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Pat LaBarbera was born Pascel Emmanuel LaBarbera on April 7, 1944 in Mt. Morris, New York. He began as a soloist in Buddy Rich bands from 1967–1973 and went on to work with Elvin Jones in 1975 and touring Europe with him in 1979. While working with Rich, he was also working in groups led by Woody Herman and Louie Bellson, as well as playing with Carlos Santana.
He moved to Toronto, Ontario in 1974 and is a on the faculty at Humber College. LaBarbera has played a major role in the development of a generation of Canadian saxophonists. He has released a handful of albums as a leader since 1975 and another two-dozen as a sideman. In 2000, he won a Juno Award for Best Traditional Instrumental Jazz Album for Deep in a Dream.
He is the brother of trumpeter John LaBarbera with who he is a part of his big band, and drummer Joe LaBarbera and worked with the Dave McMurdo Jazz Orchestra, Denny Christianson, Jan Jarczyk. Tenor, alto and soprano saxophonist, clarinetist, and flautist Pat LaBarbera continues to teach, perform and record.
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Gerry Mulligan was born Gerald Joseph Mulligan on April 6, 1927 in Queens Village, Queens, New York. His father’s career as an engineer moved them frequently through numerous cities and while less than a year old, the family moved to Marion, Ohio. Taking on a nanny to help raise the children, Lily rose became fond of Gerry and he spent time at her home and became enamored with her player piano that had amongst it collection of rolls, Fats Waller. Her home was also a boarding house for Black musicians who came through town giving him the chance to meet them..
During a family move to Kalamazoo, Michigan he took up the clarinet in the Catholic school’s orchestra and made an attempt to arrange the Richard Rodgers song Lover. By 14 he was in Reading, Pennsylvania studying clarinet with dance-band musician Sammy Correnti, who encouraged his arranging. During this period Mulligan began professionally playing the saxophone in dance bands in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which was the family’s next move.
He attended the West Philadelphia Catholic High School for Boys, organized a school big band, and wrote arrangements and by 16 was selling arrangements to local radio station WCAU. Dropping out of high school during his senior year he worked with a touring band Tommy Tucker, picking up a $100.00 a week for two or three arrangements.
A move to New York City in 1946 saw Gerry joining the arranging staff on Gene Krupa’s bebop-tinged band pumping out arrangements of Birdhouse, Disc Jockey Jump and How High the Moon” that quoted Charlie Parker’s “Ornithology” as a countermelody. He began arranging for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra, along with Gil Evans and occasionally sitting in as a member of the reed section.
In September 1948, Miles Davis formed a nine-piece band that featured arrangements by Mulligan, Evans and John Lewis that ended up on the Capitol Records album, titled Birth of the Cool. The band initially consisted of Davis on trumpet, Mulligan on baritone saxophone, trombonist Mike Zwerin, alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, Junior Collins on French horn, tubist Bill Barber, pianist John Lewis, bassist Al McKibbon and drummer Max Roach. The Davis nonet has been judged by history as one of the most influential groups in jazz history, creating a sound that, despite its East Coast origins, became known as West Coast Jazz.
Throughout the late Forties and early Fifties he worked with Davis, George Auld, Chubby Jackson and led his debut as a leader with Mulligan Plays Mulligan. By 1952 he was moving to Los Angeles, California and arranging for Stan Kenton and getting a recording contract with Pacific Jazz Records. These sessions enlisted trumpeter Chet Baker as part of his pianoless quartet that included bassist Bob Whitlock and Chico Hamilton on drums.
Valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer would replace Baker, and Mulligan and Brookmeyer both occasionally play piano, would enlist Jon Eardley, Art Farmer, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Lee Konitz and Annie Ross. He performed as a soloist or sideman with Paul Desmond, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster, Johnny Hodges, Jimmy Witherspoon, André Previn, Billie Holiday, Marian McPartland, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Stan Getz, Thelonious Monk, Fletcher Henderson, Manny Albam, Quincy Jones, Kai Winding and Dave Brubeck, to name a few. Mulligan appeared in Art Kane’s A Great Day in Harlem portrait of 57 major jazz musicians taken in August 1958.
Gerry appeared in the films Follow That Music, I Want to Live!, Jazz on a Summer’s Day, The Rat Race, The Subterraneans and Bells Are Ringing and wrote music for A Thousand Clowns, Luv, La Menace, and Les Petites galères and I’m Not Rappaport.
Baritone saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger Gerry Mulligan passed away on January 20, 1996 in Darien, Connecticut at the age of 68, following complications from knee surgery. He had won numerous awards not limited to Down Beat Poll Winners, Kennedy Center Honors, and a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance by a Big Band for Walk on the Water.
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George Edward “Ted” Heath was born March 30, 1902 in Wandsworth, England. After playing tenor saxophone at the age of six, encouraged by his father and leader of the Wandsworth Town Brass Band, he later switched to trombone.
Earning a living for his family in the post-war years Ted formed a band along with his brother Harold and three other musicians, played to commuters outside London Bridge Station and outside the Queen’s Hall Gardens venue. It was here that he was spotted and asked to play with the Jack Hylton Band who had a residence there. Though not having the experience required he did not last long, his professional career began and he went on to pursue a career as a professional musician.
