Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chano Pozo was born Luciano Pozo Gonales was born in Havana, Cuba on January 7, 1915 and Chano showed an early interest in drumming, gaining his musical background performing ably in Afro-Cuban religious ceremonies in which drumming was a key element.
Growing up in poverty in the foul and dangerous area of El Africa solar where even the police feared to tread, By 13 he was in reformatory learning to read and write, study auto repair and hone his already exceptional drumming skill. Upon his release and during a series of lackluster jobs he composed music. His reputation grew among the people each year for the compositions he wrote for carnival and he quickly became the most sought after rumbero in Cuba.
At the beginning of 1947 Pozo moved to New York City with the encouragement of Miguelito Valdes with who he recorded along with Arsenio Rodriguez, Carlos Vidal Bolado and Jose Mangual. By September he was a featured performer with Dizzy Gillespie’s Big Band at Carnegie Hall and subsequently on a European tour. Their most notable material was ‘Cubana Be, Cubana Bop, Tin Tin Deo and Manteca, the latter two co-written by Pozo.
A conguero, percussionist, singer, dancer and composer, Chano became one of the founding fathers of Latin jazz, which was essentially a blend of bebop and Cuban folk music. Chano Pozo, a hot-tempered Cuban, was killed in a Harlem bar, a little more than a month shy of his 34th birthday on December 2, 1948.
Chano Pozo: 1915-1948 / Drums, Percussion
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Palmieri was born of Puerto Rican parentage on December 15, 1936 in Bronx, New York and when he was only 8 years old, he would musically accompany his older brother Charlie and together they entered and participated in many talent contests
Palmieri continued his education in the city’s public school system where he was constantly exposed to music, specifically jazz. He took piano lessons and performed at Carnegie Hall when he was 11 years old. Influenced by Thelonious Monk and McCoy Tyner and inspired by his brother he formed his own band in 1950 at age 14.
In 1961, Palmieri formed the band Conjunto La Perfecta, featuring legendary singer Ismael Quintana and replaced the traditional violins with trombones to create a more robust sound by including a touch of jazz in his recordings and incorporating a popular Cuban rhythm known as Mozambique.
Eddie disbanded the band in 1968 but three years later was recording with his brother and in 1974 was the first Latin musician to win a Grammy Award for Best Latin Recording with The Sun of Latin Music. Through the Eighties he continued performing and recording, winning two Grammys for his Palo Pa Rumba and Solito albums.
In the 1990s Palmieri was part of various concerts and recordings with the Fania All-Stars and the Tico All-Stars; he introduced La India with the production of Llego La India via Eddie Palmieri released in 1992. In 2000, Palmieri announced his retirement from the world of music. He recorded Masterpiece with Tito Puente, won 2 Grammys and was also named the “Outstanding Producer of the Year” by the National Foundation of Popular Culture. Palmieri has won a total of 9 Grammy Awards in his career, most recently for his 2006 album with Brian Lynch – Simpatico.
Palmieri teamed up with longtime trumpeter and band member Brian Lynch, has worked with Phil Woods, Lila Downs, Donald Harrison, Conrad Herwig, Gregory Tardy, Edsel Gomez and Rubén Rodríguez among others. With more than three-dozen albums to his credit he continues to perform and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gato Barbieri was born Leandro Barbieri on November 28, 1932 in Rosario, Santa Fe Province, Argentina into a family of musicians. He began playing music after hearing Charlie Parker’s “Now’s the Time”, first playing the clarinet and later the alto saxophone while performing with his fellow countryman pianist Lalo Schifrin in the late 1950s.
By the early 1960s in Europe he worked with Don Cherry, became influenced by John Coltrane’s later recordings as well as free jazz saxophonists Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders. He developed a warm and gritty sound that became Gato’s trademark and by the late Sixties began fusing music from South America and contributed to Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra and Carla Bley’s Escalator Over The Hill.
Barbieri earned a Grammy for the score of Last Tango In Paris, which led to a recording deal with Impulse Records. By the mid-70s, he was recording for A&M Records and moved his music towards soul-jazz and jazz-pop with albums like “Caliente!” and “Ruby Ruby”. As a leader he has recorded some thirty albums and as a sideman has played and recorded another nine with Dollar Brand, Gary Burton, the Jazz Composers Orchestra among others. The saxophonist has received the UNICEF Award and continued to compose, perform and record until his passing on April 2, 2016 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jay Hoggard was born September 24, 1954 in Washington, D.C. but grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. His mother taught him how to play piano at a young age and picked up the saxophone long before age 15 when he started playing the vibraphone. He played with Anthony Davis and Leo Smith in the early 1970s around New England.
After moving to New York City in 1988 Jay worked again with Davis and with Chico Freeman, Sam Rivers, Cecil Taylor, James Newton and Kenny Burrell. He would go on to collaborate and perform over the next few decades with Lionel Hampton, Milt Jackson, Tito Puente, Bobby Hutcherson, Billy Taylor, James Newton, Hilton Ruiz and Oliver Lake.
An international performer Hoggard has played on stages and jazz festivals in Africa, South America, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean and throughout the United States as well as appearing on television. Since 1978 he has recorded more than a dozen and a half sessions as a leader and many dates as a sideman. Vibraphonist Jay Hoggard currently teaches at his alma mater Wesleyan University.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Oscar Perez was born on August 21, 1974 in Queens, New York City and from the age of seven he has been expressing himself on a piano. Raised on his father’s Cuban folk music, his piano lessons and playing in the church band made his commitment to the music his life before the ninth grade. Attending LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts, jazz would take him on his musical and personal journey.
He studied with Robert Harris of Juilliard and Edgar Roberts of New York University before matriculating through the University of North Florida. Under the American Music Scholarship, he studied with jazz pianists Harry Pickens and Kevin Bales, and it was here that he began composing for small group and big band. He went on to study with Danilo Perez at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts, weekend gigging in New York City, and a Master’s Degree at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College in New York under the guidance of Sir Roland Hanna. While studying composition and arranging with Phillip Michael Mossman, he got many writing and arranging opportunities.
By his early twenties he was sharing the stage with Bunky Green, George Russell, Curtis Fuller and George Garzone and has played with Wycliffe Gordon, Christian McBride, Eddie Allen, Mike Lee, Steve Turre, Dave Stryker, Melissa Walker, Phoebe Snow and Charenee Wade. With saxophonist Adrian Cunningham he recorded Professor Cunningham And His Old School.
He was appointed music director for St Edward’s Church in Harlem, and the accompanist for the Nightingale/Bamford Gospel Choir. He recorded his debut CD Nuevo Comienzo in 2016 with his quintet, Afropean Affair, featuring guest artists trombonist Wycliffe Gordon and guitarist Peter Bernstein.
As an educator and performer he has taught and played at the Kupferberg Center at Queens College, the Juilliard School, Jazz Connections Camp at Montclair St. University, Carnegie Hall, the New York Pops, JazzHouse Kids and Jazz at Lincoln Center. He received the 2006 ASCAP/IAJE Commission in honor of Billy Strayhorn and premiered the work at the 2007 International Association of Jazz Education Convention. He was a finalist in the 2014 Jacksonville Jazz Piano Competition. Pianist Oscar Perez continues to compose, perform and record.
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