Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dana Hall was born on March 13, 1969 in Brooklyn, New York where he spent the first few years of his life, then relocated with his family to his mother’s hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There he was exposed to jazz and soul music at an early age through the family’s record collection. The family interest in creative music, and their open door policy toward Philly jazz musicians of the era sparked his curiosity, passion and ultimately career in music.
At the age of 12, Dana’s family moved from Philadelphia to Voorhees Township, New Jersey and began studying drums under renowned drum instructor Vincent “Jim” Hurley at Voorhees Middle School. Following study was with award-winning educator and bassoonist Dennis MacMullin at Eastern Regional High School where he also began playing the oboe and throughout college.
He attended Iowa State University with a double major in aerospace engineering and percussion. At ISU, Hall cultivated his interest in music, studying marimba, vibes, timpani, hand percussion, and drum set. After completing his education in aerospace engineering at Iowa State University, he received his Bachelor of Music degree from William Paterson College and a master’s degree in Composition and Arranging from DePaul University. He is presently a distinguished Special Trustees Fellow pursuing his Doctorate in Ethnomusicology at the University of Chicago.
As a jazz drummer, he is primarily influenced by the work of Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Max Roach, and Roy Haynes, Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts, Ralph Peterson, Jr., and Kenny Washington, among many others. The list of artists that Hall has performed, toured, and/or recorded with is too long to mention here but it reflects the diverse, varied approaches of his music-making in the fields of jazz and popular music.
He’s both a member of the Terell Stafford Quintet and the Music Director of the Chicago Jazz Ensemble. He has been a member of the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and the Des Moines and the Cedar Rapids Symphonies.
As an educator he has been on the faculty of several colleges and universities including DePaul, Jazz at Lincoln Center Band Director’s Academy, Essentially Ellington faculties. Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazzand the Jazz Institute of Chicago’s Artists Residency Program.
Drummer, percussionist, composer, bandleader, and ethnomusicologist Dana Hall has released one album as a leader and continues to teach, perform, and record.
More Posts: composer,drums,educator,ethnomusicologist,history,instrumental,jazz,music,percussion
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Quin Davis was born Quinn Hall Davis on March 12, 1944 in Artesia, California. He toured and recorded with Buddy Rich in 19966 to 1967 and again from 1969 to 1970.
Leaving Rich in 1970, Quin was the solo alto saxophonist with Stan Kenton for three years followed by another three year residency with Harry James until 1976.
Little is known or written about alto saxophonist and flutist Quin Davis after this point in his life.
More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Richard Hyman was born in New York City on March 8, 1927 and grew up in suburban Mount Vernon, New York. His older brother, Arthur, owned a jazz record collection and introduced him to the music of Bix Beiderbecke and Art Tatum. Trained classically by his uncle, concert pianist Anton Rovinsky, who taught him touch and a certain amount of repertoire while he pursued Chopin on his own.
Enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1945, Dick was transferred to the U.S. Navy band department. After leaving the Navy he attended Columbia University where he won a piano competition with the prize being 12 free lessons with swing-era pianist Teddy Wilson. It was during this period Hyman fell in love with jazz.
During the 1950s Relax Records released his first two solo piano versions of All the Things You Are and You Couldn’t Be Cuter. Hyman recorded two honky-tonk piano albums under the pseudonym Knuckles O’Toole and recorded more as Willie the Rock Knox and Slugger Ryan.
In the 1950s and early 1960s Dick worked as a studio musician and performed with Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Guy Mitchell, LaVern Baker, Ruth Brown, Mitch Miller and many more. He played with Charlie Parker for Parker’s only film appearance and had a stint as music director for Arthur Godfrey’s television show from 1959 to 1961.
As a composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist he worked on eleven Woody Allen films as well as other films like Moonstruck and Scott Joplin. Hyman composed and performed scores for ballet and dance companies. In the 1960s, Hyman recorded several pop albums on Enoch Light’s Command Records using the Lowrey organ and then the Moog synthesizer.
Between 1970 and 2014 he recorded 112 albums as a leader, sixty-two as a sideman, and arranged four albums for Count Basie, Trigger Alpert and Flip Phillips. He has been a guest performer at jazz festivals and concert venues around the world. In 1995 pianist and composer Dick Hyman moved his wife Julia permanently to Venice, Florida.
More Posts: arranger,bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz..
Benny de Weille was born on March 6, 1915 in Lübeck, Germany. He studied clarinet under Hans Helmke and was heavily influenced by Benny Goodman, whom he often emulated in his own ensembles.
Benny made recordings with Teddy Stauffer, Hans Rehmstedt, and Willy Berking in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1940 he led his own Bar Trio. Following World War II he worked at Radio Frankfurt and conducted the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk Orchestra.
Clarinetist and bandleader Benny de Weille, whose last recordings were in a Dixieland style in 1951, died on December 17, 1977 in Westerland, Germany.
More Posts: bandleader,clarinet,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Booker Pittman was born on March 3, 1909 in Fairmount Heights, Maryland, was the son of Portia Pittman and a grandson of Booker T. Washington. He became an accomplished jazz clarinetist and played with greats like Louis Armstrong and Count Basie in the US and Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.
Leaving the States for the first time in 1933, he went with Lucky Millinder’s orchestra to France and stayed there for four years. During that period, he met a Brazilian musician named Romeo Silva, who took him on a tour of Brazil along with other musicians. They sailed to Bahia aboard the Siqueira Campos.
In 1937, Booker moved to Brazil, where he was known by the nickname “Buca“, and continued his musical career there, playing at the Urca Casino. He lived in Copacabana and befriended Jorge Guinle and Pixinguinha. He also played in Argentina and other countries.
He performed and recorded with his singer/actress stepdaughter Eliana Pittman. On October 19, 1969 clarinetist and saxophonist Booker Pittman, sometimes spelled Pitman, transitioned in his home in the São Paulo quarter of Vila Nova Conceição of laryngeal cancer at the age of 60. On behest of his wife Ofélia he was transferred to Rio de Janeiro and there laid to rest at the Cemitério São João Batista in the quarter of Botafogo.
More Posts: clarinet,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone