Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tom Harrell was born on June 16, 1946 in Urbana, Illinois but by 5 was growing up in San Francisco. He started playing trumpet at eight and within five years, started playing gigs with local bands. Graduating from Stanford University with a music composition degree, he joined Stan Kenton’s orchestra, touring and recording with them throughout 1969.
After leaving Kenton, the post-bop trumpeter played with Woody Herman, Azteca, Horace Silver, the Sam Jones-Tom Harrell Big Band, the Lee Konitz Nonet, George Russell and the Mel Lewis Orchestra. Through the ‘80s he became a pivotal member of the Phil Woods Quintet making seven albums with the group.
Harrell is also plays flugelhorn and is a composer and arranger who has collaborated and recorded albums with Bill Evans, Dizzy Gillespie, Ronnie Cuber, Bob Brookmeyer, Lionel Hampton, Bob Berg, Bobby Shew, Joe Lovano, Charlie Haden’s Liberation Orchestra, Art Farmer, Charles McPherson and Kathleen Battle among others.
Since 1989 Harrell has led his own groups, usually quintets but has expanded ensembles such as chamber orchestra with strings and big bands. He has appeared at virtually every major jazz club and festival venues, and recorded under his own name for such record labels as RCA, Contemporary, Pinnacle, Blackhawk, Criss Cross, Steeplechase, Chesky and HighNote Records.
The Grammy-nominated artist has arranged and composed for Carlos Santana, Arturo O’Farrill, Metropole Orchestra and other big bands as well as his compositions being recorded by Ron Carter, Kenny Barron, Tom Scott, Chris Potter, Steve Kuhn and Hank Jones to name a few. In recent years he has formed and recorded with piano-less sextet “Colors Of A Dream” and piano-less quartet TRIP.
Despite his well-documented schizophrenia, Tom Harrell has successfully coped with the illness through medication and has become an influential figure in the jazz world. Throughout his career he has won numerous awards and grants, including multiple Trumpeter of the Year awards from Down Beat magazine, SESAC Jazz Award, BMI Composers Award, and Prix Oscar du Jazz. He has amassed a recorded discography of over 260 albums and continues to actively compose, record and tour extensively around the world.
Put A Dose In Your Pocket
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Adolphus Anthony Cheatham, better known as Doc Cheatham was born on June 13, 1905 in Nashville, Tennessee. Growing up without jazz, he was introduced by early recordings and touring bands of the late 1910s. Abandoning family plans to be a pharmacist to play music, he retained the name Doc and started with the soprano and tenor saxophone in addition to trumpet in the African American Vaudeville theatre.
He toured the TOBA circuit (Theatre Owners Booking Association) accompanying blues singers but it wasn’t until his move to Chicago and hearing King Oliver that his focus turned to jazz. A year later Louis Armstrong added his influence on Doc’s playing. Cheatham went on to play with Ma Rainey, worked in the big bands of Bobby Lee, Wilbur de Paris, Chick Webb, Sam Wooding, Cab Calloway, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter, Claude Hopkins and Teddy Wilson through the 30s and 40s.
By the late 40s into the 50s Doc play in New York City Latin bands of Ricardo Ray, Marcelino Guerra, Perez Prado and Machito. In the 60s he led his own band for five years then worked with Benny Goodman. In the 70s he began singing after scatting during a Paris recording session, was well received and he continued to sing for the rest of his life.
Cheatham created his best work after the age of 70, winning a Grammy with Nicholas Payton and Butch Thompson for the Verve Record release of “Doc Cheatham and Nicholas Payton”. Trumpeter, singer and bandleader Doc Cheatham continued playing until two days before his passing on June 2, 1997, eleven days shy of his 92nd birthday.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Al Grey was born in Aldie, Virginia on June 6, 1925 but grew up in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. After serving in the Navy during WWII, where he started playing trombone, he joined Benny Carter’s band, later moving to Lionel Hampton’s trombone section. After some solo worked he joined Dizzy Gillespie’s big band in ’56 and a year later was touring Europe with Count Basie.
Trummy Young inspired Al’s early trombone style and he developed a wild, strong and full sound. Solos often consisted of short, pronounced phrases with precisely timed syncopation. He became known for his plunger mute technique, later writing an instructional book title “Plunger Techniques”. When playing with the plunger, however, he would produce the most mellow fill-ins and shape melodic answers to the lead voice.
After 1961 Grey performed only occasionally with the Count and apart from leading his own combos, he collaborated with many jazz greats such as Herbie Hancock, Melba Liston, J. J. Johnson, Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, Jack McDuff, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. His trombone skills were also featured on the award-winning soundtrack for The Color Purple.
Al Grey, who passed away on March 24, 2000, greatly contributed to the post-swing era jazz-trombone vocabulary and will be remembered for his charming personality as well as his ability to bond with audiences around the world.
Take A Dose On The Road
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Milt Bernhart was born on May 25, 1926 in Valparaiso, Indiana and began his musical career with the tuba. By high school he switched to trombone and by 16 he was working in Boyd Raeburn’s band and later gigged with Teddy Powell.
After a tour in the Army he worked, off and on, with Stan Kenton for the next ten years. He is perhaps most associated with Kenton, but in 1955 he had his first album as a leader. In 1986 he was elected President of the Big Band Academy of America.
Widely known as a mild-mannered and humorous musician his brief period with Benny Goodman was one area that brought out his ire. Except for the Army’s basic training, Milt indicates working with Goodman was “the bottom” of his first 23 years of life, referring to him as a bore and could not abide Goodman’s public humiliation of tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray or his segregated treatment at a Las Vegas club.
West coast jazz trombonist Milt Bernhart, who supplied the exciting solo heard in the middle of Sinatra’s popular 1956 recording of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” conducted by Nelson Riddle, passed away on January 22, 2004 in Glendale, California.26-2004
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jack Jenney was born Truman Eliot Jenney May 12, 1910 in Mason City, Iowa and started playing in his father’s band from the age of 11. The trombonist’s first professional work began with Austin Wylie in 1928 but he would go on to work with Isham James, Red Norvo, Artie Shaw, Mal Hallett and Waring’s Pennsylvanians.
Jack led his own band for a year in 1939-40, which included Peanuts Hucko, Paul Fredricks and Hugo Winterhalter. Although this band received good reviews it was a financial failure. Best known for instrumental versions of the song Stardust, he won the Down Beat Reader’s Poll for trombone in 1940 and would appear in the 1942 film “Syncopation”.
After his return from being drafted into the United States Navy, trombonist Jack Jenney died of complications related to appendicitis in Los Angeles, California on December 16, 1945.
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