Daily Dose Of Jazz..
William B. Lawsha, better known as Prince Lasha (pronounced “La-shay“), was born on September 10, 1929 in Fort Worth, Texas. He came of age studying and performing alongside fellow I.M. Terrell High School students John Carter, Ornette Coleman, Charles Moffett and Dewey Redman.
Lasha moved to California during the 1950s and by the Sixties he was active in the burgeoning free jazz movement, of which Ornette Coleman was a pioneer. Moving to Europe in 1966 his musical base was in Kensington, London and his album Insight was recorded, featuring local musicians including Bruce Cale, Dave Willis, Jeff Clyne, Rick Laird, Joe Oliver, David Snell, Mike Carr, Stan Tracey, John Mumford and Chris Bateson.
Prince returned to the U.S. in 1967, worked closely with saxophonist Sonny Simmons, recording two albums, The Cry and Firebirds for Contemporary Records. The latter album received five stars and an AMG Album Pick at Allmusic. He also appeared on two recordings with Eric Dolphy, Iron Man and Conversations, and Illumination! with the Elvin Jones/Jimmy Garrison Sextet featuring McCoy Tyner.
In the 1970s, Lasha and Simmons made additional recordings under the name Firebirds. In 2005, he recorded the album The Mystery of Prince Lasha with the Odean Pope Trio. He also recorded with Gene Ammons and Michael White.
Alto saxophonist, flautist and clarinetist Prince Lasha passed away on December 12, 2008 in Oakland, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Albert Mangelsdorff was born on September 5, 1928 in Frankfurt, Germany. He was given violin lessons as a child and was self-taught on guitar in addition to knowing trombone. His brother, alto saxophonist Emil introduced him to jazz during the Nazi period at a time when it was forbidden in Germany. After the war he worked as a guitarist and took up trombone in 1948.
In the 1950s Mangelsdorff played with the bands of Joe Klimm, Hans Koller that featured Attila Zoler, Jutta Hipp and the Frankfurt All Stars. Together with Joki Freund he led a hard bop quintet that was the nucleus of the Jazz Ensemble of Hessian Broadcasting, of which he was the musical director. In 1958 he represented Germany in the International Youth Band appearing at the Newport Jazz Festival.
By 1961 Albert was recording with the European All Stars, formed a quintet with the saxophonists Heinz Sauer, Günter Kronberg, bassist Gunter Lenz and drummer Ralf Hubner, which became one of the most celebrated European bands of the 1960s. He has recorded John Lewis, toured Asia on behalf of the Goethe-Institut, recorded a quintet album of Eastern themes titled Now Jazz Ramwong, toured the USA and South America with the quintet and after a period of European free jazz Kronberg left and the quartet remained together.
During the early seventies the quartet was revived, Mangelsdorff explored the new idiom with Global Unity Orchestra and other groups such as the trio of Peter Brotzmann. It was at this juncture that he discovered multiphonics, long solistic playing and experimental sounds. As the decade ensued he made his debut solo recording and played trombone collaborating with Elvin Jones, Jaco Pastorious, Alphone Mouzon, John Surnam, Barre Phillips, Stu Martin and others.
Over the course of his career he co-founded the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble, a thirty-year association, taught jazz improvisation at Dr. Hoch’s Konservatorium, performed with Reto Weber Percussion Ensemble, Chico Freeman, and with Jean-Francois Jenny Clark founded the German-French Jazz Ensemble. He toured and recorded with pianist Eric Watson, bassist John Lindberg and drummer Ed Thigpen during the 90s and with a second quartet of Swiss musicians and Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger.
In 1995 he replaced George Gruntz as musical director for the JazzFest Berlin, had a prize named after him by the Union of German Jazz Musicians, and on July 25, 2005 in Frankfurt, one of the most accredited and innovative trombonists of modern jazz passed away. Albert Mangelsdorff, who became famous for his distinctive technique of playing multiphonics was 86 years old.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Keith Tippett was born Keith Graham Tippetts on August 25, 1947 in Bristol, England. He attended Greenway Boys Secondary Modern School in Southmead where he studied piano and formed his first jazz band called The KT7 whilst still at school, performing numbers popular at the time by The Temperance Seven. In the late 1960s, he led a sextet with saxophonist Elton Deanon, trumpeter Mark Charig and Nick Evanson on trombone.
By the early Seventies, Tippett formed the big band Centipede that brought together much of a generation of young British jazz and rock musicians. As well as performing some concerts, limited economically by the size of the band, they recorded one double-album, Septober Energy.
