, 1937 in Litchfield, Connecticut and began playing in his father’s family ensemble as early as age six. In his youth he listened a lot to Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Lester Young and Stan Getz. He moved to New York City in the 1970s and was loosely associated with the loft scene with INTERface, a quartet with clarinetist Perry Robinson, bassist John Shea and pianist John Fischer. Fortune smiled and he met Gunter Hampel and ong tours with Hampel’s Galaxie Dream Band became a way of life, which helped him to build up a network outside the US.
In the 1980s, he played with Gunter Hampel’s Galaxy Dream Band, Jeanne Lee, and Saheb Sarbib. After touring solo in Europe in 1986, he put together two bands as a leader, Liquid Time and the Glass House Ensemble. By the Nineties he was releasing his first album with Liquid Time which was chosen by Cadence Magazine as one of the year’s best albums.
He worked in the Improvisers Collective from 1994, and began releasing albums on CIMP in 1996. Late in the decade he worked with Anthony Braxton, including in performances of Braxton’s opera, Trillium R. He also played with William Parker, Perry Robinson, Joe Fonda, Dominic Duval, Joe McPhee, Steve Swell, Richie “Shakin'” Nagan and Sikiru Adepoju.
His marriage to clarinetist Rozanne Levine led to him performing together with Perry Robinson in a trio called Crystal Clarinets. Alto saxophonist and clarinetist Mark Whitecage, who recorded fifteen albums as a leader and another 60 as a sideman, transitioned on March 7, 2021.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herbie Lovelle was born June 1, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York. His uncle was drummer Arthur Herbert. He began his career in the late 1940s with the trumpeter, singer and bandleader Hot Lips Page. By the 1950s he was playing with the saxophonist Hal Singer, Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers and the pianist Earl Hines.
Through working for both Lucky Thompson and Jimmy Rushing of Count Basie’s Orchestra, he became house drummer at the Savoy Ballroom in New York City for much of the 1950s. He toured with the tenor saxophonist Arnett Cobb and the pianist Teddy Wilson in 1954.
He contributed to the pianist Paul Curry’s album Paul Curry Presents the Friends of Fats in 1959. Then in the early years of television, Herbie performed with the King Guion Orchestra on the Jerry Lester Show and the Ed Sullivan Show. In 1966, he was the lead drummer for the Sammy Davis, Jr. TV show.
During the 1950s Lovelle began playing more R&B and worked as a studio musician recording behind Sam Taylor, Bob Dylan, Pearls Before Swine, Eric Andersen, David Blue, John Denver, Tom Rush, B. B. King, John Martyn, the Strangeloves, the McCoys, and the Monkees. He continued working as a studio musician well into the 1980s.
In 1976, he produced the first album by Stuff, which went platinum in Japan. He also played drums in the 1976 revival of Guys and Dolls. From the 1980s on he acted in film and television, on such shows as Law & Order and Third Watch. His film credits ~ A Man Called Adam, Bella, Mitchellville, The Rhythm of the Saints, Don’t Explain, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, and Down to Earth among others.
His list of recordings as a studio musician extended across genres to some six dozen albums with jazz notables Candido Camero, Buck Clayton , Art Farmer, Herbie Mann, Sonny Stitt, Budd Johnson, Buddy Tate, Chico O’Farrill, Evie Sands, Johnny Hodges, Nat Adderley, Tony Bennett, Illinois Jacquet and numerous others. Drummer, producer and actor Herbie Lovelle transitioned on April 8, 2009 in New York City.