Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Regina Carter was born on August 6, 1966 in Detroit, Michigan and is the cousin of jazz saxophonist James Carter. She began piano lessons at the age of two after playing a melody by ear for her brother’s piano teacher. After deliberately playing the wrong ending note at a concert, the piano teacher suggested she take up the violin, was enrolled at the Detroit Community Music School when she was four years old and she began studying the violin, piano, tap and ballet.
As a teenager, she played in the youth division of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and took master class with Itzhak Perlman and Yehudi Menuhin. Carter attended Cass Technical High School with jazz vocalist Carla Cook who introduced her to Ella Fitzgerald. She also played with the Detroit Civic Orchestra and the group Brainstorm.
She went on to study at the New England Conservatory of Music, switched to jazz, transferred to Oakland University, studied with Marcus Belgrave, in addition to taking viola, oboe and choir lessons. After graduating, she taught strings in Detroit public schools, moved to Europe and spent two years in Germany making connections, working as a nanny and teaching violin on a U.S. military base.
In 1987 Carter came to prominence in the all female pop-jazz quintet Straight Ahead. After three albums she went solo and moved to New York City working with Aretha Franklin, Lauryn Hill, Mary J. Blige, Billy Joel, Dolly Parton, Max Roach, and Oliver Lake and became a member of the String Trio of New York. She released her debut self-titled album in 1995 and has since followed up with a series of acclaimed recordings.
Regina is an active educator and mentor, has taught at numerous institutions, including Berklee College of Music and Stanford Jazz Workshop among others. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellows grant, has created her own violin voice and currently leads a quintet.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Locke was born on August 2, 1930 and at a very young age the drummer became a part of the fertile and vibrant Detroit jazz scene during the 1940s and 1950s. This period spawned such great musicians including Hank, Thad and Elvin Jones, Kenny Burrell, Lucky Thompson, Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris, among so many others.
He eventually formed a variety act with drummer Oliver Jackson called “Bop & Locke” which played the Apollo Theater. A move to New York City in 1954 had him working with Dick Wellstood, Tony Parenti, Red Allen, Willie “The Lion” Smith and Teddy Wilson, to name a few. During this time he came under the tutelage of the great Jo Jones, and eventually became known as a driving and swinging drummer who kept solid time and supported the soloist.
During the late 1950s Eddie formed two of his most fruitful musical relationships, one with Roy Eldridge and the other with Coleman Hawkins. His recording debut came with Eldridge in 1959 on “On The Town”, and he rounded out the Coleman Hawkins Quartet in the 1960s with band members Tommy Flanagan and Major Holley, that made many fine records including the exquisite album “Today and Now” in 1963.
Throughout the 1970s, he played with Roy Eldridge’s band at Jimmy Ryan’s on 54th Street, wound out his career freelancing, teaching youngsters the drums and appearing in the “A Great Day In Harlem” photograph. Drummer Eddie Locke passed away on September 7 2009, in Ramsey, New Jersey.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dr. Lonnie Smith was born July 3, 1942 in Lackawanna, New York into a family with a vocal group and radio program and a mother who introduced him to gospel, classical and jazz music. He learned to play piano as a child and was part of several vocal ensembles in the 1950s, including the Teen Kings. Local music storeowner Art Kubera gave Smith his first Hammond B3 organ.
Smith’s affinity for R&B melded with his own personal style as he became active in the local music scene. Moving to New York City he met and connected with George Benson, and the two formed the George Benson Quartet, featuring Lonnie Smith, in 1966.
Lonnie recorded his first solo album ”Finger Lickin’ Good” in 1967, with Benson, Melvin Sparks and Ronnie Cuber and Marion Booker. After recording several albums with Benson, Smith became a solo recording artist. In 1967, Smith meeting Lou Donaldson led to a Blue Note introduction, a record date for Alligator Boogaloo and subsequent signing to a four-album deal.
