Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chris Anderson was born on February 26, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois and was a self-taught pianist. He began playing in Chicago clubs in the mid-1940s and played with Von Freeman and Charlie Parker, among others. Hired as Dinah Washington’s accompanist in New York City, his tenure with Washington was a brief six weeks as she changed accompanists frequently. After his firing, he decided to stay in the city.
In 1960 he recorded what might be his best-regarded album My Romance on the VeeJay label with bassist Bill Lee and drummer Art Taylor. He was a great influence on his student Herbie Hancock.
Despite the respect of his peers, Anderson had difficulty finding work or popular acclaim due in large to his disabilities. He was blind and his bones were unusually fragile, causing numerous fractures, which at times compromised his ability to perform at the times or places requested, although he continued to record until he was well into his 70s. A DownBeat profile indicated he had osteogenesis, probably meaning osteogenesis imperfecta.
He would record his first album as a leader in 1960 and ultimately record a total of ten. As a sideman, he worked with Charlie Haden, Clifford Jordan, Sun Ra, and Frank Strozier. Pianist Chris Anderson passed away on February 4, 2008 in Manhattan, New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Fred Van Hove was born on February 19, 1937 in Antwerp, Belgium. He studied musical theory, harmony, and piano, beginning his association with saxophonist Peter Brötzmann in 1966, playing on his early quartet and sextet recordings including 1968’s Machine Gun album. He then was a part of a trio with Brötzmann and drummer Han Bennink.
A pioneer of European free jazz he is a pianist, accordionist, church organist, and carillonist, an improviser and a composer. He has performed in a variety of duos and as a solo artist, notably with saxophonists Steve Lacy and Lol Coxhill and with trombonists Albert Mangelsdorff and Vinko Globokar.
He has composed for film and theatre and taught local musicians in Berlin, Germany, as well as holding workshops in Germany, France, England, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Fred has held studios at the University of Lille III, has collaborated with a number of his fellow Belgian musicians and in 1996 was given the title of Cultural Ambassador of Flanders by the Belgian government. Pianist, improviser, and composer Fred Van Hove, who also played the accordion, organ, and carillon, passed away on January 13, 2022.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jodie Christian was born on February 2, 1932 on 44th Street and Prairie Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. His grandfather sold his livestock and sent the family there once he realized the futility of raising a family as share-croppers. His mother was a church pianist, who helped him with music. The young Jodie attended Wendell Phillips High in Chicago. When his mother became director of the church choir, he took over on the piano; sometimes they played organ and piano duets in the church. His father sang and played the blues on the piano in speakeasies and rent parties, but ultimately stopped performing and followed his wife into the church.
Christian was one of the founders of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) with pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, drummer Steve McCall, and composer Phil Cohran. He and Abrams were also part of the Experimental Band. He worked at the Jazz Showcase club in Chicago and performed with Eddie Harris, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, Gene Ammons, Roscoe Mitchell, Buddy Montgomery, and John Klemmer.
He led his own group and recorded six albums, and another fifteen as a sideman with Von Freeman, Eric Alexander, Gene Amons, Lin Halliday, Les McCann, and Ira Sullivan to name a few. Pianist and bandleader Jodie Christian, noted for bebop and free jazz, passed away on February 13, 2012, aged 80, in Chicago.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Barry Altschul was born on January 6, 1943 in New York City and having initially taught himself to play drums, studied with Charlie Persip during the 1960s. The free jazz and hard bop drummer first came to notice in the late 1960s when he performed with pianists Paul Bley and then he joined Chick Corea in 1969 with Dave Holland and Anthony Braxton to form the group Circle. At the time, he made use of a high-pitched Gretsch kit with add-on drums and percussion instruments.
By the 1970s, Altschul worked extensively with Anthony Braxton’s quartet featuring Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland, and George Lewis. Braxton, signed to Arista Records, was able to secure a large enough budget to tour with a collection of dozens of percussion instruments, strings, and winds. In addition to his participation in ensembles featuring avant-garde musicians, Altschul performed with Lee Konitz, Art Pepper and other straight-ahead jazz performers.
Barry recorded thirteen albums from 1967 to 2015 but by the mid-Eighties, he spent most of his time in Europe, not becoming visible until 2000, performing with Billy Bang and Joe Fonda billing themselves as The FAB Trio. He also performed with the Jon Irabagon Trio, Adam Lane, Roswell Rudd, Dave Liebman, Barre Phillips, Denis Levaillant, Andrew Hill, Sonny Criss, Hampton Hawes, Annette Peacock, Sam Rivers, Julius Hemphill, Lee Konitz and numerous others in both the avant-garde and straight-ahead genres. The free jazz and hard bop drummer continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Fonda was born on December 16, 1954 in Amsterdam, New York to parents who both played jazz. He played guitar in his youth but switched to bass guitar later on. He studied bass at Berklee College of Music, where he also began playing upright bass.
In the early 1980s he played in the New Haven, Connecticut area and recorded with Wadada Leo Smith. Fonda explored dance and its relationship to jazz music, playing bass with a dance company in the 1980s and incorporating a tap dancer into his ensemble for the albums From the Source and The Healing.
1994 began his playing with Anthony Braxton, collaborating with him extensively for the next five years and recording fifteen albums. He and Michael Jefry Stevens co-lead an ensemble, the Fonda-Stevens group, that began in 1991. The group has recorded ten sessions and continues to perform extensively in Europe and the United States.
Bassist Joe Fonda has recorded seventeen albums as a bandleader and continues to record, perform and explore free jazz.
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