Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mark Taylor was born on May 22, 1961 in Seattle, Washington. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington then moved to New York City to get his Masters from the Manhattan School of Music. While there he performed with an array of musicians including Dick Oatts, Jim McNeely, Bob Brookmeyer, Garry Dial, David Liebman, Don Sickler, Steve Turre, Sir Roland Hanna, Bob Mintzer, John Riley, Steve Slagle, and Ted Rosenthal and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
Mark performs and records extensively with such diverse and award winning groups as Matt Jorgensen +451, Jim Knapp Orchestra, Frieze of Life, Victor Noriega Trio + 2, Tom Varner’s Tentet and Quintet, Thomas Marriott, Wayne Horvitz, Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, and the Randy Halberstadt Quintet, as well as having appeared locally with Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, and Ernestine Anderson, Sam Yahel, Maria Schneider, the Seattle Symphony and Pacific Northwest Ballet, among many more.
As a leader, Taylor has released two projects on Origin Records titled After Hours and Spectre which was named NW Jazz Recording in 2009 and a year earlier was honored as the NW Jazz Instrumentalist, both by Earshot Jazz Magazine.
Putting on his educator cap, he has served on the music faculty at Pacific Lutheran University, has full schedule of private students and is a guest artist and clinician for festivals, workshops and clinics throughout the region. One of the most in demand saxophonists in the Pacific Northwest, alto saxophonist Mark Taylor continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wilbur Odell “Dud” Bascomb was born on May 16, 1916 in Birmingham, Alabama, the youngest of a family of ten children, and brother of tenor saxophonist Paul Bascomb. He played piano as a child but settled on trumpet, first playing with Erskine Hawkins at the Alabama State Teachers’ School, now Alabama State University in 1932. It was here that Hawkins led the Bama State Collegians band. Remaining with Hawkins until 1944, he soloed with him on many of his most well-known recordings.
Eventually he moved on to play in his brother’s septet, that became a big band later in the decade. He played briefly with Duke Ellington in 1947. During the 1950s Bascomb played for three years at Tyle’s Chicken Shack in New Jersey, leading a quintet which counted Lou Donaldson among its members.
He toured Japan three times with Sam Taylor and Europe with Buddy Tate in the 1960s, in addition to touring and recording with James Brown. He recorded sparingly as a leader and his Savoy Records sessions in 1959-60 were not issued until 1986.
Trumpeter Dud Bascomb passed away on December 25, 1972 in New York City. He was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ross Tompkins was born in Detroit, Michigan on May 13, 1938 and went on to attend the New England Conservatory of Music. This he followed with a move to New York City in 1960 where he worked and recorded with Kai Winding from 1960 to 1967.
During the Sixties he also performed with Eric Dolphy, Wes Montgomery, Bob Brookmeyer & Clark Terry, Benny Goodman, and Bobby Hackett, Al Cohn and Zoot Sims into the Seventies. A move to Los Angeles, California in 1971 found him playing and recording with Louie Bellson, Joe Venuti, and Red Norvo through the 1970s and Jack Sheldon in the 1980s.
He was best known for his longtime association with The Tonight Show Band under the leadership of Doc Severinsen, becoming a member of the band from 1971 until Carson’s retirement in 1992. He recorded for Concord Jazz as a leader in the second half of the 1970s.
He recorded for Concord Records as a leader in the second half of the Seventies decade, and in the eighties and Nineties recorded for Famous Door, Progressive, HD and Arbors record labels, culminating in a dozen albums. As a sideman he recorded 53 albums with J.J. Johnson, Tommy Newsom, Herb Ellis, Snooky Young, Bill Watrous, Joe Newman, Tony Mottola, Howard Roberts, Lorraine FEather, Peanuts Hucko, Red Norvo, Bob Cooper, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Jack Lemmon, Conte Candoli, Polly Podewell and Plas Johnson among others.
Pianist Ross Tompkins passed away of lung cancer at the age of 68 on June 30, 2006.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alton Reynolds Hendrickson was born May 10, 1920 and grew up in Eastland, Texas before moving to the West Coast. In 1940 he worked for Artie Shaw and performed in Fred Astaire ‘s second chorus. By the mid-1940s he was in the coast guard but in the post-war period he played guitar in the bands of Freddie Slack, Ray Linn and Benny Goodman, whose sextet he also belonged to.
As a baritone Hendrickson was recorded on Goodman’s On a Slow Boat to China , which became a big hit in the USA in 1947. The 1950s saw him as a busy studio session player for both film and television soundtracks, The Danny Kaye Show, as well as for pop productions from Columbia Records since 1959. He worked in the productions of The Weavers and The Monkees, with country singer Sheb Wooley and jazz pianist Dodo Marmarosa.
In the field of jazz and popular music his was involved from 1940 to 1986 to 493 recording sessions with Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Lee Hazlewood, Eartha Kitt, Frankie Laine, Henry Mancini, Ann-Margret, Dean Martin, Ella Mae Morse, Harry Nilsson, Louis Prima, Elvis Presley Shorty Rogers, Bud Shank and Frank Capp’s Juggernaut big band.
Retiring to Oregon in the late Eighties he authored the Encyclopedia of Bass Chords, Arpeggios and Scales and Al Hendrickson Jazz Guitar Solos: Complete Book. Guitarist Al Hendrickson, who also played banjo, mandolin and was a vocalist, passed away on July 19, 2007 in North Bend Oregon.
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Eddie Preston was born in Dallas, Texas on May 9, 1925 and didn’t begin playing in the big bands until after World War II. From 1955 to 1972 he did stints with Lionel Hampton, Ray Charles, Louis Jordan, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie.
He played with Charles Mingus between 1963 and 1965 and again in 1969–72. During this period in between his working with Mingus, Eddie spent time freelancing with musicians such as Sonny Stitt and Frank Foster. He returned once more to work with Ellington in 1971 and then led a few groups, as well as working with Roland Kirk in 1977 and Archie Shepp in 1979.
Trumpeter Eddie Preston, who never released an album as a leader, passed away on June 22, 2009 in Palm Coast, Florida.
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