Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Steve Swallow was born October 4, 1940 in Fair Lawn, New York. As a child, he studied piano and trumpet before turning to the double bass at age 14. While attending a prep school, he began trying his hand in jazz improvisation. While attending Yale and studying composition he left oin 1960, settled in New York and began playing in Jimmy Guiffre’s trio with Paul Bley. By 1964 he was with Art Farmer’s quartet where he began to write and during this period his long association with Gary Burton’s various bands commenced.
The early 1970s saw Swallow switching exclusively to the five-string electric bass guitar, encouraged by his favorite drummer Roy Haynes. Along with Monk Montgomery and Bob Cranshaw was one of the firsts to do so. He was an early adopter of the high C string and use of the upper register.
In 1974-76 Steve taught at the Berklee College of Music, contributed several of his compositions to the Berklee students who assembled the first edition of The Real Book. He later recorded an album of the same name, with the picture of a well-worn, coffee-stained Real Book on the cover. By 1978 he became an essential and constant member of Carla Bley’s band and her romantic partner since the 1980s. He toured extensively with John Scofield in the early Eighties, returning to this collaboration several times over the years.
Swallow has consistently won the electric bass category in Down Beat yearly polls, both Critics’ and Readers’, since the mid-80s. His compositions have been covered by, among others, Bill Evans, Chcick Corea, Stan Getz, Gary Burton and Jim Hall, who recorded his very first tune, Eiderdown. He has performed or recorded with Don Ellis, Dave Douglas, Steve Kuhn, Pete La Roca, Joe Lovano, Michael Mantler, Gary McFarland, Pat Metheny, Paul Motian, Jimmy Raney, Zoot Sims, Tore Johansen and George Russell.
Bassist Steve Swallow, who performs in the genres of cool, fusion, avant-garde, free, post-bop and hard bop jazz, has fourteen albums to his credit as a leader an co-leader and continues to perform, compose, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Papa John DeFrancesco was born John Jasper DeFrancesco on September 12, 1940 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Growing up with a father who played reeds in swing bands including the Dorsey Brothers, he began plaing trumpet at six and did not start playing organ until his wife bought him an organ for his 23rd birthday. After a few months of nearly nonstop practicing, he was ready to perform in clubs.
By 1967 he was a part of the Philadelphia jazz scene. However, in 1979 when his son Joey turned eight and started playing professionally, he temporarily gave up his career in order to supervise his son. Johnny, his other son, has also developed into a fine guitarist.
In the 90s Papa John returned to a more active playing career and recorded two sessions for Muse Records featuring Joey on trumpet, titled Doodlin’ and Comin’ Home. Both records gained him a national reputation of his own. His organ playing is in an infectious hard bop style that compliments his sons playing and it was while working with Joey that his career was revived
Between 2001 and 2006 he released four albums, took a five-year hiatus, and then returned to release A Philadelphia Story performed by a classic Hammond B-3 trio featuring John Jr. on guitar, drummer Glenn Ferracone with guest appearances by Joey and tenor saxophonist Joe Fortunato.
Organist and vocalist Papa John DeFranceso continues to perform, tour and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Larry Ridley was born September 3, 1937 in Indianapolis, Indiana and began playing bass professionally while still in high school in the 1950s. He studied at Indiana University School of Music and then would later study at the Lenox School of Jazz. As a college student he would go on to matriculate through be bassist in his mentor’s ensemble, the David Baker Big Band.
Ridley served as chairman of the Jazz Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and was the organization’s National Coordinator of the “Jazz Artists in Schools” Program for five years. He was awarded the Mid Atlanti Arts Foundation’s Living Legacy Jazz Award, the Benny Golson Jazz Award from Howard University, and inducted into the International Association for Jazz Education Hall of Fame,
Over the course of his career Larry has recorded two albums as a leader and performed and/or recorded with Chet Baker, Al Cohn, Dameronia, Red Garland, Dexter Gordon, Stephane Grappelli, Joe Venuti, Roy Haynes, Freddie Hubbard, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, James Moody, Lee Morgan and Horace Silver to name a few.