Keith, along with Harry Miller and Louis Moholo, put together a formidable rhythm section at the centre of some the most exciting combinations in the country, including the Elton Dean Quartet and the Elton Dean Ninesense. Around the same time, he was also in the vicinity of King Crimson and contributed piano to several of their records and appeared with them on Top of the Pops. His own groups, such as Ovary Lodge, leaned towards a more contemplative form of European free improvisation.
Pianist and composer Keith Tippett has recorded and performed on over 100 albums in variety of settings including duets with Stan Tracey, his wife Julie Tippetts, and solo performances. He continues to perform with the improvising ensemble Mujician and Work in Progress.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Malachi Favors was born on August 22, 1927 in Lexington, Mississippi. He learned to play the double bass at age fifteen and began performing professionally upon graduating high school. His early performances included working with Dizzy Gillespie and Freddie Hubbard. By 1965, he was a founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and a member of Muhal Richard Abrams’ Experimental Band.
A protégé of Chicago bassist Wilbur Ware, his first known recording was a 1953 session with tenor saxophonist Paul Bascomb. He recorded an LP with Chicago pianist Andrew Hill in 1957. He went on to work with Roscoe Mitchell in 1966 and this group eventually became the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
Malachi worked outside the group, with Sunny Murray, Archie Shepp and Dewey Redman. His most noted records include a solo bass project Nature and the Spiritual in 1977 and Sightsong a duet with Muhal Richard Abrams. In 1994 he played with oudist Roman Bunka at Berlin Jazz Fest where they recorded the German Critics Poll Winner album Color Me Cairo.
Double bassist Malachi Favors, who played in the bebop, hard bop and free jazz genres, passed of pancreatic cancer in 2004 at the age of 76. Though his primary instrument was the double bass, he also plays electric bass, guitar, banjo, zither, gong, and other instruments. At some point in his career he added the word “Maghostut” to his name and because of this he is commonly listed as Malachi Favors Maghostut. He recorded some 46 albums as a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and another 24 as a collaborator and sideman.
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Mike Davis was born on August 9, 1972 in Rosenberg, Texas not far from Houston. Mike grew up in a small Texas town not far outside of Houston called Rosenberg. Though music was in his blood from a very early age, he didn’t begin seriously playing an instrument until around age 14. His began with the bass and soon was playing in his high school big band as well as in the Symphonic band. He borrowed other instruments from the school and began to practice and experiment with clarinet, trombone, trumpet, French horn, drums and piano. Ultimately the bass was his best fit as he discovered his first great jazz album – Chick Corea’s ‘Now He Sings-Now He Sobs’.
Davis studied bass, theory and jazz with Dave Foster, Eric Late, Shelly Berg and Bruce Dudley. He played gigs in Houston with his first influential peers – Todd Harrison, Mike Wheeler, Harry Shepard, Joe LoCascio, Tony Campisi, Woody Witt, Clark Erickson, Ted Wenglisnski. In 1993 Mike began studying jazz, classical bass, arranging, composition, improvisation, table and North Indian classical music. During this time Mike performed regularly with Dave Zoller, Pete Peterson and the Collection Jazz Orchestra, Allison Wedding, Pablo Mayor and many others. He was a regular member of the bands Little Jack Melody and his Young Turks, Sol Caribe and The Great Escape. Mike also formed his original avant-garde ensemble Sand with guitarist Niclas Höglind, saxophonist Jacob Duncan and drummer Chris Michael.
In 1998 Mike moved to New York City and focused on jazz performance playing with the likes of Lynne Arriale and Steve Davis, Cheryl Pyle, Tom Chang, Rez Abbasi, Dave Phelps, the SoHa Big Band, Jonathan Kreisberg, Dave Wood, Billy Eric and Mike Freeman. He moved into the pop rock and folk genres as a producer, editor and mixer but eventually returned to his own creative endeavors. Launching Tmpf Records he released three albums, I See Better With My Eyes Closed, It Won’t Get Dark and Fortunes and Hat-tricks, Vol. 1, as a leader of a quartet, duo and trio respectively.
Over the years bassist Mike Davis has perform and recorded with Airto Moreira, Norah Jones, Steve Gadd, Ed Thigpen, Doc Cheatham, Bobby Womack, Ellen Greene, Peter Erskine and Poncho Sanchez to name a few. He continues to compose, perform, collaborate and record.
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