Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Richard Alan Berk was born on May 22, 1939 in San Francisco, California. He studied at the Berklee College of and played in the Boston area early in the 1960s.
In 1962 he moved to New York City and played with Ted Curson and Bill Barron in a quintet until 1964. Following this Dick played with Charles Mingus, Mose Allison, Freddie Hubbard, and Walter Bishop Jr. among others.
A move to Los Angeles late in the decade saw Berk playing with Milt Jackson, George Duke, Cal Tjader, John Hicks, Ray Drummond, Ted Curson, Don Friedman, . Jean-Luc Ponty and Blue Mitchell, to name a few. He went on to establish the Jazz Adoption Agency in the early 1980s, played well into the 2000s; among this group’s alumni are Andy Martin, Mike Fahn, Nick Brignola, John Noagormey, Keith Saunders, Tad Weed and John Patitucci.
He recorded eight albums as a leader and another nine as a sideman. Drummer and bandleader Dick Berk passed away on February 8, 2014 at the age of 74.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Larance Marable was born on May 21, 1929 in Los Angeles, California and was related to Mississippi riverboat bandleader Fate Marable. He first had a strong career as a bop musician in the 1950s working with the likes of Dexter Gordon and Charlie Parker among others.
In the 1960s Marable started to venture into the cool jazz idiom with musicians like Zoot Sims, George Shearing, Sonny Stitt and Chet Baker, working with the latter as early as 1956 on the album Chet Baker Sings.
In the Seventies he toured with Supersax and Bobby Hutcherson but recorded Tenorman as a leader with James Clay. He also played with Kenny Drew, Teddy Edwards, Stan Getz, Hampton Hawes, and Milt Jackson. Earlier in his career, he was known as Lawrence but the hard bop drummer Larance Marable, best known for his work as a regular member of Charlie Haden’s Quartet West, passed away on July 4, 2012 in his hometown of Los Angeles.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jackie McLean was born John Lenwood McLean on May 17, 1931 in New York City. His father played the guitar in Tiny Bradshaw’s orchestra and started the young man’s musical education until he was eight when the senior John passed away. His godfather, his stepfather who owned a record store and several noted teachers continued his education. He received informal training by neighbors Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and Charlie Parker.
In high school Jackie played in a band with Kenny Drew, Sonny Rollins and Andy Kirk Jr. By the time he was twenty he was playing alongside Rollins on Miles Davis’ Dig album and went on to record with Gene Ammons, Charles Mingus, George Wallington and to become one of Art Blakey’s Messengers, joining the group after reportedly being punched by Mingus and pulling a knife on the bassist. Fortunately for the jazz world no one was stabbed.
Throughout his early career he was addicted to heroin, which resulted in the loss of his New York City cabaret card. To make a living he undertook a large number of session dates that produced an extensive body of recorded work in the 1950s and 1960s. He recorded for Prestige, then Blue Note both as a leader and sideman. His early recordings as leader were in the hard bop school but later McLean became an exponent of modal jazz without abandoning his foundation in hard bop. His adaptation of modal jazz and free jazz innovations to his vision of hard bop made his recordings from 1962 on distinctive.
He worked with the greats of the time not limited to Donald Byrd, Sonny Clark, Lee Morgan, Ornette Coleman, Dexter Gordon, Freddie Redd, Billy Higgins, Freddie Hubbard, Grachan Moncur III, Bobby Hutcherson, Mal Waldron, Chalres Tolliver, Tony Williams, Michael Carvin, Carl Allen, Bill Hardman, Larry Wilis and Tina Brooks.
By 1967 he abandoned recording for touring and the following year started his teaching career at The Harrt School at the University of Hartford. He would establish the university’s African American Music Department that evolved into the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz) and its Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Studies program.
Along with his wife Dollie, they founded the Artists Collective, Inc. of Hartford, and his bands were drawn from his students including Steve Davis, his adopted son Rene and pianist Mark Berman. He received an American Jazz Masters fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame, and a biography titled Sugar Free Saxophone, as well as numerous other national and international awards. McLean is the only American jazz musician to found a department of studies at a University and a community-based organization almost simultaneously and they each have existed for over three decades.
After a long illness, alto saxophonist, composer, educator and bandleader Jackie McLean passed away on March 31, 2006 in Hartford, Connecticut.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Abdul Wadud was born Ronald DeVaughn on April 30, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio. The son of R&B singer Raheem DeVaughn, he took up the cello and concentrated solely on the instrument from the age of nine, and never decided to double on bass.
Abdul studied at Youngstown State and Oberlin in the late ’60s and early ’70s. He played in the Black Unity Trio at Oberlin, met Julius Hemphill and the two subsequently worked together well through the Eighties. He has performed with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in the ’70s, earned his master’s degree in 1972, and then in 1976 played with Arthur Blythe for the first time and has maintain a working relationship.
He also worked and recorded with Frank Lowe, George Lewis, Oliver Lake, Sam Rivers, Cecil Taylor, David Murray, Chico Freeman, Anthony Davis and James Newton. Along with Newton and Davis they performed as a trio and were also a part of the octet Episteme from 1982 to 1984. Abdul recorded and in a duo with Jenkins for Red in the ’70s and as a leader for Bishara and Gramavision in the ’70s and ’80s. He has been a member of the Black Swan Quartet, Human Arts Ensemble, Julius Hemphill Quartet and Muhal Richard Abrams Orchestra.
His plucking and bowed solos have been featured in jazz and symphonic/classical settings, he is easily considered the finest cellist to emerge from the ’60s and ’70s generation, playing in both jazz and classical settings. Cellist Abdul Wadud transitioned on August 10, 2022 in Cleveland, Ohio at the age of 75.
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George Rufus Adams was born on April 29, 1940 in Covington, Georgia and his musical style is deeply rooted in the blues and in primarily that of African-American popular music. The tenor’s greatest influences seem to have been Rahsaan Roland Kirk and the adventurous edginess of John Coltrane and Albert Ayler.
George played with tremendous intensity and passion, as well as lyricism and subtlety. At times he bent over backwards when playing, almost ending up on his back. He and Don Pullen shared a musical vision and their quartet straddled the range from R&B to the avant-garde.
One of Adams’ last recordings was America for Blue Note Records consisting of classic American songs like Tennessee Waltz, You Are My Sunshine and Take Me Out To The Ballgame as well as a few original songs that articulate his positive view of his country and the gifts it had given him. It also includes The Star Spangled Banner and America The Beautiful.
Tenor saxophonist, flautist and bass clarinetist George Adams, best known for his work with Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, Roy Haynes, and in the quartet he co-led with pianist Don Pullen, passed away on November 14, 1992 in New York City.
He was also known for his idiosyncratic singing he left for posterity two-dozen albums as a leader and another 25 as a sideman over the course of his sort career.
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