Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Russ Spiegel was born March 30, 1962 in Los Angeles, California, and raised in Santa Monica, California. His family was musical as he has an older sister who plays the bluegrass fiddle, a pianist and composer brother and a father who is an avid amateur jazz trumpeter.
A fan of pop radio as a youngster, Russ discovered rock music as he entered his teens. Picking up the electric guitar he took lessons at a local music store, eventually buying a Fender Stratocaster. He started jamming with area musicians, which led to forming a rock cover band. Finishing high school in Frankfurt, Germany he enrolled in the University of Maryland that had a campus in Munich, Germany. While there, he formed a progressive-rock band, joined a local R&B and soul unit, and began learning jazz standards. In 1982 Spiegel returned to the U.S. to complete his bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, earning a degree in philosophy.
In 1986 had Spiegel in Boston, Massachusetts on scholarship at Berklee College of Music. Upon completion of his studies, he relocated to Germany in 1988 where he gradually made contacts in the music world. He began playing on military bases and at local jazz clubs and festivals. During a stint in Paris, France he formed a quartet called Guitar Hell, which toured widely in France and Germany. He soon found himself in demand as a guitarist and electric bassist with various European big bands, jazz ensembles, and blues groups.
Around the same time, Russ joined the band of German jazz organist Barbara Dennerlein and toured Europe with her before receiving the coveted Jazz Scholarship by the city of Frankfurt for his contributions to the city’s artistic scene.
In 2001 Spiegel returned to the U.S. settled in New York City and studied under teachers Adam Rogers, Paul Bollenback, Ben Monder and John Patitucci, receiving his master’s degree in jazz performance from the City College of New York.
In 2008 his Jazz/North Indian classical fusion ensemble, Sundar Shor, undertook a tour of India under the auspices of the American Center, and it has toured widely in Europe as well. Guitarist Russ Spiegel continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ladislav Déczi was born on March 29, 1938 in Bernolákovo, Czechoslovakia and showed an interest in the trumpet while in elementary school. He went through several music ensembles in high school and during his military service performed in Prague, Czechoslovakia. After his discharge he remained in Prague and started performing with the Rokoko Theater Sextet and then with the Jazz Outsiders. He then went on to work with Karel Velebny’s S+HQ and as the frontman for the Reduta Quartet.
By the mid-Sixties he founded Jazz Celulla, joined the Czechoslovak All Star Band, the Jazz Orchestra of the Czechoslovak Radio, and the Dance Orchestra of the Czechoslovak Radio. He recorded several solo albums, composed orchestral compositions.
Emigrating to America in 1986 he again took the frontman space for Celula New York. He performed with Elvin Jones, Bill Watrous, Junior Cook, Dave Weckl and Sonny Costanzo. He recorded several duo albums with Sarka Dvorak and composed an abundance of music for film and television productions. He has won several awards during his career and has toured Eastern Europe especially his homeland, Germany and Austria.
Trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Laco Déczi, who also paints, continues to perform, compose and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ryo Kawasaki was born February 25, 1947 in Kōenji, Tokyo during Japan’s recovery in the early post World War II period. His mother encouraged him to take piano and ballet lessons, and he took voice lessons and solfege at age four and violin lessons at five, and he was reading music before elementary school. As a grade scholar, he began a lifelong fascination with astronomy and electronics. When he was 10, he bought a ukulele and at 14 he got his first acoustic guitar. The album Midnight Blue by Kenny Burrell and Stanley Turrentine inspired him to study jazz.
In high school, he began hanging out at coffee-houses that featured live music, formed a jazz ensemble and built an electronic organ that served as a primitive synthesizer. By the time he was 16, his band was playing professionally in cabarets and strip joints. Although he continued to play music regularly, he attended Nippon University, majored in physics and earned his Bachelor of Science Degree. He also did some teaching and contest judging at the Yamaha musical instrument manufacturer’s jazz school. Additionally, he worked as a sound engineer for Japanese Victor Records and BGM/TBS Music, where he learned mixing and editing.
He recorded his first solo album for Polydor Records when he was 22. And was voted the No. 3 jazz guitarist in a Japanese jazz poll. He spent most of the next three years working as a studio musician on everything from advertising jingles to pop songs including countless radio and TV appearances. He recorded his second album for Toshiba when he was 24. He played with B.B. King at a blues festival and also met George Benson and they jammed for five hours at Kawasaki’s house.