He has since recorded over 30 albums under his own name. He has performed and recorded with among others Lee Morgan, David “Fathead” Newman, Blue Mitchell, King Curtis, Esther Phillips, Bennie Maupin, Idris Muhammad, Joey DeFrancesco and Joe Lovano, however the list inside and out of jazz is too long to enumerate.
He has been named “Organ Keyboardist of the Year” in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, and 2009 by the Jazz Journalist Association and continued to tour, perform and record. Hammond B3 organist Dr. Lonnie Smith died on Septer 28, 2021 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bill Russo was born William Russo on June 25, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois and studied piano under Lennie Tristano. He would become an arranger and composer and by the 1950s was writing groundbreaking orchestral scores for the Stan Kenton Orchestra. He would compose for Kenton 23 Degrees N 82 Degrees W, Frank Speaking, Portrait of a Count and one of his most famous Halls Of Brass, featuring Buddy Childers, Maynard Ferguson and Milt Bernhart.
By the 60s Russo moved to England, founded the London Jazz Orchestra, and contributed to the Third Stream movement that sought to close the gap between jazz and classical music. Returning to Chicago by mid-decade he founded Columbia College’s music department, became the director of its Center for New Music, the college’s first full-time faculty member and the Director of Orchestral Studies at Scuola Europea d’Orchestra Jazz in Palermo, Italy.
Bill has composed classical symphonies, choral works, operas and several works for the theater. He has received a Koussevitsky award, had his work performed by the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, and has set music to the poetry of Gertrude Stein as well as scores for dance and film.
Russo has worked with Manny Albam, Teo Macero, Teddy Charles, Donald Byrd, Phil Woods, Bill Evans, Eddie Costa, Bob Brookmeyer, Al Cohn and Art Farmer among others. Starting the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, which is dedicated to preserving and expanding jazz, He was succeeded by Jon Faddis and it is currently under the artistic direction of Dana Hall. Trombonist, composer, arranger, eudcator and author Bill Russo passed away on January 11, 2003 after a bout with cancer. He was 74 years old.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lalo Schifrin was born Boris Claudio Schifrin in Buenos Aires, Argentina on June 21, 1932. At the age of six he began a six-year course of study on piano with Enrique Barenboim and at 16 studied piano with Andreas Karalis and harmony with Argentine composer Juan Carlos Paz. By twenty he was attending the Paris Conservatoire during the day and playing at night in jazz clubs.
1955 saw Lalo playing with Astor Piazzolla and on stage at the International Jazz Festival in Paris. Back in Argentina he formed a jazz orchestra, met Dizzy in ’58 and wrote Gillespiana for his big band. He would go on to work with Xavier Cugat, move to New York, take the piano chair in Dizzy’s quintet and wrote a second extended composition titled, The New Continent.
The Sixties had MGM signing Schifrin to his first movie score, he moved to Hollywood, changed The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to a jazz melody and won an Emmy for the theme. He would go on to score television and movies like Mission Impossible, Mannix, Cool Hand Luke, Dirty Harry, The Exorcist, Bullitt and even ABC’s Eyewitness News.
Over the course of his career Lalo Schifrin has recorded over 50 albums and soundtracks, 90 television and film scores as a leader, composer and conductor; and has worked with Cannonball Adderley, Eddie Harris, Count Basie, Luiz Bonfa, Candido Camera, Louis Bellson, Al Hirt, Jimmy Smith, Sarah Vaughan, Cal Tjader, Paul Horn and many others.
In 1997, the composer founded Aleph Records; played an orchestra conductor in Red Dragon, has had his music sampled by hip-hop artists, has been nominated twenty-one times and won four Grammy Awards, one Cable Ace Award, received six Oscar nominations and has a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.
Pianist, composer, arranger and conductor Lalo Schifrin continued to compose, conduct and perform until his death from complications of pneumonia at a hospital in Los Angeles, California at the age of 93 on June 26, 2025.