Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wynton Learson Marsalis was born October 18, 1961 in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of a jazz pianist. At an early age he exhibited an aptitude for music and by age eight he was performing traditional New Orleans music in the Fairview Baptist Church band. At 14, he performed with the New Orleans Philharmonic and during high school played with the New Orleans Symphony Brass Quintet, the New Orleans Community Concert Band, the New Orleans Youth Orchestra, the New Orleans Symphony, various jazz bands and with a local funk band, the Creators.
At age 17, Wynton was the youngest musician admitted to Tanglewood’s Berkshire Music Center where he won the school’s Harvey Shapiro Award for outstanding brass student. Moving to New York City he attended Julliard in 1979 and picked up gigs around town. He joined the Jazz Messengers led by Art Blakey in 1980 and in the years that followed he would perform with Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, Sweets Edison, Clark Terry, Sonny Rollins, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams and countless other jazz legends.
Marsalis has written, produced and hosted Marsalis On Music, an educational television series on jazz and classical music, National Public Radio aired the first of Marsalis’ 26-week series, titled Making the Music, was awarded a Peabody Award, has written five books, co-founded the jazz program at Lincoln Center that evolved into Jazz at Lincoln Center, opened Frederick P. Rose Hall, the first ever institution for jazz with three performance halls, recording, broadcast, rehearsal and education facilities.
Wynton Marsalis, jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer and educator is currently the Artistic Director for Jazz at Lincoln Center and Music Director for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. He was won nine Grammy Awards in both jazz and classical genres, and received the first ever Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Jazz Is Global – Share
More Posts: cornet,flugelhorn,flumpet,trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Harrison was born on October 17, 1900 in Louisville, Kentucky and began on trombone at age 15, playing locally in the Toledo, Ohio area. He also played semi-pro baseball but chose music over a career in sports when he joined a traveling minstrel show in the late 1910s.
By 1919 Harrison was leading his own jazz ensemble in Atlantic City, New Jersey and played in the bands of Charlie Johnson and Sam Wooding. Moving to Detroit he played with Hank Duncan and Roland Smith. After returning to Toledo, he played gigs with June Clark and James P. Johnson. He followed this period with a stint in New York City with Fess Williams.
Giving leadership of his ensemble to June Clark in 1924, Jimmy continued to play with the group, worked with Duke Ellington during this period and in 1925 was working with Billy Fowler then with Elmer Snowden, Fletcher Henderson and Benny Carter’s Chocolate Dandies. While on tour with Henderson he took ill with a stomach ailment and though he continued to play for several months with Chick Webb. Trombonist Jimmy Harrison passed away on July 23, 1931 in New York City at the age of 30.
Put A Dose In Your Pocket
More Posts: trombone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Vaughn Wilton Monroe was born on October 7, 1911 in Akron, Ohio and didn’t study music until attending the New England Conservatory in 1935 and then only one semester of voice. By 1940 he formed his first orchestra becoming lead vocalist and recording for the Bluebird label. That same year he built The Meadows, a restaurant/nightclub outside Boston and hosted the Camel Caravan radio program on location in 1946.
Monroe recorded extensively for RCA Victor into the 1950s and his signature tune was “Racing with the Moon” among his many other hits such as In The Still Of The Night, There I’ve Said It Again, Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow; and Riders In The Sky are just a few. A composer, he also wrote a number of songs.
His interest turned to acting and as the movies also beckoned he pursued but with little vigor. He co-authored The Adventures of Mr. Putt Putt, a children’s book about airplanes and flying, published in 1949.
He hosted The Vaughn Monroe Show on CBS television in the Fifties, and appeared on Bonanza, the Mike Douglas Show, the Ed Sullivan Show, the Jackie Gleason Show and American Bandstand. A major stockholder in RCA, Monroe appeared in print ads and television commercials for the company’s TV and audio products.
Vaughan Monroe, baritone singer, trumpeter, bandleader actor and composer died on May 21, 1973 shortly after having stomach surgery. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for recording and radio.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
Daily Dose OF Jazz…
Demas Dean was born on October 6, 1903 in Sag Harbor, New York. He began playing trumpet at age 10 and later picked up the violin but professionally became a trumpeter.
While in high school he played in Mazzeo’s Brass Band, and worked with Beatrice Van while still in his teens. He attended Howard University from 1922 – 23 and played with Elmer Snowden, Doc Perry, Russell Wooding and Lucille Hegamin in the first half of the decade.
Through the end of the 1920s Dean played with Billy Butler, Ford Dabney and Leon Abbey, touring South America. In 1928 he recorded with Bessie Smith and the following year worked with Noble Sissle in the Blackbirds revue in Europe.
By the early 1930s Demas was working with bandleaders Joe Jordan and Pike Davis but returned to play with Sissle from 1934 to 1944. Shortly after 1944 he quit music and took a post office position in Los Angeles, working there until his retirement in 1965. Jazz trumpeter Demas Dean passed away in 1991 in Los Angeles, California. (in picture – 2nd from left)
Inspire A Young Mind
More Posts: trumpet
Daily Dose OF Jazz…
Jimmy Blanton was born on October 5, 1918 in Chattanooga, Tennessee and originally learned to play the violin but took up the bass while at Tennessee State University. During his matriculation in the mid-thirties he performed with the Tennessee State Collegians, and during the vacations with Fate Marable. Blanton left school to play full time in St. Louis with the Jeters-Pillars Orchestra. Making his first recordings with the orchestra, he then went on to join Duke Ellington’s band in 1939.
Though he stayed with Ellington for only two years, Blanton made an incalculable contribution in changing the way the double bass was used in jazz. Moving from quarter notes in ensemble or solos to soloing more in a ‘horn like’ fashion, Blanton began sliding into eighth and sixteenth-note runs, introducing melodic and harmonic ideas that were totally new to jazz bass playing.
His virtuosity put him in a different class from his predecessors, making him the first true master of the jazz bass and demonstrating the instrument’s unsuspected potential as a solo instrument. Such was his importance to Ellington’s band at the time, together with the tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, that it became known as the Blanton-Webster band.
In 1941, Blanton was diagnosed with tuberculosis, cutting short his tenure with Ellington. However, he recorded a series of bass and piano duets with Ellington. Double bassist Jimmy Blanton, credited as the originator of pizzicato and bowed bass solos, died the following year on July 30, 1942 after retiring to a sanatorium in California at the age of 23.
Give A Gift Of Jazz – Share
More Posts: bass