Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Herbie Hancock was born Herbert Jeffrey Hancock on April 12, 1940 in Chicago, Illinois.  Illinois. Starting with a classical music education, he was considered a child prodigy, studied from age seven and played the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Chicago Symphony at age eleven.

Through his teens he was influenced by the vocal group Hi-Lo’s, Herbie never had a jazz teacher, developing his ear and sense of harmony. Influenced by Clare Fischer, Bill Evans, Ravel and Gil Evans, his harmonic guru was Chris Anderson with whom he studied. In the Sixties he attended Grinnell College, moved to Chicago, began working with Donald Byrd and Coleman Hawkins, studied at the Manhattan School of Music, quickly gained a reputation and played sessions with Oliver Nelson and Phil Woods.

In 1962 Hancock recorded his first solo album Takin’ Off for Blue Note Records that contained the hit for both Hancock and Mongo Santamaria – Watermelon Man. More importantly it caught the ear of Miles Davis and landed him an introduction by Tony Williams and membership of the second great quintet in 1963. It was during the Davis years that Herbie found his voice and subsequently produced two of the decade’s most influential albums, Empyrean Isles and Maiden Voyage.

He has recorded a catalogue of nearly sixty albums as a leader dozens of sessions as a sideman, working with the likes of Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Grant Green, Bobby Hutcherson, Sam Rivers, Donald Byrd, George Coleman, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard among others. He has been the subject of five films, won an Oscar for “Round Midnight soundtrack, received 14 Grammy Awards, five Playboy Music Polls and was honored as a NEA Jazz Master in 2004 along with a host of other recognitions. He is currently occupies the Creative Chair for Jazz with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Hancock joined the University of California, Los Angeles faculty as a professor in the UCLA music department where he teaches jazz music. He has received a Kennedy Center Honors Award for achievement in the performing arts, won 14 Grammy Awards, 1 Oscar for the Original Soundtrack of ‘Round Midnight and has been honored as an NEA Jazz Master among numerous other accolades.

He is the 2014 Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University. Holders of the chair deliver a series of six lectures on poetry, “The Norton Lectures”, poetry being “interpreted in the broadest sense, including all poetic expression in language, music, or fine arts.” His theme is “The Ethics of Jazz. Pianist Herbie Hancock continues to advance the jazz genre in new directions.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Reuben Wilson was born April 9, 1935 in Mounds, Oklahoma but grew up in Pasadena, California from age five when his family moved. While in his teenage years he taught himself to play piano, but boxing diverted his attention. When he was 17, he moved to Los Angeles, married a nightclub singer, met a number of professional musicians and returned to music. Instead of pursuing the piano, he decided to take up the organ, and it wasn’t long before he became a regular at the Caribbean club.

Reuben played the L.A. circuit for several years before trying his luck unsuccessfully in Las Vegas. Returning to L.A. he struck up a friendship with Richard “Groove” Holmes, an organist who would greatly influence his own style. In 1966 he moved to New York City, formed the soul-jazz group Wildare Express and began concentrating more on hard bop and soul-jazz. This proved fortuitous as Grant Green, Roy Haynes and Sam Rivers among others took notice and began to perform with him.

Two years later Wilson began recording a series of five albums for Blue Note Records, his debut being On Broadway. Throughout the 70s he recorded sporadically, eventually retired from music in the early 80s and but by the end of the decade a rediscovery of his music by fans, saw his music sampled by A Tribe Called Quest, Brand New Heavies and Nas.

He returned to music in the 90s writing new material, performing and recording in new groups, including combos he led himself. Over the course of his career organist Reuben Wilson has recorded 16 albums as a leader and eight as a sideman working with Grant Green Jr., Bernard Purdie, Melvin Sparks and Willis Jackson. He currently resides in New York City and continues to pursue new directions in jazz.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

David Samuel Pike was born March 23, 1938 in Detroit, Michigan and learned drums at the age of eight and is self-taught on vibraphone. He made his recording debut with the Paul Bley Quartet in 1958. While working with flautist Herbie Mann in the early Sixties he began putting an amplifier on his vibe. By the late 1960s, Pike’s music became more exploratory, contributing a unique voice and new contexts that pushed the envelope in times remembered for their exploratory nature.

Dave’s release Doors of Perception produced by Mann in 1970 on Vortex Records explored ballads, modal territory, musique concrete, and free and lyrical improvisation. He has recorded as a leader and sideman with Lee Konitz, Chuck Israels, Herbie Mann, Bill Evans, Nick Brignola, and Kenny Clarke.

Pike’s move to Europe and his tenure at MPS Records produced some of the most original jazz of the period. He formed the Dave Pike Set and recorded six albums between 1969 and ’72 that ran the gamut from funky grooves to free, textural territory. The group, though short-lived, created a unique identity and textural palette.

Collaborating with Volker Kriegel during this period provided compositional and instrumental contributions to the group, playing acoustic, classical, and electric guitar as well as sitar, that helped set the Dave Pike Set’s sound apart, organically incorporating influences from jazz, soul jazz, psychedelia, avant-garde music, and World music. With 19 albums to his credit, vibraphonist Dave Pike continued exploring different realms of music until his passing away of lung emphysema on October 3, 2015 in del Mar, California.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Masahiko Togashi was born in Tokyo, Japan on March 22, 1940 and began his musical education with the violin at age 6. It was some time later that the young man took up drums. He made his debut as a professional drummer at 14 with his father’s swing band and appeared on his first recording three years later with Sadao Watanabe’s Cozy quartet.

Togashi would go on to form his own quartet, releasing his group’s debut album, We Now Create, in 1969. However, a spinal injury in 1970 left the jazz percussionist permanently paralyzed from the waist down, and he would play the rest of his life seated in a specially designed wheelchair.

His physical disability limited his international travels and festival appearances, but frequently played with visiting musicians most notably saxophonist Steve Lacy who performed and recorded extensively with Togashi during his 12 tours in Japan, in particular Bura-Bura featuring Lacy along with Don Cherry and Dave Holland.

Drummer Masahiko Togashi passed away of heart failure at age 67 in his home in Kanagawa, Japan, on August 22, 2007. Over the course of his career, which spanned more than 50 years, the percussionist strived to broaden the exposure of Japanese jazz and bridge Western music with the traditional sounds of eastern Asia.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Andy Narell was born March 18, 1954 in New York City and took up the steelpan at a very young age after his father invited Ellie Mannette to bring steel pan to Queens, New York in an attempt to get kids off the street and out of gangs.

Moving with his family to California in his teens he eventually studied music at the University of California, Berkeley. He played piano with UC Jazz Ensembles and graduated in 1973. In the 1980s he worked in the project Bebop & Beyond, recording tribute albums to Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. He has performed with the Caribbean Jazz Project, Montreux, Sakésho, and Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.

A composer and arranger Andy has created music for Trinidad’s national steelband competition Panorama, and has also performed in South Africa. He has performed and recorded with Spyro Gyra, Taj Mahal, Toto and Mike Marshall and has recorded more than two dozen albums for Windham Hill, Inner City and Heads Up record labels and continues to compose, arrange, perform and tour.

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