Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Julian Joseph was born May 11, 1966 in London, England. As a jazz pianist, bandleader, composer, arranger and broadcaster he has worked solo, in his all-star big band, trio, quartet, forum project band or electric band.
Joseph’s style combines a respect for the modern developments in jazz piano with its history and works in both contemporary and traditional situations with his music. He is also active in jazz education helping to form the jazz syllabus for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in Great Britain.
Starting with his first album The Language of Truth in 1991, Julian has a total of seven albums to date, one single, and a soundtrack to his credit, and a baker’s dozen as a sideman. He has focused on live performance such as, at the London Jazz Festival, also broadcasting as he hosts several radio shows on BBC Radio 3, including Jazz Line-up and the celebrated Jazz Legends as well as composing and teaching.
He has also made two jazz television series for Meridian, a jazz series for Sky TV’s Artsworld Channel and the documentary A Festival of Jazz Piano for the BBC in Wales directed by Celia Lowenstein. He continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Keith Jarrett was born on May 8, 1945, in Allentown, Pennsylvania and had significant early exposure to music. He possessed absolute pitch and displayed prodigious musical talents as a young child. He began piano lessons just before his third birthday, and at age five he appeared on a TV talent program and by seven had given his first classical piano recital. During his teens he began leaning towards jazz, turned down classical training in Paris and attended Berklee College of Music
He started his career with Art Blakey and after his tenure as a Jazz Messenger moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 70s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz-fusion, and classical music; as a group leader and a solo performer. His improvisations draw not only from the traditions of jazz but from other genres as well, especially Western classical music, gospel, blues, blues and ethnic folk music.
Jarrett has received the Polar Music Prize, the Leonie Sonning Music Prize, was inducted into the Down Beat Down Beat Hall of Fame, played with Jack DeJohnette, Charles Lloyd, Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, Dewey Redman, Airto Moreira, Palle Danielson and Jan Garbarek among others.
Jarrett’s compositions and the strong musical identities of the group members gave this ensemble a very distinctive sound. The quartet’s music is an amalgam of free jazz, straight-ahead post-bop, gospel music, and exotic, Middle-Eastern-sounding improvisations. He has played as a soloist, trio, returned also to classical music, incorporates vocalizations of grunts, squeals and tuneless singing. He continues to compose, record, perform and tour.
In 2003, Jarrett received the Polar Music Prize, the first (and to this day only) recipient not to share the prize with a co-recipient,[1] and in 2004 he received the Leonie Sonning Music Prize. In 2008, he was inducted into the Down Beat hall of Fame in the magazine’s 73rd Annual Readers’ Poll. He continues to tour and record.
Take A Dose On The Road
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ron Carter was born May 4, 1937 in Ferndale, Michigan and started playing the cello at the age of 10, but when his family moved to Detroit, he ran into difficulties regarding the racial stereotyping of classical musicians and instead moved to bass. He attended Cass Technical High School and later the Eastman School of Music, played in the later Philharmonic Orchestra. He received his bachelor’s degree at Eastman in 1959, and in 1961 a master’s degree in double bass performance from the Manhattan School of Music.
His first jobs as a jazz musician were with Jaki Byard and Chico Hamilton and made his first records were made with Eric Dolphy and Don Ellis in 1960. Ron led his first date as leader, “Where?”with Dolphy and Mal Waldron and a date “Out There” with Dolphy, George Duvivier and Roy Haynes playing advanced harmonies and concepts were in step with the third stream movement. He truly came to fame in the early ‘60s in the second great Miles Davis quintet with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams.
Over the course of his career, Carter who is also an acclaimed cellist has appeared on over 2,500 albums make him one of the most-recorded bassists in jazz history. He has played with Sam Rivers, Freddie Hubbard, Duke Pearson, Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Andrew Hill, Horace Silver, Joe Henderson, Hank Jones and too many more to name.
He was a member of the New York Jazz Quartet, the Classical Jazz Quartet, was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Music Department of The City College of New York after twenty years teaching and received an honorary Doctorate from the Berklee College of Music. He is currently on the faculty of the Julliard School teaching bass in the school’s Jazz Studies program, sits on the Advisory Committee of the Board of Directors of The Jazz Foundation of America.
Inspire A Young Mind
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Vernice “Bunky” Green was born on April 23, 1935 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Originally strongly influenced by Charlie Parker, it was Charles Mingus’ sparing use of notation and his belief that there was no such thing as a wrong note that made a deep impression and had a lasting influence on Green’s own style.
Green began playing the alto saxophone around Milwaukee, mainly at a local club called “The Brass Rail.” His first big break came when he was hired in New York City by Charles Mingus to replace Jackie McLean in the 1960s. This was followed by a move to Chicago, Illinois that gave him the opportunity to perform with Sonny Stitt, Louie Bellson, Andrew Hill, Yusef Lateef and Ira Sullivan.
Gradually withdrawing from the public eye to develop a career as a leading jazz educator, Bunky taught at Chicago State University from 1972-1989 and in the 1990s took up the directorship of the Jazz Studies Program at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. He also served a term as the president of the IAJE/International Association for Jazz Education and has been elected to the Jazz Education Hall of Fame.
Green recorded several fine albums beginning in the 1960s working with Wynton Kelly, Jimmy Cobb, Elvin Jones, Jason Moran and Lonnie Plaxico; was leader of the Vanguard label in the 70s, and awarded the coveted 5 Star Review from Down Beat Magazine for his 1989 commemoration of his parents death with “Healing The Pain”. Bunky Green continues to record and pursue his educator endeavors. He is currently Professor Emeritus and Director of Jazz Studies Emeritus at the University of North Florida.
Give The Gift Of Knowledge
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eurreal Wilford “Little Brother” Montgomery was born on April 18, 1906 in the sawmill town of Kentwood, Louisiana across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans where he spent much of his childhood. As a child he looked like his father, Harper Montgomery, and was called Little Brother Harper. The name evolved into Little Brother Montgomery, a nickname that stuck. He started playing piano at the age of 4, and by age 11 he was playing at various barrelhouses in Louisiana.
Montgomery, largely self-taught, was an important blues pianist with an original style; however, he was also quite versatile working in jazz bands including larger ensembles that used written arrangements. Although he did not read music, he learned band routines by ear and once through an arrangement he had it memorized. He was a singer with an immediately recognizable, rather affecting wobble: an oral historian as full of musical anecdotes as his musical influence and frequent visitor, Jelly Roll Morton.
Early on he played the Black lumber and turpentine camps in Louisiana and Mississippi, then with the bands of Clarence Desdunes and Buddy Petit. He first went to Chicago from 1928 to 1931, making his first recordings and from 1931 through 1938 he led a band in Jackson, Mississippi. By 1942 Montgomery moved back to Chicago, toured other cities and Europe with a repertoire alternating between blues and traditional jazz. During the ‘60s his fame grew and he continued to make many recordings, including on his own record label, FM Records.
Never straying too far from the blues Montgomery appeared at many blues and folk festivals during the following decade and was considered a living legend, a link to the early days of blues and New Orleans. Little Brother Montgomery passed away on September 6, 1985 in Champaign, Illinois.
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