Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rich Lamb was born on May 27, 1954 in New York City where he learned his bass craft. By the turn of the 1980’s he co-founded the jazz fusion band, Dry Jack, and gained worldwide recognition with his brother pianist Chuck Lamb, guitarist Rod Fleeman and drummer Jon Margolis. The group was listed as part of the new wave of fusion in Rolling Stone Magazine’s History of Rock `n’ Roll.
With Dry Jack he performed with vocalist Eddie Jefferson and avant garde saxophonist Richie Cole. They opened shows for Pat Metheny, The Dixie Dreggs, Gino Vinelli, Freddie Hubbard and McCoy Tyner among many others. He played with trumpeter Dave Douglas inthe mid eighties.
Moving from New York to Colorado in 1989, Rich has been performing with Brazilian drummer Claudio Sloan and Hammond B3 Pat Bianchi. In 1992 he played in concert with saxophonist Ernie Watts and Ed Summerlin recorded at the Deer Mountain Jazz Festival in South Dakota, as well as performing there with saxophonist Hank Crawford.
He performs with Hazel Miller, has subbed several times on the nationally syndicated radio program E Town. As a composer and first time as a leader, Lamb released his debut album, Music Along The Way. This is an improvisational collection of his music written during his performing career.
Bassist Rich Lamb currently freelances and plays his upright bass with pianists Pat Bianchi, Geoff Cleveland, Eric Moon, Dana Marsh and Bill Unrau.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Donald Henri Grusin was born April 22, 1941 and grew up in Littleton, Colorado to a Latvian, classical violinist father. He graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s degree in economics. In the early Seventies he was an economics professor in Guadalajara, Mexico but soon after he taught economics at Foothill College in California.
By the mid Seventies Grusin was touring with Pete Escovedo’s group Azteca alongside his daughter Sheila E in Bogota, Colombia. The trip sparked a lifelong interest in Latin music. In 1975, Quincy Jones invited him to tour with his band, and he left teaching for a career in music.
He worked as a studio musician on albums by Randy Crawford, Billy Eckstine, Joe Pass, and the Pointer Sisters. He formed the fusion group Friendship with Lee Ritenour, Ernie Watts, and Alex Acuña and recorded one album, then released solo albums in 1981 and 1983. By 1985 Don had produced the album Musician for Ernie Watts, winning a Grammy Award.
Grusin’s 2004 live album The Hang received a Grammy Award nomination, and he won Grammy Awards for his work on two albums by the Paul Winter Consort. He won an Echo Award for the album Quality Time, recorded with Peter Fessler.
As a record producer or keyboardist, Grusin has worked with Gerald Albright, Patti Austin, David Benoit, Larry Carlton, Oscar Castro-Neves, Dori Caymmi, Gilberto Gil, Jim Hall, Sérgio Mendes, Airto Moreira, Milton Nascimento, Flora Purim, Nelson Rangell, Brenda Russell, Zoot Sims, Leon Ware, and Sadao Watanabe.
Keyboardist, composer, and record producer Don Grusin, who is Dave Grusin’s younger brother, continues to push the boundaries of jazz and Latin jazz music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tony Vella was born on April 4, 1937 in Terrasini, a Sicily commune in the metropolitan city of Palermo, Itlay. In 1957 he gained immense experience working with big and small configurations. In Italyhe was the main arranger, for numerous important record houses.
From 1972 he dedicated his efforts to cultural activities and the formation of young talents holding theory courses, and practical instrumental and ensemble music applied to jazz music. By 1975 Tony participated in the Pescara the Jazz Festival with the New Jazz Society of Palermo, the only Italian group invited to perform along with the Zoot Sims Quartet, Antony Braxton, Elvin Jones Quintet, Red Norvo Trio, Chet Baker Quartet, Charles Mingus Group, Roland Kirk Quintet and Don Cherry Organic Music Theatre.
Three years later he formed and directed L’Orchestra in collaboration with the Reinhardt Center for their concert season. Organized by the Associazione Siciliana Amici della Musica and introduced to Auditorium SS. Salvatore of Palermo.
In the Eighties Vella was a partr of the Messina Jazz Meeting with the Brass Group Big Band, as orchestra director and arranger. With the band he has collaborated with international musicians Archie Shepp, Hernie Wilkins, Mel Lewis, Sam Rivers, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Paolo Lepore, Franco Cerri, and Danilo Terenzi.
The next decade he established The Tony Vella Fusion Jazz Band entirely composed from young Sicialian musicians. A big band, modeled on some of the great American orchestras like Quincy Jones. The Fusion Jazz Band presented remarkable arrangements of a repertoire that includes Brazilian and popular jazz. They accompanied singers Beppe Vella, Gaetano Riccobono, and Tony Piscopo, as well as numerous musicians such asCalderone Ignazio, Aldo Oliveri, Benedetto Modica, Giovanni Mazzarino, Sergio Munafò, Aldo Messina, and Sebastiano Alioto, among others.
Pianist, organist, composer, arranger and orchestra director Tony Vella continues to perform, conduct and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Barry Miles was born Barry Miles Silverlight on March 28, 1947 in Newark, New Jersey and grew up in North Plainfield, New Jersey. In 1956 he joined the musicians union at age nine as a child prodigy on drums, piano and vibraphone appearing with Miles Davis and John Coltrane among other talents of the day. He appeared live and on television shows including To Tell the Truth, Dick Van Dyke’s variety show, and The Andy Williams Show.
In 1961 at age fourteen he made his solo artist debut recording, “Miles of Genius”, as drummer and composer with sidemen Al Hall and Duke Jordan. Miles continued to perform with his own band in the early 1960s in which he composed the material that enabled up and coming talents such as Woody Shaw, Eddie Gómez and Robin Kenyatta to display their talents.
While a student at Princeton University he concentrated on his piano playing, recording a live album in 1966 entitled Barry Miles Presents His Syncretic Compositions. He followed in 1969 with the eponymously titled album, Barry Miles, incorporating electric instruments.
The Seventies saw him recruiting his brother Terry Silverlight on drums along with guitarists Pat Martino and John Abercrombie to record his White Heat album, which is regarded as one of the pioneering fusion jazz recordings. For the next decade, Miles recorded several albums in which he developed the principle of fusing styles together in jazz.
In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Barry went on to work as Roberta Flack’s musical director for a stint that lasted fifteen years. During that time he composed, produced and recorded songs that Flack recorded in the film Bustin’ Loose, and on her album Oasis. He established a long-lasting relationship with Al Di Meola as his performing, recording and co-producing keyboardist.
He wrote the instruction book, “Twelve Themes With Improvisations”, and is currently out of print. In 2013, he released Home and Away, Volume One, his first album as a leader in 27 years. Pianist, record producer and author Barry Miles continues to perform, record and produce.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Robert Philip Militello a.k.a. Bobby M. was born on March 25, 1950 in Buffalo, New York. He was groomed by the legendary Sam Scamacca at Buffalo’s iconic Lafayette High School in the 1960s.
During the Seventies, Militello went on tour with Maynard Ferguson and returned to Buffalo in the early 1980s to work as a freelance musician.
Moving to Los Angeles, California he spent the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s as a member of orchestras led by Bill Holman and Bob Florence. He toured and recorded with Dave Brubeck from 1982 to 2012.
Saxophonist and flautist Bobby Militello leads a quartet that performs concerts dedicated to Brubeck.
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