Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Don Grolnick was born on September 23, 1947 in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Levittown, New York. Musical life for him started on accordion but later he switched to piano. A childhood Count Basie concert sparked his interest in jazz and soon after they also saw Erroll Garner perform at Carnegie Hall. Attending Tufts University he opted for a major in philosophy rather than music.
After he left Tufts, he formed the jazz-rock band Fire & Ice with guitarist Ken Melville and bassist Stuart Schulman, his friend since childhood. They opened for B.B. King, The Jeff Beck Group, and the Velvet Underground at Boston clubs like the Boston Tea Party and The Ark. This was Grolnick’s first foray into rock and blues as a performer, and began writing within the medium.
Moving back to New York City in 1969 he joined Melville in the jazz fusion band “D”. Pianist Don Grolnick passed away at the age of 48 on June 1, 1996 from non-hodgkin lymphoma.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Phillip Sanford Wilson was born on September 8, 1941 in St. Louis, Missouri and was a third-generation musician. His grandfather, Ira Kimball, was a riverboat percussionist on the Mississippi to New Orleans.
His recording debut was with Sam Lazar, noted for having one of the first interracial bands in the St. Louis area. After moving to Chicago, Illinois he became a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and performed with the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
He joined up with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1967 at a time when the band membership changed greatly, including an added horn section. He recorded three albums with the group. Wilson’s song Love March, written with Gene Dinwiddie, was performed at Woodstock and released in 1970 on the live album from the festival.
Wilson, along with Dinwiddie and fellow former Butterfield Band member Buzz Feiten, formed the jazz-rock band Full Moon in the early 1970s. They recorded a self-titled album which is considered one of the finest early examples of jazz fusion. He was part of the loft jazz scene in 1970s New York City, worked as a session musician for Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee and with Jimi Hendrix at the Cafe Au Go Go and Generation Club in 1968. They recorded with The Last Poets, Fontella Bass, Olu Dara, David Murray, Anthony Braxton, and Carla Bley. He worked extensively with Lester Bowie. In 1985, along with Bill Laswell co-produced the album Down by Law under the group name Deadline.
He recorded four albums as a leader and as a sideman recorded twenty-one albums with Hamiet Bluiett, Lester Bowie, Anthony Braxton, Paul Butterfield, Julius Hemphill, Sam Lazar, Frank Lowe, Roscoe Mitchell, and David Murray.
Drummer Phillip Wilson, while pursuing his musical career, was stalked and murdered in New York City on March 25, 1992. As a result of America’s Most Wanted television program, Marvin Slater was convicted for premeditated murder in 1997 and sentenced to 33 1/3 years in state prison. The reason for his murder has never been revealed.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Phillip Robert Lee was born on April 8, 1943 in London, England and studied guitar with Ike Isaacs as a teenager. He was a member of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, including their performance in the 1960 Antibes Jazz Festival. By the 1960s he was playing with John Williams and Graham Collier, was resident at Ronnie Scott’s Old Place, and in a band that included Bob Stuckey, Dudu Pukwana, and John Marshall.
During the 1970s, he played in jazz-rock bands such as Gilgamesh and Axel with Tony Coe and with Michael Garrick, Henry Lowther, and John Stevens. He recorded Twice Upon a Time in 1987 with Jeff Clyne.
Later in his career, he worked with Gordon Beck, Andres Boiarsky, Benny Goodman, Lena Horne, Marian Montgomery, Annie Ross, Dardanelle, Harry Edison, Ken Peplowski, Eddie Daniels, Jimmy Smith and the London Jazz Orchestra.
Phil Lee began playing jazz in the 1960s and. Since then he has recorded and appeared live with a vast range of musicians. including Pat Smythe, Duncan Lamont, Norma Winstone, Michael Garrick, Jimmy Hastings and Martin Speake. Phil has toured with Charles Aznavour, Michel Legrand, Gordon Beck and recently Jessye Norman.