Bassist and music educator Larry Ridley has been involved in jazz education, heading the jazz program at Rutgers University, and Professor of Jazz Bass at the Manhattan School of Music is a Jazz Artist in Residence at Harlem’s New York Public Library/Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, and continues to perform with his Jazz Legacy Ensemble.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Horace Silver was born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva on September 2, 1928 in Norwalk, Connecticut to a mother from Connecticut and a father from Maio, Cape Verde. He began playing the piano as a child, receiving classical music lessons and Cape Verde folk music from his father. When he turned 11 he became interested in becoming a musician, after hearing the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra.
From ninth grade Silver played tenor saxophone in the Norwalk High School band and orchestra, influenced by Lester Young. He played gigs locally on both instruments while still at school and around 1946 he moved to Hartford, Connecticut, taking a regular job as house pianist in a nightclub. His big break came around 1950, backing saxophonist Stan Getz at a Hartford club. Liking what he heard, Getz took Silver’s band on the road. With Getz he made his recording debut on the Stan Getz Quartet album, along with bassist Joe Calloway and drummer Walter Bolden.
The following year Horace left Getz, moving to New York City and worked at Birdland on Monday nights. During that year, he met the executives of Blue Note Records, eventually signed with them, and remained there until 1980. He also co-founded the Jazz Messengers with Art Blakey.
From 1951 he free-lanced around New York, recorded mostly his own compositions with his trio, featuring Blakey on drums and Gene Ramey, Curly Russell or Percy Heath on bass. Throughout his career he would record with Clifford Brown, Lou Donaldson, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Junior Cook, Blue Mitchell, Louis Hayes, Carmell Jones, Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw, Tyrone Washington, Michael and Randy Brecker, Lee Morgan, Benny Golson, Donald Byrd and Miles Davis All Stars.
He music reflected the social and cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s as he briefly played electric piano and including lyrics in his compositions, and his interested in spiritualism also came into his music.
He received a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award, recorded his final studio session in 1998 titled Jazz Has A Sense of Humor, was awarded the President’s Merit Award by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, penned his autobiography Let’s Get to the Nitty Gritty: The Autobiography of Horace Silver and published by University of California Press, and many of his compositions have become jazz standards.
Horace Silver, whose early influences were Bud Powell, Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Nat King Cole and Thelonious Monk, and who and influence for Bobby Timmons, Le McCann, Ramsey Lewis and Cecil Taylor, passed away of natural causes in New Rochelle, New York on June 18, 2014. The pianist and composer known for his distinctive playing style and pioneering compositional contributions to hard bop, featured surprising tempo shifts from aggressively percussive to lushly romantic merged with funk long before that word could be used in polite company.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Malachi Favors was born on August 22, 1927 in Lexington, Mississippi. He learned to play the double bass at age fifteen and began performing professionally upon graduating high school. His early performances included working with Dizzy Gillespie and Freddie Hubbard. By 1965, he was a founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and a member of Muhal Richard Abrams’ Experimental Band.
A protégé of Chicago bassist Wilbur Ware, his first known recording was a 1953 session with tenor saxophonist Paul Bascomb. He recorded an LP with Chicago pianist Andrew Hill in 1957. He went on to work with Roscoe Mitchell in 1966 and this group eventually became the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
Malachi worked outside the group, with Sunny Murray, Archie Shepp and Dewey Redman. His most noted records include a solo bass project Nature and the Spiritual in 1977 and Sightsong a duet with Muhal Richard Abrams. In 1994 he played with oudist Roman Bunka at Berlin Jazz Fest where they recorded the German Critics Poll Winner album Color Me Cairo.
Double bassist Malachi Favors, who played in the bebop, hard bop and free jazz genres, passed of pancreatic cancer in 2004 at the age of 76. Though his primary instrument was the double bass, he also plays electric bass, guitar, banjo, zither, gong, and other instruments. At some point in his career he added the word “Maghostut” to his name and because of this he is commonly listed as Malachi Favors Maghostut. He recorded some 46 albums as a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and another 24 as a collaborator and sideman.
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