Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paul Desmond was born Paul Emil Breitenfeld on November 25, 1924 in San Francisco, California. His father was a pianist, organist, arranger, and composer who accompanied silent films in movie theaters and produced musical arrangements for printed publication and for live theatrical productions. He started his study of clarinet at the age of twelve and continued while at San Francisco Polytechnic High School. During high school he developed a talent for writing and became co-editor of his high school newspaper.
As a freshman at San Francisco State College he began playing alto saxophone, however, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he spent three years in the Army band stationed in San Francisco. After his discharge in 1946 he legally changed his name to Desmond. Working in the San Francisco Bay Area as a backing musician, occasionally with Dave Brubeck.
Following a breakup and a reunion with Brubeck, the quartet became especially popular with college-age audiences, often performing in college settings like on their ground-breaking 1953 album Jazz at Oberlin at Oberlin College. The group played until 1967, when Brubeck switched his musical focus from performance to composition and broke the unit up. During the 1970s Desmond joined Brubeck for several reunion tours, with Brubeck’s sons Chris, Dan and Darius.
He worked several times during his career with baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, guitarist Jim Hall, Chet Baker, and Ed Bickert. Alto saxophone and composer Paul Desmond, who was one of the most popular musicians to come out of the cool jazz scene, passed on May 30, 1977, not of his heavy alcohol habit but of lung cancer, the result of his longtime heavy smoking.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Robert Martin Enevoldsen was born on September 11, 1920 in Billings, Montana. He recorded sessions with Art Pepper and Shorty Rogers, and later extensively played with Shelly Manne.
Enevoldsen did most of the arranging for Steve Allen’s Westinghouse show in the early-1960s. During the 1970s, he performed with Gerry Mulligan. In the mid-1970s Bob taught arranging and directed the jazz band at Los Angeles Pierce College in Woodland Hills.
Tenor saxophonist and valve trombonist Bob Enevoldsen, who mainly played in the West Coast genre and was known for his work with Marty Paich, passed away on November 19, 2005 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bob Bates was born on September 1, 1923 in Pocatello, Idaho. His mother was an organist and his brothers Norman and Jim were also bassists. As a youth he played tuba, trumpet, and trombone. From 1944 to 1948 he studied classical bass and played with Sonny Dunham around 1946–47 and with Jack Fina in the late Forties.
The 1950s saw Bob playing in the Two Beaux & a Peep Trio before becoming the bassist in the Dave Brubeck Quartet between 1953 and 1955. In addition, he recorded with Paul Desmond in 1954, and Dave Pell in 1956. It was during this time that he stopped playing and performing. Bassist Bob Bates passed away on September 13, 1981 in San Francisco, California at the age of 58.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chuck Israels was born Charles H. Israels on August 10, 1936 in New York City, New York. He was raised in a musical family which moved to Cleveland, Ohio when he was 10 and his stepfather Mordecai Bauman was a singer who performed extensively with composer Hanns Eisler. With music a part of normal daily activity, folks like Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger, and The Weavers were regular visitors. In 1948, the appearance of Louis Armstrong’s All Stars in a concert series produced by his parents gave him his first opportunity to meet and hear jazz musicians.
In college, Israels had the opportunity to perform with Billie Holiday. His first professional job after college was working with pianist Bud Powell in Paris, France. His first professional recording was Stereo Drive a.k.a. Coltrane Time with John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Kenny Dorham, and Louis Hayes.
>Israels is known for the Jazz Repertory as Director of the National Jazz Ensemble from 1973 to 1981. He made recordings with the Kronos Quartet and Rosemary Clooney in 1985. He was the Director of Jazz Studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington until 2010. In 2011, he created the Chuck Israels Jazz Orchestra and recorded Second Wind: A Tribute to the Music of Bill Evans in 2013.
He has worked with Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, J. J. Johnson, John Coltrane, and Judy Collins. Bassist, composer, arranger and bandleader Chuck Israels, who is best known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio, continues to perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jan Bertil Allan was born on November 7, 1934 in Falun, Sweden and at 17 began his career in 1951 as a pianist. After moving to Stockholm, he switched to the trumpet as his main instrument, playing in Carl-Henrik Norin’s orchestra. From 1954–55 he worked with Lars Gullin and Rolf Billberg and again with Norin from 1955–59 while earning a Ph.D. in physics.
In the early Sixties, he led a quintet with Billberg and throughout the decade worked with Arne Domnérus, Georg Riedel, and Bengt Hallberg, among others. From 1968 to 1975 he was a member of the Swedish Radio Jazz Group. His album Jan Allan~70, featuring Rolf Ericson, Nils Lindberg, Bobo Stenson, Jon Christensen, and Rune Gustafsson, won a Grammis Award for Jazz of the Year in 1970.
Allan played with the same group and Georg Riedel on the trio-album Sweet And Loverly. His 1998 album Software has an affinity with the West Coast jazz genre of Gerry Mulligan and Stan Getz.
Over the course of his career, Allan also recorded albums with Bosse Broberg, Benny Carter, Dorothy Donegan, Lars Gullin, Jan Johansson, Thad Jones, Roger Kellaway, Lee Konitz, Nils Lindberg, Georg Riedel, George Russell, and Monica Zetterlund.
In 2000, his Bach trumpet, which was engraved with his name and he played for 35 years, was stolen. A movie about the theft and missing trumpet was broadcast on Swedish television in 2015 and had 1.1 million viewers. In 2009 he was honored with a Swedish Golden Django as a Master of Jazz. He composed for several films such as The Adventures of Picasso, Sopor, and Trollkarlen. He recorded eight albums as a leader and forty-six as a sideman.
Trumpeter and pianist Jan Allan, is considered among the most important modern jazz musicians in Sweden, continues to compose and perform.
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