Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Idris Muhammad was born Leo Morris on November 13, 1939 In New Orleans, Louisiana. Learning to play drums in his youth, at fifteen he played on Fats Domino’s 1956 hit “Blueberry Hill” and by sixteen he turned professional, playing primarily soul and R&B during the early sixties. In 1965 he was a member of Lou Donaldson’s band, then went on to become the house drummer for Prestige Records from 1970-72.

As a sideman Idris would play with Johnny Griffin, Nat Adderley, George Benson, Paul Desmond, Pharoah Sanders, George Coleman and the Paris Reunion Band and record with Ahmad Jamal, Grant Green, Grover Washington, Jr., Hank Crawford, Benjamin Herman, Andrew Hill, Freddie Hubbard, Bobbi Humphrey, Gene Ammons, Rodney Jones and Houston Person among others.

Known for his funky playing style, as a leader he has recorded everything from post-bop to dance music for such labels as Prestige, Kudu, Fantasy, Theresa, and Lipstick. He changed his name in the 1960s upon his conversion to Islam and is endorsed by Istanbul Agop cymbals. Drummer Idris Muhammad continues to compose, record and perform.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Johnny Lytle was born John Dillard Lytle on October 13, 1932 in Springfield, Ohio, the son of a trumpeter father and an organist mother. He began playing the drums and piano at an early age. Before studying music in earnest, he was a boxer and was a successful Golden Gloves champion. During the late ’50s, Lytle continued to box, but landed jobs as a drummer for Ray Charles, Jimmy Witherspoon and Gene Ammons.

Switching from drums to vibraphone Johnny toured with organist Hiram “Boots” Johnson in 1955 and then formed his first group in 1957 with saxophonist Boots Johnson, organist Milton Harris and drummer William “Peppy” Hinnant. He so impressed Grammy winning producer Orrin Keepnews who signed him to his Jazzland label in 1960.

Known for his great hand speed and showmanship, Lytle was also a songwriter, penning many of his own hits, including “The Loop,” “The Man,” “Lela,” “Selim” (honoring Miles Davis), and the jazz classic “The Village Caller”. He recorded more than 30 albums for various jazz labels including Tuba, Jazzland, Solid State and Muse. Throughout his career he performed and recorded with a host of jazz greats including Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis, Nancy Wilson, Bobby Timmons and Roy Ayers.

Johnny never recorded with any of the major record labels fearing loss of control of his music and creative development, thus never gaining the status of a jazz icon like some of his peers, but finding success early in his career with chart-topping albums like A Groove, The Loop, and Moonchild. Nicknamed “Fast Hands,” he always kept an audience’s attention, was popular on the jazz circuit and built a respectable catalog of music with recordings in the ’70s,’80s and ’90s. Johnny toured throughout the U.S. and Europe, with his last performance one month before his passing on December 15, 1995 in his hometown of Springfield. The street where the vibraphonist and drummer used to live was renamed Johnny Lytle Avenue in his honor.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Yusef Lateef was born William Emanuel Huddleston on October 9, 1920 in Chattanooga, Tennessee and by the time he was five his family moved to Detroit. Throughout his early life Lateef came into contact with many Detroit-based jazz musicians who went on to gain prominence, including vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Elvin Jones and guitarist Kenny Burrell.

Proficient on saxophone by graduation from high school at the age of 18, he launched his professional career and began touring with a number of swing bands. In 1949, he was touring with Dizzy Gillespie and his orchestra. In 1950, Lateef returned to Detroit and began his studies in composition and flute at Wayne State University. It was during this period that he converted to Islam.

Lateef began recording as a leader in 1957 for Savoy Records overlapping with Prestige Records subsidiary label New Jazz, collaborating with Wilbur Harden and Hugh Lawson among others. By 1961, with the recording of Into Something and Eastern Sounds his dominant presence within a group context had emerged and his ‘Eastern’ influences are clearly audible in all of these recordings.

Along with trumpeter Don Cherry, Yusef can lay claim to being among the first exponents of the world music as sub-genres of jazz. He played on numerous albums, was a member of Cannonball Adderley’s Quintet during the early Sixties, was a major influence on John Coltrane, he began to incorporate contemporary soul and gospel phrasing into his music, founded his own label YAL Records and was commissioned by the WDR Radio Orchestra to compose the African American Epic Suite.

Lateef has written and published a number of books including two novellas and Yusef Lateef’s Flute Book of the Blues. He has received the Jazz Master Fellowship Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and has had aired a special-documentary program for Lateef, titled A Portrait of Saxophonist Yusef Lateef In His Own Words and Music. He has recorded nearly six-dozen records as both a leader and sideman and continued to compose, perform, record and tour until his transition at age 93 on December 23, 2013 in Shutesbury, Massachusetts.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Steve Swallow was born on October 4, 1940 in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. 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. In 1960 he left Yale, settled in New York City and played with Jimmy Giuffre’s trio with Paul Bley.

After joining Art Farmer’s quartet in 1964, Swallow began to write. It is in the 1960s that his long-term association with Gary Burton’s various bands began. The early 1970s saw him switch exclusively to electric bass guitar, preferring the 5-string.

Steve became an educator in 1974 for two years teaching at the Berklee School of Music. In ‘78 he became an essential and constant member of Carla Bley’s band, toured extensively with John Scofield in the early 1980s, has returned to this collaboration several times over the years.

Bassist Steve Swallow has consistently won the electric bass category in Down Beat magazine’s Critics and Readers yearly polls since the mid-80s. Having grown a catalogue of some five-dozen albums as a leader and sideman, he continues to compose, perform and record.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Tommy Potter was born Charles Thomas Potter in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 21, 1918. He began on the bass fairly late, originally playing piano and guitar and not switching to bass until he was already 21 in 1940. He played with John Hardee and Max Roach before joining Charlie Parker’s “classic quintet”, first playing with him in 1944, then John Malachi and Trummy Young before hitting with Billy Eckstine’s band fro ’44-45 with Dizzy Gillespie, Lucky Thompson and Art Blakey, and worked with Miles Davis between 1947 and 1950.

In the 1950s he remained in demand though never a major soloist himself on the level of an Oscar Pettiford, Potter was really an advanced swing stylist who was flexible and skilled enough to keep up with Parker’s rapid tempos.

Potter performed and recorded with such notable jazz musicians including Earl Hines, Artie Shaw, Bud Powell, Count Basie, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Max Roach, Eddie Heywood, Tyree Glenn, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Buck Clayton, Wardell Gray, Fats Navarro and Charles Lloyd.

After playing in a Charlie Parker memorial group in 1965, he gradually dropped out of music, becoming semi-retired and on March 1, 1988 double bassist Tommy Potter passed away.

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