Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Yervant Harry Babasin, Jr. was born on March 19, 1921 in Dallas, Texas to American/Armenian parents. He attended North Texas State University, one of many noted jazz alumni from the school. Among them were Jimmy Giuffre, with whom he played in Bill Ware’s orchestra around 1940, and Herb Ellis, who played with him in the Charlie Fisk Orchestra starting in 1942. Fisk actually fired his rhythm section after hearing Ellis and Babasin play, and after he was admitted, Babasin quit school to go on tour with Fisk.
He toured in the 1940s with Jimmy Joy, Bob Strong, Billie Rogers, Gene Krupa, Charlie Barnet, Boyd Raeburn, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Frank DeVol, and Jerry Gray. He also appeared in A Song Is Born, one of many jazz stars to play roles in the film. On the film set he met guitarist Laurindo Almeida, and the two began jamming together. Along with Roy Harte and Bud Shank their quartet was an early experiment blending Brazilian music and jazz. Their 1954 ten inch discs are predecessors to the bossa nova explosion of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
1947 saw him recording the first cello solos known in jazz music, with the Dodo Marmarosa Trio. In order to do so, he tuned his strings in fourths. In later cello ensembles he added a bass player. He and Oscar Pettiford did a session together with two cellos. In the mid-1950s, he put together his own ensemble, Harry Babasin & the Jazzpickers. This ensemble released three albums and played regularly at the Purple Onion in Hollywood, California. One recording of note was made in 1952 at the Tradewinds nightclub in Inglewood. It features Charlie Parker, Chet Baker, Sonny Criss, Al Haig, Larance Marable, and Harry, in one of Bird’s few West Coast appearances.
His career cooled in the 1960s, returning to work with Charlie Barnet and supporting Bob Hope’s USO tours. In the 1970s he and Harte initiated the Los Angeles Theaseum, a jazz archive and preservation society. Harry gave his last tour in 1985 with John Banister on piano. Over the course of his career he was possibly a part of as many as 1,500 recordings.
Bassist Harry Babasin, nicknamed The Bear, died of emphysema in Los Angeles, California on May 21, 1988.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jose Mangual Sr. was born on March 18, 1924 in Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico. He began playing percussion at the age of ten and by 1938 moved to New York at the age of 14. In 1952 he began playing timbales and percussion for Machito’s Orchestra.
In the 1950s Mangual played with the godfather of modern-day salsa Arsenio Rodriguez and with Latin jazz pioneer Cal Tjader. Then he joined Erroll Gardner’s band with whom he traveled the world, playing jazz for international audiences. During this time he performed and recorded with Cannonball Adderley, Sarah Vaughn, Herbie Mann. and appeared on Count Basie’s April in Paris, Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain, Dizzy Gillespie’s Talkin’ Verve, Tito Puente’s Babarabatiri, Willie Bobo’s Spanish Grease, Gato Barbieri’s Viva Emiliano Zapata, as well as on multiple Charlie Parker’s compilations.
He has also performed with Dexter Gordon, Carmen McRae, Jorge Dalto, Stan Getz, Louis Jordan, Ray Charles, Tito Rodriguez, Xavier Cugat, Tito Puente and Chano Pozo.
In the 1970s, Mangual recorded two instructional albums Buyú and José Mangual* & Carlos “Patato” Valdez* – Understanding Latin Rhythms Vol. 1 with Carlos “Patato” Valdez for the drum maker Latin Percussion.
In 1986 he co-wrote and recorded Los Mangual – Una Dinastia with his sons Jose, Jr. and Luis Mangual. In 2001 he was posthumously inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame.
Percussionist Jose Mangual Sr., world renowned for his bongo drum performances and recordings during the 1940s and 1950s, died on September 4, 1998 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mayuto Correa was born March 9, 1943 in São Gonçalo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and began playing in local bands from the age of twelve when he became a member of the big band Rapazes da Alvorada. At age 16 he formed the ensemble Samba Show with musicians from Niterói and made several recordings for the CBS label with them.
