Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ed Byrne was born on December 30, 1946 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and he worked for more than fifteen years on the New York City jazz scene as a soloist with Chet Baker, Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Billy Eckstine, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, Archie Shepp, Mel Torme and the list continues. He also performed, composed, and arranged numerous recordings and toured the Americas, France, Germany and Sweden.
Ed was nominated Best Trombone Soloist by Latin New York magazine, as a leader was nominated for a Grammy Award for his Fenway Funk album, and won a Grammy for Eddie Palmieri’s Latin jazz album, Unfinished Masterpiece.
As an educator he hold a doctorate of Musical Arts in Jazz Studies from the New England Conservatory, has been on the faculties of Berklee College, Baruch College, University of the Arts, Greenfield Community College and the University of Rhode Island. Ed has published 42 texts on jazz improvisation and his Linear Jazz Improvisation Method, sold world-wide.
Trombonist, author, bandleader, composer, arranger and educator Ed Byrne is currently the leader of his Latin Jazz Evolution that released their first CD titled Conquistador, on Blue Truffle Records and continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Irving C. Ashby was born December 29, 1920 in Somerville, Massachusetts. After playing rhythm guitar in Lionel Hampton’s orchestra, he played in the Nat King Cole Trio from 1947 to 1951. He then briefly replaced drummer Charlie Smith in the Oscar Trio, producing a lineup of piano, guitar and bass similar to the Cole Trio’s, a substitution that continued until 1958.
After leaving the Peterson Trio, Ashby concentrated on session work for the labels. His subsequent recordings included sessions with Norman Granz, Sheb Wooley, LaVern Baker, Howard Roberts, B.B. King, Louis Jordan, Pat Boone and Illinois Jacquet.
In addition to performing on guitar, Irving Ashby also played the upright bass until his passing on April 22, 1987 in Perris, California at the age of 66.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Pete Levin was born December 20, 1942 in Brookline, Massachusetts and his first instrument as a teenager was a French horn. He studied at Boston University and received a master’s degree from Juilliard School of Music in New York City. In the early 1970s he joined the Gil Evans Orchestra as a French horn player. At the time, he was experimenting with synthesizers. Over time Gil Evans incorporated his synthesizer sound into the compositions and his role changed to a full-time keyboardist for the next fifteen years. Leaving the Gil Evans Orchestra he followed with an eight-year association with Jimmy Guiffre.
Levin plays the Hammond organ, clavinet and moog synthesizer. He has produced several albums as a bandleader and has released a collaborative album with his brother, bassist Tony Levin, as a tribute to and styled after the works of Oscar Pettiford and Julius Watkins. He has performed for film and television scores including Missing In Action, Lean On Me, Silver Bullet, Red Scorpion,, The Color of Money, Maniac, Spin City, America’s Most Wanted and Star Trek.
He has worked with Carla Bley, Brubeck Brpthers, Hiram Bullock, Jimmy Cobb, Billy Cobham, Willie Colon, Miles Davis, Rachelle Ferrell, Bryan Ferry, Gregory Hines, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Band, Annie Lennox, Chuck Mangione, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mullligan, Salt-n-Pepa, David Sanborn, John Scofield, Wayne Shorter, Paul Simon, Lew Soloff, Vanessa Williams and Lenny White among others.
He was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for writing the official military band arrangement of the U.S. Infantry song. Jazz keyboardist and horn player Pete Levin continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dave Brubeck was born David Warren Brubeck on December 6, 1920 in Concord, California and grew up in Ione. His father, a cattle rancher, his mother Studied piano with intention to become a concert pianist, taught he son to play. He could not read music during these early lessons, attributing this difficulty to poor eyesight, but faked his way well enough that this deficiency went mostly unnoticed.
Brubeck entered the College of the Pacific studying veterinarian science but changed his major to music at the best of the head of zoology. Discovered that he could not read music he was almost expelled but his ability with counterpoint and harmony more than compensated.
In 1942, Brubeck was drafted into the U.S. Army, and serving in Europe played piano at a Red Cross show and was such a hit that he was spared from combat service and ordered to form a band. He created one of the U.S. armed forces’ first racially integrated bands, The Wolfpack. It was here that he met Paul Desmond in early ’44. He returned to college after discharge, completed his studies, worked with an octet and with an experimental trio with Cal Tjader and Ron Crotty, and often joined onstage by Desmond.
He recorded his first sessions in 1949 for Coronet Records, soon to become Fantasy Records owned by the Weiss Brothers. In 1951 he organized the Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul Desmond on alto saxophone, taking up a long residency at San Francisco’s Black Hawk nightclub. During this period he recorded a series of albums and gained great popularity touring college campuses.
Dave signed with Fantasy Records, worked as an A&R man and brought in Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker and Red Norvo. Discovering he only owned half interest in his own recording and not the label he moved to Columbia Records.
In 1959, the Dave Brubeck Quartet recorded Time Out, a seminal album that featured unusual time signatures that quickly went platinum and was the first jazz album to sell more than a million copies. A high point for the group was their 1963 live album At Carnegie Hall, arguably his greatest concert.
Over the next several decades Brubeck would record many albums, develop a jazz musical, The Real Ambassadors, working with Louis Armstrong, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, and Carmen McRae, perform at the Monterey Jazz Festival, did a series of Jazz Impressions albums, and was the program director of all-jazz format WJZZ-FM radio.
Of his many honors pianist Dave was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, was honored with a Time Magazine cover that he felt should have gone to Duke Ellington, and received an honorary Doctor of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Berklee College of Music and George Washington University.. He was honored by the Kennedy Center, was awarded the Miles Davis Award and Bruce Ricker and Clint Eastwood produced the documentary Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way.
Pianist and composer Dave Brubeck, considered to be one of the foremost exponents of cool jazz, passed away of heart failure, ironically, on his way to a cardiology appointment, on December 5, 2012, in Newark, Connecticut, one day before his 92nd birthday.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roy McCurdy was born November 28, 1936 in Rochester, New York. He attended the Eastman School of Music from sixteen to eighteen, during which time he also played professionally with Roy Eldridge, Eddie Vinson at seventeen. Among the influences he cites Louie Bellson, Shelly Manne, Sam Woodyard, Buddy Rich, Pap Joe Jones, and the bands of Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford and Lionel Hampton.
He started out playing with the Jazz Brothers – Chuck and Gap Mangione, In 1960 he joined the Art Farmer-Benny Golson Jazztet, remaining for two years, as well as Bobby Timmons, Betty Carter and Sonny Simmons from 1963-64. He played on the classic album Sonny Meets Hawk!.
In 1965 he joined Cannonball Adderley Quintet in 1965 and stayed with the band, recording 18 albums until Adderley’s death. He recorded a half-dozen with Nat Adderley, and has also played and/or recorded with Count Basie, Nancy Wilson, Gene Ammons, Wes Montgomery, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Joe Williams, Herbie Hancock, Oscar Peterson,, Bud Powell, Art Pepper, Joe Zawinul, Betty Bennett and the jazz rock group Blood, Sweat and Tears.
He appears on the classic 1983 recording Jackson, Johnson, Brown & Company featuring Milt Jackson on vibes, trombonist J.J. Johnson, bassist Ray Brown, Tom Ranier on piano and John Collins on guitar.
As of 2010, in between performing and recording drummer Roy McCurdy is an Adjunct Professor in the Jazz Studies Department of the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California.
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