Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Melvin Rhyne was born on October 12, 1936 in Indianapolis, Indiana and started playing the piano shortly thereafter. By the time he turned 19 he was playing piano with then-unknown tenor saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk but quickly switched to the Hammond B3 organ. His skills as a pianist fluidly translated to the organ fluently and he soon became a sideman for B.B. King and T-Bone Walker.
Melvin’s big break came in 1959 when he joined fellow Indianapolis jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery’s newly formed trio. Playing with Montgomery for five years, he recorded four sessions with the trio: Guitar on the Go, Round Midnight, Boss Guitar, and Portrait of Wes.
After the Montgomery years, Rhyne moved to Wisconsin and largely kept to himself for the next two decades. However, in 1991 Rhyne returned to the jazz scene in full force, playing on Herb Ellis’ album Roll Call, with Brian Lynch on At the Main Event, and his own comeback The Legend. Rhyne continued to be prolific in the years to come, releasing eight more solo albums for the Criss Cross jazz label.
In 2008 Rhyne teamed up with Rob Dixon forming the Dixon-Rhyne Project, a boundary-pushing jazz quartet and released Reinvention for Owl Studios in 2008. Melvin continues to perform live and record with his trio consisting of drummer Kenny Washington and guitarist Peter Bernstein. On March 5, 2013 hard bop organist, bandleader and composer Melvin Rhyne passed away in his hometown of Indianapolis at age 76.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Red Rodney was born Robert Roland Chudnick on September 27, 1927 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He became a professional musician at age 15 working in the mid-Forties Jerry Wald, Jimmy Dorsey, George Auld, Benny Goodman and Les Brown. Inspired by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker he turned to bebop and began playing with Claude Thornhill, Gene Krupa and Woody Herman.
Red joined Parker’s quintet in 1949 and was billed as Albino Red when playing in the racially segregated South. Leaving Parker he moved to join Charlie Ventura. Recording extensively over the next ten years he left jazz in 1958 due to diminishing opportunities, lack of acceptance as a white bebop trumpeter, and problems with the police about his drug addiction.
He continued to work in other musical fields and although he continued to be paid well, he supported his drug habit through theft and fraud, eventually spending 27 months in prison. In the early 1970s he was bankrupted by medical costs following a stroke and returned to jazz.
From 1980 to 1982, Rodney made five highly regarded albums with multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan, worked with The Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, provided an early showcase for saxophonist Chris Potter, a member of his working group when Rodney recorded “Red Alert” in late 1990. Bebop and hard bop trumpeter Red Rodney passed away on May 27, 1994.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wayne Henderson was born on September 24, 1939 in Houston, Texas. While studying piano at Texas Southern University the trombonist met Joe Sample and along with several became a part of the Swingsters that became the Modern Jazz Sextet and then the Jazz Crusaders in emulation of one of the leading progressive jazz bands of the day, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.
The soul-jazz and hard bop trombonist and record producer is a very fluent technician who exhibits the influence of lesser apt, yet significant trombonists such as Kid Ory and Jack Teagarden. One can hear his Texas roots in his performances.
He left The Crusaders in 1975 to pursue a career in producing, but revived The Jazz Crusaders in 1995, however, some of his best work is on the mid-1970s Crusaders double album Southern Comfort. Since 2007, he has held a position with the California College of Music in Pasadena, California. Trombonist Wayne Henderson passed away from heart failure on April 5, 2014 at the age of 74 in Culver City, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Earl Clay was born on Sept. 8, 1935 in Dallas, Texas. While in school Clay played alto saxophone, became a professional musician, and played with Booker Ervin and other local Dallas bands. An early associate of Ornette Coleman, he also played with Don Cherry and David “Fathead” Newman.
He later went to California where he played in 1957 in Red Mitchell’s quartet and on recordings with Lawrence Marable but by the end of the year was back in Dallas. Clay served in the Army in 1959.
As a leader he recorded for the Antilles, Jazz West, Fresh Sounds, Polygram and OJC record labels. Jazz flautist, tenor and alto saxophonist James Clay, known for his appealing tone and bop style passed away in Dallas on January 1, 1994.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Benny Bailey was born Ernest Harold Bailey on August 13, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio. Having some training in piano and flute in his youth, he switched to trumpet, concentrating on the instrument while at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He was influenced by his hometown colleague, Tadd Dameron, seven years his elder, and subsequently had a significant influence on other prominent Cleveland musicians including Bill Hardman, Bobby Few, Albert Ayler, Frank Wright and Bob Cunningham.
In the early 1940s he worked with Bull Moose Jackson and Scatman Crothers. He later worked with Dizzy Gillespie, toured with Lionel Hampton and while on the European tour with Hampton, decided to stay and spend time in Sweden. This Swedish period saw him working with Harry Arnold’s big band. His preference for big bands over small groups associated him with several European big bands including the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band.
For a while her worked with Quincy Jones returning to the States briefly in 1960. During this time, he worked with Tony “Big T” Lovano and recorded with Freddie Redd’s sextet invited to the studio as part of Freddie Redd’s sextet on the Blue Note Records album Redd’s Blues. Shortly thereafter, he returned to Europe first to Germany, and later to the Netherlands where he would settle permanently.
In 1969 he played on the Eddie Harris/Les McCann project Swiss Movement, recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival that included a memorable unrehearsed solo on “Compared To What”. Then in 1988 he worked with British clarinetist Tony Coe and kept producing albums until 2000 when he was in his mid-70s. He recorded 18 albums as a leader and another half-dozen as a sideman working with such luminaries as Eric Dolphy, Benny Golson, Randy Weston and Jimmy Witherspoon. Bebop and hard bop trumpeter Benny Bailey died at home in Amsterdam on April 14, 2005.
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