Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ronald Edward Cuber was born on December 25, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York. In 1959 he was playing tenor saxophone when he joined Marshall Brown’s Newport Youth Band at eighteen, but switched to the baritone. His first notable work was with Slide Hampton in 1962 and then went with Maynard Ferguson the following year until 1965. George Benson recruited him for a year in ‘66 to 1967.
As a leader he was known for hard bop and Latin jazz, the latter with Eddie Palmieri, As a sideman he played outside the genre with B. B. King, Paul Simon, Eric Clapton, J. Geils Band, and one of his most spirited performances is on Dr. Lonnie Smith’s 1970 Blue Note album Drives. He was also a member of the Saturday Night Live Band.
Ronnie played with Frank Zappa on the live album Zappa in New York, which was recorded in 1976. He went on to gain membership in the Lee Konitz nonet from 1977 to 1979.He was a member of the Mingus Big Band from its inception in the early 1990s until his death. He performed as an off-screen musician for the movie Across the Universe.
Baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber, who also played soprano and tenor saxophones, clarinet and flute, died at the age of 80 on October 7, 2022 in his New York’s Upper West Side studio from internal injuries sustained after a fall that could not be treated due to overwhelming Covid patients at the start of the pandemic.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Josephus Hicks Jr. was born December 21, 1941 in Atlanta, Georgia, the eldest of five children. As a child he moved around the United States as his father, Rev. John Hicks Sr, took up jobs with the Methodist church. His mother was his first piano teacher after he began playing at six or seven in Los Angeles, California. He took organ lessons, sang in choirs and tried the violin and trombone. Once he learned to read music around the age of 11, he started playing the piano in church.
His development accelerated once his family moved to St. Louis, Missouri when Hicks was 14 and he settled on the piano. Attending Sumner High School and played in schoolmate Lester Bowie’s band, the Continentals, which performed in a variety of musical styles. Hicks worked summer gigs in the southern United States with blues musicians Albert King and Little Milton with the latter providing his first professional work in 1958.
He studied music in 1958 at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he shared a room with drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. He also studied for a short time at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, Massachusetts before moving to New York in 1963.
In New York, John first accompanied singer Della Reese, then went on to play with Joe Farrell, Al Grey, Billy Mitchell, Pharoah Sanders, Jimmy Witherspoon, Kenny Dorham and Joe Henderson before joining Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in 1964. From 1965 to 1967 he worked on and off with vocalist Betty Carter, then joined Woody Herman’s big band, where he stayed until 1970, playing as well as writing arrangements for the band.
From 1972 to 1973, Hicks taught jazz history and improvisation at Southern Illinois University. From the 1970s onward he had a prolific career as a leader recording his debut in England followed by fifty-three more albums and as a sideman he recorded 300.
Towards the end of his life, he taught at New York University and The New School in New York. In 2006 John played in a big band led by Charles Tolliver, recorded his final studio album On the Wings of an Eagle.
Pianist, composer and arranger John HIcks, whose collection of papers, compositions, video and audio recordings are held by Duke University, died from internal bleeding on May 10, 2006.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bruce David Gertz was born on December 15, 1952 in Providence, Rhode Island. He first learned to play guitar, then switched to bass guitar as a teenager, playing with local blues and rock groups.
He studied music formally at New England College and Berklee College of Music in the 1970s. After graduating from Berklee in 1976 he taught music there; he is now a professor of music. He worked with George Garzone in the Overtones in the late Seventies and was a co-leader of ensembles with Jerry Bergonzi from 1978 to 1989.
He has worked with Mike Stern both in the Bergonzi ensembles and with Stern’s own quartet. From 1982 to 1985 he was house bassist for the Willow Jazz Cafe in Somerville, Massachusetts. In the 1990s he worked with John Abercrombie, Joey Calderazzo, Ken Cervenka, Adam Nussbaum, Danilo Perez, Dan Reiser, Kurt Rosenwinkel, George Schuller, and others.
Double and electric bassist Bruce Gertz continues to perform.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Juhani Aaltonen was born December 12, 1935 in Kouvola, Finland. He began playing professionally at the end of the Fifties. He played in a sextet led by Heikki Rosendahl during that time, and then studied flute performance at the Sibelius Academy and in the U.S. at the Berklee College of Music.
Moving back to Finland, he settled in Helsinki and began working both as a session musician and with fusion groups. Late in the 1960s he formed a duo with Edward Vesala, played in the group Eero Koivistoinen and with Tasavallan Presidentti. He recorded with Thad Jones and Mel Lewis and with Heikki Sarmanto late in the decade and early 1970s. His debut album as a soloist, Etiquette, was released in 1974.
The following year Juhani became a member of the New Music Orchestra, and worked with the Nordic All Stars, Arild Andersen, and Peter Brötzmann before the end of the decade. The Eighties saw him working with the UFO Big Band, Jan Garbarek, Charlie Mariano, and others. He led a touring quartet from 1990 to 1992.
In 2001 he released a duo recording, Rise, and his trio album Mother Tongue won a Jazz-Emma in Finland. Saxophonist and flautist Juhani Aaltonen continues to perform as well as teach at the annual Nilsiä Music Camp.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nathan Gershman was born Nathan Gerschman on November 29, 1917 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He received classical training at the Curtis Institute of Music, graduating in 1940 and from that point in his life he played with the Cleveland Orchestra.
In 1947 Nathan moved to New York City to work as a studio musician, then worked in the same capacity in Los Angeles, California after 1954. Three years later he replaced Fred Katz as cellist in Chico Hamilton’s band, playing and recording in his band until 1961. As a jazz musician, he worked with Nat Adderley, Gábor Szabó, and Ronnie Laws during the 1970s.
Gershman was frequently active as a session player and studio musician for television, theater, and recordings in and around Los Angeles from the Sixties into the 1990s. He recorded on albums by David Axelrod, The Beach Boys, Geronimo Black, David Bromberg, Neil Diamond, Lee Hazlewood, Wayne Henderson, Van Dyke Parks, Esther Phillips, and Pleasure.
Cellist and session musician Nathan Gershman, who played in popular music, jazz, and classical idioms, died on September 13, 2008 in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.
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