Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frank Gant was born on May 26, 1931 in Detroit, Michigan. His first gigs were with Billy Mitchell and Pepper Adams, and after working with Little John Wilson and his Merry Men at the Madison Ballroom, including four days backing Billie Holiday, he went on to join Alvin Jackson’s house band at the Blue Bird..
Gant recorded with Donald Byrd, Sonny Stitt, and extensively with Yusef Lateef in the late 1950s and then Red Garland before becoming a member of Ahmad Jamal’s trio from 1966 to 1976. As the house drummer at Detroit’s Club 12, with Jackson’s band, he backed Thelonious Monk and Charlie Rouse in September 1959. In the 1970s, he accompanied Jamil Nasser and Harold Mabern as the rhythm section for workshops run by Cobi Narita.
From 1955 to 1986 he recorded as a sideman or group member on twenty albums with the above-mentioned musicians, as well as several with Al Haig. There is no more information following this recording period about the drummer as he has never been a leader, however, at eighty-nine he may still be occasionally performing.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Daniel Humair was born May 23, 1938 in Geneva, Switzerland and played clarinet and drums from the age of seven and won a competition for jazz performance in his teens. By the time he was twenty he was in Paris, France accompanying visiting musicians with his most celebrated season with tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson at a club called Le Chat Qui Pèche.
Humair became the drummer American musicians would ask to work with, despite a gig with the Swingle Singers in the early 60s. In 1967 he played on violinist Jean-Luc Ponty’s debut Sunday Walk, also contributing the title track. When alto saxophonist Phil Woods emigrated to Paris in 1968 it was natural that Humair should be the drummer in what Woods called the European Rhythm Machine.
In 1969 he won the Downbeat critics’ poll as Talent Deserving Wider Recognition. Humair was so in demand that his job-sheet reads like a list of the pre-eminent names in jazz, Herbie Mann , Roy Eldridge, Stéphane Grappelli, Chet Baker, Michel Portal, Martial Solal, Dexter Gordon, and Anthony Braxton all availed themselves of his graceful, incisive drums. He played with Gato Barbieri on the soundtrack to Last Tango In Paris in 1972.
In 1986, Daniel’s record Welcome on Soul Note, a record which listed all members of the quartet as leaders, was a perfect demonstration of his warmth and responsiveness as a drummer and continued to top drum polls in France well into the 90s. In 1991, Surrounded documented a selection of his work from 1964-87, including tracks with legends such as Eric Dolphy, Gerry Mulligan and Johnny Griffin – a neat way of giving Humair centre-stage and celebrating the breadth of his involvement with jazz history.
To date he has recorded more than four-dozen albums as a leader, became a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1986 and Officier in 1992. A talented painter, he describes his own work as figurative abstract. Drummer Daniel Humair continues to perform and record.
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The Quarantined Jazz Voyager
The Quarantined Jazz Voyager is pulling down from the shelves a timeless classic that has been a part of my collection since 1971. Maiden Voyage is the fifth album led by jazz musician Herbie Hancock and was recorded by Rudy Van Gelder on March 17, 1965, for Blue Note Records.
It is a concept album combining modal and hard bop modes aimed at creating an oceanic atmosphere. Many of the track titles refer to marine biology or the sea, and the musicians develop the concept through their use of space. The album was presented with the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999.
The five compositions that comprise the album are Maiden Voyage, The Eye Of The Hurricane, Little One, Survival Of The Fittest and Dolphin Dance. The personnel on the date are pianist Herbie Hancock, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, tenor saxophonist George Coleman, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams.
Stay diligent my fellow voyagers in being healthy, continue to practice social distancing, and don’t be so anxious to rush back to the new normal. It has been said that music soothes the savage beast, so listen to great music. I share that music to give you a little insight into the choices this voyager has made over the years during this sabbatical from jet setting investigations of jazz around the globe.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Richard Gene Williams was born in Galveston, Texas on May 4, 1931 and played tenor saxophone early in his life before picking up the trumpet as a teenager. While playing in local Texas bands, he attended Wiley College, majoring in music.
After serving in the Air Force from 1952–56, Williams toured Europe with Lionel Hampton. He returned to America and received a master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music. In 1959, he played with Charles Mingus at the Newport Jazz Festival and recorded with MIngus that same year. The following year he recorded his only session as a leader, New Horn in Town on the Candid Records label featuring Reggie Workman, Leo Wright, Richard Wyands, and Bobby Thomas.
During the 1960s Richard was a sideman on numerous releases for Blue Note, Impulse!, New Jazz, Riverside, and Atlantic working with Oliver Nelson, Grant Green, Booker Ervin, Sam Jones, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Les McCann, Lou Donaldson, Yusef Lateef, Gigi Gryce, Carmen McRae, Randy Weston, Charles Tolliver, Mose Allison, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, and Duke Jordan, among numerous others.
He also played with the big bands of Duke Ellington, Gil Evans, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Sam Rivers, and Clark Terry. Finding work on Broadway in pit orchestra productions of The Me Nobody Knows and The Wiz, and appeared on the original Broadway cast recordings of both musicals. Williams led his own bands in New York jazz clubs and in addition to jazz trumpet, he performed with classical orchestras, playing piccolo trumpet and flugelhorn. Trumpeter Richard Williams passed away on November 4, 1985 from kidney cancer in his Jamaica, New York home, at the age of 54.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Everett Barksdale, born April 28, 1910 in Detroit, Michigan, played bass and banjo before settling on guitar. During early 1930 he moved to Chicago, Illinois where he joined Erskine Tate’s band. He recorded for the first time with violinist Eddie South in 1931, who he remained with until 1939.
A move to New York City saw Everett become a member of the Benny Carter Big Band. Around that same time, he recorded with Sidney Bechet and during the 1940s, he worked for CBS as a session musician.
As a sideman, Barksdale played guitar in many genres, working with vocalists Dean Barlow, Maxine Sullivan, the Blenders, and the Clovers. He played on the hit Love Is Strange by Mickey & Sylvia, was the music director for the Ink Spots, and beginning in 1949, he worked with pianist Art Tatum until Tatum died in 1956.
During the Fifties and Sixties, he was part of the ABC house band and played on recordings with a who’s who list of vocalists and musicians not limited to Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr., Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Milt Hinton, Buddy Tate, Chet Baker, Red Allen, Harold Vick, Oscar Brown Jr., J. J. Johnson, Clark Terry, Kai Winding, Louis Armstrong, The Drifters and Ben E. King. He also played guitar in the studio for pop and soul musicians such as.
Guitarist and session musician Everett Barksdale retired from active performance in the 1970s, moved to the West Coast and passed away in Inglewood, California on January 29, 1986.
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