Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mark Whitecage was born on June 4, 1937 in Litchfield, Connecticut and began playing in his father’s family ensemble as early as age six. In his youth he listened a lot to Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Lester Young and Stan Getz. He moved to New York City in the 1970s and was loosely associated with the loft scene with INTERface, a quartet with clarinetist Perry Robinson, bassist John Shea and pianist John Fischer. Fortune smiled and he met Gunter Hampel and ong tours with Hampel’s Galaxie Dream Band became a way of life, which helped him to build up a network outside the US.
In the 1980s, he played with Gunter Hampel’s Galaxy Dream Band, Jeanne Lee, and Saheb Sarbib. After touring solo in Europe in 1986, he put together two bands as a leader, Liquid Time and the Glass House Ensemble. By the Nineties he was releasing his first album with Liquid Time which was chosen by Cadence Magazine as one of the year’s best albums.
He worked in the Improvisers Collective from 1994, and began releasing albums on CIMP in 1996. Late in the decade he worked with Anthony Braxton, including in performances of Braxton’s opera, Trillium R. He also played with William Parker, Perry Robinson, Joe Fonda, Dominic Duval, Joe McPhee, Steve Swell, Richie “Shakin'” Nagan and Sikiru Adepoju.
His marriage to clarinetist Rozanne Levine led to him performing together with Perry Robinson in a trio called Crystal Clarinets. Alto saxophonist and clarinetist Mark Whitecage, who recorded fifteen albums as a leader and another 60 as a sideman, transitioned on March 7, 2021.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Phillip Rista Nimmons was born on June 3, 1923 in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. He studied clarinet at the Juilliard School and composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada. In 1953 Nimmons formed the ensemble Nimmons ‘N’ Nine, which later he led during his weekly radio show on CBC radio. This ensemble eventually grew to 16 musicians in 1965 and was active intil 1980.
He joined the University of Toronto in 1973 and as an educator, Nimmons has made substantial contributions to the study of jazz. In 1960, Along with Oscar Peterson, he founded the Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto, Canada. He was involved in the development of the jazz performance program at the University of Toronto.
Nimmons received the first Juno Award given in the Juno Awards jazz category, for his album Atlantic Suite. His composition The Torch was commissioned for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and was performed at the Olympics by a big band led by Rob McConnell.
In 1993, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, received the Order of Ontario, the Jazz Education Hall of Fame honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award by SOCAN and the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, Canada’s highest honour in the performing arts, for his lifetime contribution to popular music.
Clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and educator Phil Nimmons, known for playing in the free jazz and mainstream styles, has recorded seventeen albums as a leader and at 98 is still involved in music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Pierre Favre was born June 2, 1937 in Le Locle, Switzerland. Not much is known about his childhood or his early music career.
He recorded the album Singing Drums in 1984 on the ECM label with Paul Motian and Nana Vasconcelos. He also appears on John Surman’s album, Such Winters of Memory released the year beore.
He has recorded with several well-known musicians, including Tamia, Michel Godard, Mal Waldron, Paul Giger, Jiří Stivín, Michel Portal, Irene Schweizer, Samuel Blaser, the ARTE Quartett, Barre Phillips and the London Jazz Composers Orchestra.
He has recorded six albums as a leader and drummer and percussionist Pierre Favre continues to explore his craft, perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charles Robert Munro was born on May 22, 1917 in Christchurch, New Zealand. While in his teens he became quite proficient on several saxophones and by 21 had moved to Sydney, Australia where he played in the bands led by Myer Norman and Wally Parks. In addition he worked as a sideman on various nightclub, theater, and ship gigs.
Serving in the military during World War II, Charlie went on to work with Wally Norman at the Roosevelt nightclub in Sydney. In 1950 he played with Bob Gibson, then joined the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s dance band in 1954, continuing to perform with the group through 1976 as a composer and arranger.
He worked extensively with Bryce Rohde in the 1960s, participating in many of Rohde’s Australian jazz experiments. He led his own bands toward the end of his career, and also worked with Georgina de Leon.
Saxophonist and flutist Charlie Munro, who also played the cello and delved into free jazz movement, transitioned on December 9, 1985, in Sydney.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Harold Rubin was born on May 13, 1932 in Johannesburg, South Africa of Israeli descent. Attending Jeppe High School for Boys he received private instruction in the fine arts and classical clarinet as a teenager. He developed a fascination with jazz and began playing at the Skyline Night Club at eighteen. He went on to enroll as an architecture student at the University of the Witwatersrand and completed his professional studies in London, England.
Rubin’s creative endeavours in South African society during the 1950s and 1960s dissented against the apartheid-era Afrikaner establishment by defying the country’s racist social norms. Rubin organised his own jazz group in the 1950s, snuck into black townships, and played alongside black musicians.
Openly protesting the repressive political environment, Harold left the country for Israel, where he quickly established himself in Tel Aviv, and was employed as an architect and taught at an academy of architecture and design from the 1960s until his retirement in 1986. He returned to playing jazz in late 1979, having previously given up performance for more than a decade after his emigration from Africa. He became a founding member of the 1980s Zaviot Jazz Quartet, who throught he decade performed and recorded on Jazzis Records.
He was awarded the Landau Award in tribute to his contributions to jazz music in 2008, he continued to play jazz with musicians of the younger generations in Tel Aviv. Clarinetist Harold Rubin, who concentrated in the free jazz genre, transitioned on April 1, 2020 at the age of 87.
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