Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ben Riley was born July 17, 1933 in Savannah, Georgia and his family moved to New York City when he was three years old. In high school he played drums in the school band, and after graduation he joined the Army, where he was a paratrooper, and also played with the Army band. After his discharge in 1954 he returned to New York City where he began playing jazz professionally in 1956. It was with Johnny Griffin he made his recording debut in 1961.
Ben played with such musicians as Randy Weston, Mary Lou Williams, Sonny Rollins, Woody Herman, Randy Weston, Sonny Stitt, Ray Bryant, Stan Getz and Billy Taylor.. But it was four years playing, recording and touring with Thelonious Monk that established his name and helped direct his career to success.
During the 1970s he was a member of the New York Jazz Quartet and the hard bop drummer has recorded three albums as a leader. Riley has recorded no less than another three dozen albums as a sideman working with the above-mentioned musicians as well as Alice Coltrane, Woody Herman, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Ahmad Jamal, Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Bennie Green, Michael Franks, Andrew Hill, Sam Jones, Junior Mance, Roseanna Vitro, Horace Tapscott, Jim Hall, Abdullah Ibrahim and as a member of the group Sphere.
Drummer Ben Riley passed away in West Islip, New York on November 18, 2017 at the age of 84.
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Garry Dial was born on July 2, 1954 in Montclair, New Jersey. He began piano lessons at the age of 10 with Elston Husk and his mother, a pianist helped him practice. His 7th grade teacher gave him his first jazz record The Oscar Peterson Trio which instilled in him the love of jazz. Entering high school at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, New Jersey where the priests at St. Benedict’s supported his love of jazz. While in church he met Mary Lou Williams who offered him free lessons, took him under her wing and for the next few years went into Harlem to study with her. It was there he learned of Miles, Monk, Bud Powell and Cecil Taylor.
As a junior in high school Garry took the Summer Jazz Workshop at Berklee College Of Music and realized that music and jazz would be his calling. After high school graduation he returned to Berklee where he met his teacher of 37 years, the late Charlie Banacos. After one year at Berklee fellow musician Kenny Werner recommended him for a gig in Bermuda as the pianist at The Princess Hotel from 1975 to 1978.
A move to New York saw Dial playing with Charli Persip, performing at Frank Sinatra’s private parties, joining Gerry Mulligan’s Big Band, the Mel Lewis Quartet and Joe Morello Quintet. He was enlisted by Ruth Ellington Boatwright, Duke’s sister, to perform and record on tape each composition in the entire Ellington archive, as many were never recorded or played by the composer and would have been lost to history. Shortly afterward, he met Red Rodney and where he first came to fame as an important modernizing force with the Red Rodney-Ira Sullivan Quintet. After a ten-year association Sullivan departed and was replaced by saxophonist Dick Oatts, and they eventually formed the group Dial & Oatts, recording for the DMP label. Garry has also recorded with his own trio for the Continuum label.
As an educator he has leant his talent and knowledge to the students at the Manhattan School of Music and the New School, has given private lessons with Stefon Harris, Jacob Sacks, Mary J. Blige, Bette Midler, Alexa Joel and Amanda Brecker, to name a few. Hard bop and post bop pianist Garry Dial continues to perform, record, tour and educate.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Albert “Alby” Cullaz was born on June 25, 1941 in Paris, France, the son of jazz music critic Maurice Cullaz and brother of guitarist Pierre Cullaz. He made his professional debut in 1963 as a member of the Johnny Griffin Quartet.
For many years Alby led a trio with Michel Graillier and Simon Goubert before becoming a sought after sideman. He worked with Joe Albany, Jean-Luc Ponty, Aldo Romano, Michel Graillier, Hank Mobley , René Thomas, Dizzy Gillespie, Slide Hampton, Lee Konitaz, Eddy Louiss, Art Taylor, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Clarke, Guy Lafitte, François Chassagnite, André Condouant, Raymond Fol, Steve Grossman, Rene Urtreger, Jacques & Micheline Pelzer, Sonny Grey, Philly Joe Jones and Chet Baker among others.
He was awarded the prize in 1972 Django Reinhardt Academy award and in 1973 he was received the Prix Django Reinhardt. Contra-bassist Alby Cullaz passed away at the age of 56 on February 8, 1998 after a long illness.
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Manny Albam was born on June 24, 1922 in Samana, Dominican Republic. Growing up in New York City he became interested in jazz after hearing Bix Beiderbecke and at sixteen dropped out of school to play for Dixieland trumpeter-leader Muggsy Spanier, but it was his membership in a group led by Georgie Auld that turned his career around.
While playing with Auld group, saxophonist Budd Johnson mentored Albam as an arranger. By 1950, Albam put down his baritone sax and began to concentrate strictly on arranging, writing, and leading. Within a few years, he became known for a bebop-oriented style that emphasised taut and witty writing with a flair for distinctive shadings. Flute-led reed sections became his trademark.
He became known for his work for bandleaders Charlie Barnet and Charlie Spivak, before moving forward to collaborate with Count Basie, Stan Getz, Bob Brookmeyer, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Hank Jones, Mel Lewis, Art Farmer, Urbie Green, and Milt Hinton, among others.
Manny found an entree into the classical music world when he arranged Leonard Bernstein’s score for West Side Story in 1957. Bernstein was said to have been so impressed that he invited him to write for the New York Philharmonic, and, in due course, write such works as Concerto for Trombone and Strings, became musical director for United Artists-Solid State Records, composed the score for a few films and television programs, and recording the albums The Blues is Everybody’s Business, The Drum Suite, The Jazz Workshop, Jazz New York, Something New, Something Blue and his jazz suite The Soul of the City.
As an educator Manny started teaching summer workshops at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York in 1964. He later joined the faculties of Glassboro State College in New Jersey and the Manhattan School of Music in New York. By 1988 he helped establish the BMI Jazz Composer’s Workshop to foster young composers and arrangers. In 1991 he eventually took over as director from Bob Brookmeyer and has as long list of former students throughout the music industry and in higher education, a pursuit he continued until his death.
Baritone saxophonist,composer,arranger, producer and educator Manny Albam passed away of cancer on October 2, 2001 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
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Donald Dean was born on June 21, 1937. ) He attended the University of Kansas, studying drums and Music Therapy, and playing snare drums in the marching band. He also played tympani, marimba, bells and snare drum in the university’s Symphony Orchestra. While matriculating, he played in a quartet with Nathan Davis on reeds, Elaine Brown Davis on piano, and trumpeter Carmel Jones.
His most famous recording was with Les McCann, Leroy Vinegar and Eddie Harris on the soul jazz album Swiss Movement, recorded live on June 21, 1969 at The Montreux Jazz Festival. He would go on to record a total of eight albums with McCann including Second Movement and Layers. Dean appeared as a jazz musician in the Tom Cruise/Jamie Foxx movie Collateral, has worked with Kenny Dorham, Jimmy Smith, George Gilliam, Carmel Jones and harold Land to name a few.
The Los Angeles Jazz Institute houses The Donald Dean Collection that includes reel to reel tapes of Sunday sessions at The Lighthouse that he recorded between 1952 and 1955. The collection also features over 700,000 photographic prints and negatives documenting both the southern and northern California scene from the mid 1960s through the late 1990s.
He has recorded on the Atlantic, Verve, Fresh Sound and Posi-Tone record labels, releasing two albums as a leader or co-leader. Drummer Donald Dean continues to perform at the age of 79 leading his own quartets and quintets.
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