His first real band gig was in the 1920s touring Europe with the American band called the Southern Syncopation Orchestra, followed by the Metro-Gnomes, a small band fronted by Ennis Parkes, then again joined Hylton’s theatre band. Heath played with the Kit Cat Club band led by American Al Starita, and heard Bunny Berrigan, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, and Paul Whiteman when they toured Europe.
By 1928 he joined Bert Ambrose’s orchestra at London’s Mayfair Hotel and stayed until 1935 when he moved on to Sydney Lipton’s orchestra at the Grosvenor House. But it was Ambrose who taught Heath how to be a bandleader during a time that Heath became the most prominent trombone player in Britain, renowned for his perfect tone. He played on numerous recordings. During the late ’30s and early ’40s, he played as a sideman on several Benny Carter sessions.
In 1940, Heath joined Geraldo’s orchestra and played numerous concerts and broadcasts and became one of the “boys” in Geraldo’s vocal group, ‘Three Boys and a Girl’. His composition That Lovely Weekend with Dorothy Carless on vocal became an immediate wartime hit. The royalties from this song and another composition Gonna Love That Guy allowed Heath to form his own band.
On D-Day 1944, the Ted Heath & His Music band was officially formed and played on the BBC radio. He went on to provide music for film, performed dates with Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald, toured Scandinavia, were regular Poll Winners in the Melody Maker and the New Musical Express and performed twice for King George VI. He held Sunday Night Swing Sessions at the London Palladium from 1947 to 1955.
During the Fifties he toured the U.S. that contracted to play Nat King Cole, June Christy and the Four Freshmen and consisted of 43 concerts in 30 cities in 31 days climaxing in a Carnegie Hall. So successful was the tour that after so many encore calls at the Carnegie Hall performance that Nat King Cole had to come out on stage and ask people to leave. Ted would later successfully tour the US again and also toured Australia and Europe.
In addition to Cole, Heath established close personal and professional relationships with Woody Herman, Count Basie, Marlene Dietrich, Johnny Mathis and Tony Bennett. He worked with Sarah Vaughan, Mel Torme, Donna Hightower and others. His band members included Ronnie Scott, Stan Tracey, Kenny Baker, Duncan Campbell, Don Rendell, Tommy Whittle, Don Lusher, Wally Smith, Jack Parnell, Ronnie Verrell, Johnny Hawksworth and singers Dickie Valentine, Lita Roza and Dennis Lotis. in the ’50s gave the band more teenage appeal.
He commissioned over 800 original scores and arrangements from Tadd Dameron, George Shearing, Reg Owen, John Keating, Kenny Graham, Ken Moule, Robert Farnon, Woolf Phillips, Ron Roullier, Bill Russo, Johnny Douglas, Ron Goodwin and Ralph Dollimore.
Trombonist, composer and bandleader Ted Heath, who led the greatest post-war big band and recording over 100 albums, passed away on November 18, 1969 at the age of 67.
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Ike Isaacs was born Charles Isaacs on March 28, 1923 in Akron, Ohio and played trumpet and tuba as a child before settling on bass. Serving in the Army during World War II, he took lessons from Wendell Marshall.
After being discharged Ike played with Tiny Grimes from 1948 to 1950, then with Earl Bostic until 1953, followed by Paul Quinichette in ‘53 and Bennie Green in 1956. He led a band locally in Ohio in 1956, then played for two years in the trio of Carmen McRae, whom he married late in the decade.
Throughout the Sixties Isaacs went on to work and recorded with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, then with Count Basie, Gloria Lynne, Ray Bryant, Maxine Sullivan, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Harry “Sweets” Edison and Erroll Garner, as well as with his own small groups.
Bassist Ike Isaacs only recorded once as a leader in 1967 for RGB Records. With him on the date were Jack Wilson on piano and Jimmy Smith on drums. He passed away on February 27, 1981.
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Edward Soph was born on March 21, 1945, in Coronado, California and was raised in Houston, Texas. In 1963 he e enrolled at North Texas State University, now the University of North Texas, as a music major, but switched his concentration to English during his sophomore year. While at UNT, he performed with the One O’Clock Lab Band, as well as summer tenures with the Glenn Miller Orchestra and Stan Kenton. Graduating in 1968 he joined Woody Herman upon a recommendation from Cannonball Adderley.
Moving to New York City in 1971, Ed began performing and recording freelance with the bands of Clark Terry, Bill Watrous and Woody Herman, Bill Evans, Marvin Stamm, Randy Brecker, Joe Henderson, Pat LaBarbera, Bill Mays, Cedar Walton, Dave Liebman, Chris Potter, Carl Fontana and Slide Hampton, among others.
As an educator Soph pursued a teaching career on the faculty at The Jamey Aebersold Jazz Workshops, The National Stage Band Camps and The University of Bridgeport. Returning to Texas in 1987 he is currently a Professor in the Jazz Studies and Performance divisions of the College of Music at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. Some of his students have been Ari Hoenig, Keith Carlock, Joel Rosenblatt, Jason Sutter and Dave Weckl.
Drummer Ed Soph is currently an Artist Clinician for Yamaha Corporation, the Avedis Zildjian Company, Evans Drumheads and Innovative Percussion. He continues to perform and record.
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