Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Charlie Shoemake was born on July 27, 1937, in Houston, Texas to music loving parents who began him on piano at age six. Excelling in both baseball and music by high school graduation he was also playing vibes and had attracted the attention of the St. Louis Cardinals. He went on to Southern Methodist University to study music and play baseball. But it was during his first year he realized to be good he had to choose one and that choice was music.

In 1956 he moved to Los Angeles and embarked on an extensive study of the concepts of his idols, Charlie Parker and Bud Powell along with other greats Fats Navarro, Kenny Dorham, Clifford Brown, Hank Mobley, Sonny Stitt, Phil Woods, Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Sonny Clark. During this period informal harmony studies with pianist Jimmy Rowles were very invaluable. But with the onset of rock and roll, the jazz scene began to dry up and he was forced to do studio work, commercials and accompanying vocalists to make ends meet.

Returning to the vibraphone in the Sixties and with the aid of Victor Feldman, Charlie was back in the jazz circles playing for composers Quincy Jones and Lalo Schifrin. It was 1966 that a stop by Shelly’s Manne Hole that he was offered and took a five week tour with the George Shearing Quintet that turned into a 7 year relationship. This tenure saw him playing with the likes of Andy Simpkins, Stix Hooper, Harvey Mason, Joe Pass, Pat Martino and others.

By 1973 Shoemake opened a successful jazz improvisation school in Los Angeles and by 1990 he had taught and guided over 1500 people, most notably saxophonists Ted Nash and Tim Armacost, trombonist Andy Martin and even smooth jazz artists Dave Koz and Richard Elliot.

Closing his studio in 1990, he moved north to Cambria with the idea of having a quiet home base and touring around the world. But with no jazz in town, he approached a restaurateur to bring in jazz and today The Hamlet performs some thirty concerts a year and he appears with every major jazz musician stopping through from the East coast and Europe. Vibraphonist Charlie Shoemake is currently the Director of the Central Coast Jazz Institute.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Herman “Junior” Cook was born on July 22, 1934 in Pensacola, Florida. After playing with Dizzy Gillespie in 1958, Cook gained some fame for his longtime membership in the Horace Silver Quintet until 1964. He went on to play with band mate Blue Mitchell until ’69.

Through his association with Mitchell he would play alongside Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, George Coleman, Louis Hayes, Bill Hardman, McCoy Tyner, Bertha Hope and Horace Silver to name a few. In addition to many appearances as a sideman in which he contributed his talents on more than three-dozen sessions, Cook recorded as a leader for Jazzland, Affinity, Catalyst, Muse, and Steeplechase.

As an educator, he taught at Berklee School of Music during the 1970s and by the early 1990s he was playing with Clifford Jordan and also leading his own group. Junior Cook, the tenor saxophonist who played in the hard bop style, died in his New York City apartment on February 3, 1992.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Plas John Johnson Jr. was born on July 21, 1931 in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. Along with his pianist brother Ray, he first recorded as the Johnson Brothers in New Orleans in the late 1940s. He then toured with R&B singer Charles Brown and after military service moved to Los Angeles and began session recordings as a full-time musician. There he backed artists such as B. B. King and Johnny Otis as well as scores of other R&B performers.

An early supporter was Maxwell Davis, who hired him to take over his own parts so that he could concentrate on producing sessions for the Modern record label. Recruited by Capitol Records in the mid-1950s, Johnson also played on innumerable records by Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and others.

For the next twenty years Plas remained a leading session player averaging two sessions a day and playing everything from movie soundtracks to rock and roll singles, by such artists as Ricky Nelson, Bobby Vee, the Beach Boys and a number of instrumental groups.

By 1963, Johnson soloed for the television series The Odd Couple’s theme, recorded Ella Fitzgerald’s Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer Songbooks; and worked with Motown playing with the likes of Marvin Gaye and The Supremes.

In 1970, Johnson joined the studio band of the Merv Griffin Show while playing with a number of jazz and swing bands of the period. The soul-jazz and hard bop tenor saxophonist is probably most widely known for his solo on Henry Mancini’s “The Pink Panther Theme”. He continues to record and perform, particularly at jazz festivals.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Henry (Hank) Mobley was born on July 7, 1930 in Eastman, Georgia but was raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Early in his career, he worked with Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach, and then took part in one of the landmark hard bop sessions, alongside Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Doug Watkins and Kenny Dorham, resulting in the release of Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers and the Jazz Messengers. When they split in ’56, Hank and Silver continued their collaboration in the 50s.

During the 1960s, he worked chiefly as a leader, recording over 20 albums for Blue Note Records between 1955 and 1970 and playing many of the most important hard bop players such as Grant Green, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Clark, Wynton Kelly and Philly Joe Jones, along with a particularly productive partnership with Lee Morgan. He spent a brief time with Miles Davis in 1961 replacing John Coltrane.

Hank was a major voice on tenor saxophone, known for his melodic playing, is widely recognized as one of the great composers of originals in the hard-bop era, with interesting chord changes and room for soloists to stretch out.

He was forced to retire in the mid-1970s due to lung problems and although he worked two engagements at the Angry Squire in New York City in ‘85 and ‘86 in a quartet with Duke Jordan. He recorded as a leader for Blue Note, Prestige and Savoy record labels leaving history thirty-two albums and another fifty-six sitting in the sideman seat.

A few months later tenor saxophonist and composer Hank Mobley, who soared in the hard bop and soul jazz genres with his laid-back, subtle and melodic delivery, passed away from pneumonia on May 30, 1986.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Richard Wyands was born July 2, 1928 in Oakland, California and started working in local clubs when he was 16, graduated from San Francisco State College, and gained experience playing in the San Francisco Bay area.

Although his chordal voicings are a little reminiscent of Red Garland, he spent most of his career as a sideman playing a few early dates for Fantasy and accompanying Ella Fitzgerald and Carmen McRae in 1956. A move to New York in 1958 afforded him the opportunity to gig with Roy Haynes, Charles Mingus, Gigi Gryce’s quintet, Oliver Nelson, Etta Jones, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, and Gene Ammons, among others.

Wyands’ association with Kenny Burrell had him playing and touring extensively from 1964-1977. He has played with many other top musicians, including Freddie Hubbard, Zoot Sims, Frank Foster, the Illinois Jacquet Big Band, Benny Carter, Ernie Andrews, and Milt Hinton, among others.

Pianist Richard Wyands has also headed his own trios, but has only had a handful of sessions as a leader including dates for Storyville, DIW and Criss Cross. The hard bop pianist is best known as a sideman, has led a few of his own trios and continues to perform and tour.

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