In the 1960s Correa was the artistic director of Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro where he wrote and directed several plays. During this time, he also made several recordings in Brazil and worked as the musical director for the shows of Maria Bethânia, Elza Soares, and Eliana Pittman as well as playing in Roberto Carlos’s ensemble RC-7 and performing in Chacrinha’s television shows.
Leaving Brazil for Mexico in 1969 he worked with the Brazilian bossa nova group Tamba 4 before moving to the United States. Establishing himself as a musician in Los Angeles, California in the early 1970s, Mayuto became a vital session player in hundreds of major and minor albums taped in the city by 1977.
Some of the artists he recorded with are Howard Roberts, Charles Lloyd, Nat Adderley, Cannonball Adderley, Cal Tjader, Miriam Makeba, Gábor Szabó, Gato Barbieri, Kenny Burrell, Moacir Santos, Donald Byrd, Henry Mancini, Jon Lucien, Freddie Hubbard, and Richard “Groove” Holmes, among numerous others.
During that period he toured with many of the artists and became the record producer for the Argentine group Arco Iris. He returned to Brazil in 1972 when he toured with Carlos Santana and again in 1979 when he appeared on the Rede Globo television show Sexta Super.
Among his compositions is the soundtrack for the 1979 documentary Homeboys depicting Chicano youth gang culture in East Los Angeles, California. In the later years of his career, Correa performed with his bands Mayuto & Genuises 2000, Mayuto & The Dream Team Big Band, and Mayuto & Samba Pack.
Mayuto Correa continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dom Minasi was born on March 6, 1943 in New York City, New York and was primarily self-taught, a natural musician. In his youth he backed singers and played his share of rock and roll, church dances and small jazz combo gigs beginning when he was fifteen.
While launching his professional career at a young age with Blue Note Records he took on numerous private students. In the mid-1970s, however, Blue Note was being sold and Minasi dropped out of the recording scene and over the next fifteen years he began freelancing, going back to school and occasionally performing with Dennis Moorman.
1993 saw Dom doing off-Broadway shows, writing hundreds of compositions and working with youth in the New York public school system. While doing all this he wrote several books on music disciplines, improvisation, theory and chord substitutions.
By the turn of the century he returned to producing compact discs for his independent label. He would go on to collaborate with a host of musicians and his improvisational excursions opened up a new audience.
Guitarist, composer, and music producer Dom Minasi, who recorded thirteen albums as a leader, died on August 1, 2023, at the age of 80.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mark Gross was born February 20, 1966 in Baltimore, Maryland and grew up listening to gospel in his childhood home. His interests in classical music led him to the Baltimore School for the Arts, then studied one semester at Howard University. He matriculated four years at Berklee College of Music, earning a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music Performance and upon graduation in 1988, Gross began his professional music career in jazz.
Gross has toured the world with the Mark Gross Quartet, Buster Williams, Philip Harper, Nat Adderley, Dave Holland, Mulgrew Miller, Nicholas Payton, Delfeayo Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Dizzy Gillespie, Nancy Wilson, Jimmy Heath, Dizzy Gillespie Alumni Big Band, Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Tom Harrell Big Band, Duke Ellington Orchestra, Cyrus Chestnut, Regina Carter, Stephon Harris, Walter Booker, Jimmy Cobb, Don Braden, Lenora Zenzalai Helm, among others.
He has performed several times on Broadway including Five Guys Named Moe, Shuffle Along and Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations. Mark first recorded as a solo act in 1997 with Preach Daddy, followed by his sophomore project in 2000 The Riddle of the Sphinx. In 2013 he recorded Blackside, Mark Gross + Strings five years later and the soon to be released The Gospel According to Mark: A Jazz Suite this year.
Alto saxophonist Mark Gross, who plays in the hard bop tradition, continues to perform, compose and tour.
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