Moving to New York City in 1973 he was offered an immediate gig with Joe Lee Wilson playing at the Lincoln Center as part of the Newport Jazz Festival. Soon Ryo was jamming regularly as part of the loft scene and was invited to play with Bobbi Humphrey. A few months later Gil Evans invited him to join The Gil Evans Orchestra which was then working on a jazz recording, The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix. He would go on to record on Evan’s There Comes a Time. He became the guitarist in the Chico Hamilton Band, made his debut U.S. album, Juice, in 1976 for RCA and was one of the first Japanese jazz artists to sign with a major label in the States.
He explored Music of India, recorded with Dave Liebman and toured European jazz festivals with Joanne Brackeen as a piano/guitar duo and they recorded a pair of albums. In the mid-1980s, Kawasaki drifted out of performing music in favor of writing music software for computers. He also produced several techno dance singles, formed his own record company called Satellites Records, and later returned to jazz-fusion in 1991.
He continued to release albums up to 2017 and had two retrospective Ep’s released spanning years of 1976~1980 and 1979~1983. Guitarist and keyboardist Ryo Kawasaki transitioned on April 13, 2020 in Tallinn, Estonia at the age of 73.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lee Mack Ritenour was born January 11, 1952 in Los Angeles, California and at the age of eight he started playing guitar. Four years later decided on a career in music and by 16 he was playing on his first recording session with the Mamas & the Papas. He developed a love for jazz, influenced by guitarist Wes Montgomery. A year later he worked with Lena Horne and Tony Bennett, then studied classical guitar at the University of Southern California.
His solo career began with his debut album First Course in 1976 which was a jazz-funk sound of the 1970s. Lee followed with Captain Fingers, The Captain’s Journey, and Feel the Night to close out the decade. The Eighties saw Ritenour adding pop elements to his music, which got him charting so he stayed the course. During this period he added vocals to his music, recruiting such artists as Djavan, Bill Champlin, Eric Tagg, Patti Austin, Ivan Lins, Phil Perry, João Bosco, Kate Markowitz, Maxi Priest, Lisa Fischer and Michael McDonald.
In 1988, his Brazilian influence came to the forefront on Festival, an album featuring his work on nylon-string guitar. He changed direction with his straight-ahead jazz album Stolen Moments which he recorded with saxophonist Ernie Watts, pianist Alan Broadbent, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Harvey Mason.
Then 1991 had Ritenour and keyboardist Bob James forming the group Fourplay, where he stayed until 1997. He released the career retrospective Overtime in 2005. Smoke n’ Mirrors came out the next year with the debut of his thirteen-year-old son, Wesley, on drums.
Guitarist Lee Ritenour has recorded 34 albums, garnered 16 Grammy nominations, received one Grammy Award and has been a judge for the Independent Music Awards. He continues to explore, record, compose and perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John McLaughlin was born on January 4, 1942 into a family of musicians in Doncaster, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. As a child he took up the guitar at the age of 11, exploring styles from flamenco to the jazz of Tal Farlow, Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. Moving to London, England from Yorkshire in the early Sixties, hestarted playing with Alexis Korner and the Marzipan Twisters before moving on to Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, the Graham Bond Organisation, and Brian Auger.
During this period he often supported himself with session work, which he often found unsatisfying but which enhanced his playing and sight-reading. Also, he gave guitar lessons to Jimmy Page. In 1963, Jack Bruce formed the Graham Bond Quartet with Bond, Ginger Baker and John McLaughlin. They played an eclectic range of music genres, including bebop, blues and rhythm and blues.
By the end of the decade McLaughlin recorded his debut album Extrapolation in London. The album’s post-bop style is quite different from McLaughlin’s later fusion works. He moved to the U.S. in 1969 to join Tony Williams’ group Lifetime. He went on to play on Miles Davis’ albums In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Live-Evil, On the Corner, Big Fun and A Tribute to Jack Johnson.
As his reputation as a “first-call” session player grew, he was tapped to record as a sideman with Miroslav Vitous, Larry Coryell, Joe Farrell, Wayne Shorter, Carla Bley, the Rolling Stones, DExter Godon, Santana, Paco de Lucia and others.
The Seventies saw him put together the Mahavisnu Orchestra, delved into Indian classical music, and recorded with Stanley Clarke on his School Days album. Throughout the rest of the century he continued to perform with Mahavisnu, no longer the orchestra, as well as sideman duties on a variety of albums, performances and genres well into the new century.
He has recorded nineteen albums as a leader, six collaborative albums, twelve live albums, and 45 as a sideman. Guitarist John McLaughlin continues to perform and record.
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