Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Stu Williamson was born on May 14, 1933 in Brattleboro, Vermont and is the younger brother of jazz pianist Claude Williamson. The trumpeter relocated to Los Angeles in 1949 and became a regular on the West Coast scene. He played with Woody Herman, Mel Lewis-Pepper Adams Quintet, Elmo Hope, Lennie Niehaus, Billy May and Charlie Barnet the first half of the Fifties.
Williamson played a significant role in Stan Kenton’s Orchestra, Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse Café All-Stars and Terry Gibbs’s Dream Band. Between 1954 and 1958 Williamson played intermittently with Shelly Manne and was a ubiquitous session player up until 1968.
Although he had a beautiful, rich, round tone and his ability to create melodic solos full of invention, power and clarity gave him the opportunity to front small groups and big bands. Disappearing from the jazz scene after battling drug addiction for much of his life, including for years after he left the music. Trumpeter Stu Williamson passed away on October 1, 1991 in Studio City, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
William “Red” Garland was born in Dallas, Texas on May 13, 1923. Showing an early interest in music, he began his musical studies on the clarinet and alto saxophone but switched to the piano. Garland spent copious amounts of time practicing and rapidly developed into a proficient player. A short early career as a welterweight boxer did not seem to hurt his playing hands and he fought a young Sugar Ray Robinson before making the switch to a full-time musician.
Garland’s trademark block chord technique, a style that would influence many forthcoming pianists in the jazz idiom and a commonly borrowed maneuver in jazz piano today, was unique and differed from the methods of earlier block chord pioneers such as George Shearing and Milt Buckner. His block chords were constructed of three notes in the right hand and four notes in the left hand, with the right hand one octave above the left. The right hand played the melody in octaves with a perfect 5th placed in the middle of the octave.
After WWII he performed with Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker and Lester Young. He found steady work in Boston, New York and Philadelphia and by the late 40s he was touring with Eddie Vinson at the same time that John Coltrane was in Vinson’s band. His creativity and playing ability continued to improve, though he was still somewhat obscure. By the time he became a pianist for Miles Davis he was influenced by Ahmad Jamal and Charlie Parker’s pianist Walter Bishop.
Red Garland found fame in 1955 when he joined the Miles Davis Quintet along with John Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones and Paul Chambers and together they recorded several Prestige albums such as Workin’, Steamin’ Cookin’ and Relaxin’, that would later influence the free jazz movement. He would go on to play on ‘Round About Midnight and Milestones but would be eventually be fired by Miles.
In 1958 Garland formed his own trio. Among the musicians the trio recorded with Pepper Adams, Nat Adderley, Ray Barretto, Kenny Burrell, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Jimmy Heath, Harold Land, Leroy Vinnegar and many others to numerous to list.
Red released some 46 albums as a leader, recording sessions for Prestige, Fantasy, Galaxy, Jazzland, Keystone, Xanadu, Alfa, Moodsville and New Jazz record labels. He sat in as a sideman for such greats as Arnett Cobb, Art Pepper, John Coltrane and Phil Woods.
Stopping his playing professionally for a number of years in the 1960s when jazz lost popularity to rock and roll, he returned to Dallas to care for his mother. Pianist Red Garland recorded sparsely through the 70s but continued recording and performing until his death of a heart attack on April 23, 1984 at the age of 61.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mickey Bass was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on May 2, 1943. By the time he was nine years old he had just about every record that ‘Bird’ ever cut, not to mention living in an atmosphere that was permeated by ‘Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday and Miles Davis.
1961 saw Bass matriculating through Howard University in an atmosphere hostile to jazz, failing along with classmates Harold Vick, Marion Brown and Charles Tolliver, due to the playing of jazz being forbidden on campus. Two years later he landed in New York City, getting his early breaks with Hank Mobley, Sonny Rollins and Bennie Green. His first session was with Lee Morgan on The Sixth Sense that included on of his compositions and arrangements of “Mickey’s Tune”.