In the 1970s he was a member of the fusion band Gilgamesh. His musicianship is held in high regard not only by fellow jazz players but also by musicians in other genres. His film credits include brief appearances in Eyes Wide Shut and Alan Plater’s TV film Misterioso and his playing featured in The Last of the Blonde Bombshells. Guitarist Phil Lee continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Raul Pineda was born on November 5, 1971 in Havana, Cuba. As a young boy, he scoured his neighborhood for anything that could be used to create drums. He used metal rods driven into the ground to support used cooking oil cans, and formed drumsticks from the branches of orange trees. He was influenced by the local rumbero street bands, and at the urging of his musician grandfather, Nefer Miguel Milanés, he went on to study classical percussion for several years. He then immersed himself in Afro-Cuban music.
By 19, Raul was performing and recording with some of the leading Cuban ensembles and bandleaders, including Sentisis, and pianist Chucho Valdés. Over the next several years, international tours and Grammy-nominated recordings brought Raul to the music world’s attention as one of Cuba’s most influential young drummers. He blends a drum kit with percussion instruments, such as, the left foot cowbell.
Staying busy playing and recording with several bands and artists, since 2000, he has been playing with the Afro-Cuban-jazz-funk-rock band TIZER and with Latin superstar Juan Gabriel. Between the two bands he will have toured Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Dubai, Barbados, Aruba, Santiago de Chile, South Africa, Russia and South Korea.
Drummer Raul Pineda has garnered three Grammy nominations and a 2000 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance with the Chucho Valdés Quartet album, Live at the Village Vanguard. He continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Richard Edwin Morrissey was born May 9, 1940 in Horley, England. Better known to the world as Dick Morrissey, he was self-taught and started playing clarinet in his school band, The Delta City Jazzmen, at the age of sixteen with fellow pupils Robin Mayhew, Eric Archer, Steve Pennells, Glyn Greenfield and young brother Chris on tea-chest bass. He then joined the Original Climax Jazz Band. This stint he followed with becoming a member of the Gus Galbraith Septet and was introduced to Charlie Parker by alto-sax player Peter King. This prompted him to begin specializing on tenor saxophone.
Making his name as a hard bop player, Dick appeared regularly at the Marquee Club in 1960 and recorded his first solo album for Fantana Records It’s Morrissey, Man! the next year at the age of 21. It featured pianist Stan Jones, drummer Colin Barnes, and The Jazz Couriers founding member bassist Malcolm Cecil.
Spending most of 1962 in Calcutta, India as part of the Ashley Kozak Quartet, he played three 2-hour sessions seven days a week. Returning to the UK Dick formed a quartet with Harry Smith, Phil Bates, Bill Eyden, Jackie Dougan or Phil Seamen. They recorded three albums between 1963 and 1966,played regular gigs at The Bull’s Head and Ronnie Scott’s, and played with Ian Hamer, South and
During this time he also played extensively in bands led by Ian Hamer and Harry South, The Six Sounds, performed briefly with Ted Heath’s Big Band, John Dankworth and his Orchestra, was a part of Eric Burdon and The Animals Big Band with Stan Robinson, Al Gay, Paul Carroll, Ian Carr, Kenny Wheeler and Greg Brown.
He would go on to tour and/or record with visiting musicians Brother Jack McDuff, Jimmy Witherspoon, J. J. Jackson, Sonny Stitt and Ernest Ranglin. He would win many Melody Maker Jazz Polls, toured and recorded with Average White Band, team up with guitarist Jim Mullen of Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express and released seven albums of their 16-year association.
Throughout his career as a leader of his own combos, Morrissey he was an in-demand musician playing with Tubby hayes, Bill LeSage, Roy Budd, Charlie Watts, Georgie Fame, Anie Ross, Dusty Springfield, Paul McCartney, Freddie Mack, Orange Juice, Herbie Mann, Shakatak, Peter Gabriel, David Fathead Newman, Boz Scaggs, Johnny Griffin, David Sanborn, Steve Gadd, Richard Tee, Billy Cobham, The Brecker Brothers, Sonny Fortune, Teddy Edwards and the list of players goes on and on. He is known for playing the haunting saxophone solo on the Vangelis composition Love Theme for the 1982 film Blade Runner.
Tenor saxophonist Dick Morrissey, who also played soprano saxophone and flute, passed away on November 8, 2000, aged 60, in Kent, England after many years battling various forms of cancer.
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