As an educator from 1975 to 1978, Mickey taught Acoustic Bass & Jazz Improvisation at “The Ellington School of The Arts”, Washington, D.C. and Director of the Jazz Ensemble. He also taught in New York City for the Jazzmobile.
He has performed and recorded with John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Freddie Hubbard, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Jackie McLean, Bobby Timmons, Gloria Lynne, Jimmy McGriff, Curtis Fuller, Hank Mobley, Billy Eckstine, Reuben Wilson, Chico Freeman and John Hicks among others. He led a sextet called The Cooperation, composed A Chant Blu, One For Trane, Meditation, Gayle’s Groove and Siempre Me Amor, and has cut three sessions as a leader for Chiaroscuro and Early Bird labels.
Hard bop bassist Mickey Bass, who was also an arranger and educator who also plays saxophone and has been active on the jazz scene for more than 40 years, continued to perform, compose and record until his transition on February 3, 2022.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Freddie Douglas Waits was born on April 27, 1943 in Jackson, Mississippi. He played flute early on and majored in flute in at Jackson Street College but soon turned to drums as a profession. His earliest gigs were with blues artists including Memphis Slim and John Lee Hooker followed by performing soul music.
By 1962 Waits was in Detroit playing with the Jimmy Wilkins Orchestra, then the Johnny Winter band. A move to Los Angeles put him with the Gerald Wilson Orchestra before relocating to New York in the mid-‘60s. This period began some of his most important musical collaborations with Sonny Rollins, Andrew Hill, McCoy Tyner, Lee Morgan, Pharoah Sanders, Gene Harris and Max Roach.
Freddie was a founding member of M’Boom, the group Colloquim and during the Eighties played with Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor. A respected sideman, he never led a recording session. However, he left a legacy of music along with his son, drummer Nasheet Waits.
Hard bop and post-bop drummer Freddie Waits passed away on November 18, 1989 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charles Mingus Jr. was born on April 22, 1922 in Nogales, Arizona of Chinese, English, African and Swedish heritage. His mother allowed only church-related music in their home, but Mingus developed an early love for jazz, especially the music of Duke Ellington. He first studied trombone, later adding cello, which prepared him for the double bass in high school. He studied five years with H. Rheinshagen, principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic and compositional techniques with Lloyd Reese.
Beginning in his teen years, Mingus was writing quite advanced pieces incorporating elements of classical music. A number of them were recorded in 1960 with conductor Gunther Schuller and released as “Pre-Bird”, referring to Charlie “Bird” Parker. Mingus was one of many musicians whose perspectives on music were altered by Parker into “pre- and post-Bird” eras.
Gaining a reputation as a bass prodigy, his first major professional job was playing with former Ellington clarinetist Barney Bigard. This followed by a tour with Louis Armstrong in 1943 that led to his recording in a band led by Russell Jacquet that included Teddy Edwards and Chico Hamilton. He went onto record with Howard McGhee and into the late ‘40s played with Lionel Hampton’s band performing several of his pieces.
A popular Mingus trio had Red Norvo and Tal Farlow in tow in the early 50s with considerable acclaim but his mixed heritage caused problems with club owners and he left the group. Charles was briefly a member of Ellington’s band until his temper got him fired. He went on to record and play with Max Roach, Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Pepper Adams, Jaki Byard, Horace Parlan, Booker Ervin, John Handy, Charles McPherson, Eric Dolphy and Johnny Coles among others through the Sixties and into the next decade. By the mid-1970s, Mingus was suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease that eventually stopped his playing, leaving him to continue composing and supervising recordings prior to his death on January 5, 1979 at age 56 in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
Composer, bandleader, bassist and civil rights activist Charles Mingus left a legacy of an autobiography, Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty, Mingus Orchestra, the Charles Mingus High School Competition, the catalogue of Mingus compositions in the Music Division of the New York Public Library and the collected papers of Charles Mingus housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
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