Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roland Hanna was born on February 10, 1932 in Detroit, Michigan and began private classical piano lessons at an early age but had a strong interest in jazz. After graduation from Cass Technical High School and a two-year stint in the US Army, he continued his musical studies at the Eastman and Juilliard Schools of Music.
He worked with several big names, such as Benny Goodman and Charles Mingus in the 1950s, from 1967 to 1974 was a regular member of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra and was also a member of the New York Jazz Quartet during this decade. He also performed solo, contributed to orchestras, bands, and small groups; provided sensitive, sympathetic accompaniment to such artists Sarah Vaughn (also her musical director), Carmen McRae and Al Hibbler.
Hanna went into semi-retirement for most of the 1980s, though he played piano and wrote the song “Seasons” for Sarah’s 1982 album Crazy and Mixed Up, however, he returned to music later in the decade. Over the course of his career he recorded some 50 albums, formed a record label, became a tenured professor of music at Aaron Copeland School of Music, Queens College and City College of New York, and was knighted by Liberian President William Tubman for his humanitarian services to that country.
Sir Roland Hanna passed away on November 13, 2003 in Hackensack, New Jersey.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frederick Eugene John “Gene” Lees was born in Canada on February 8, 1928 the eldest of four children. He began his writing career as a newspaper reporter in 1948 prior to moving to the U.S. and becoming a music critic at the Louisville Times in Kentucky. By the end of the Fifties he was editor of Down Beat magazine.
As a freelance writer, Lees wrote for Stereo Review, High Fidelity and the New York Times in the U.S. along with several Canadian publications like the Toronto Star and Maclean’s. As a biographer, Lees has written about Oscar Peterson, Lerner & Loewe, Henry Mancini, Woody Herman and about racism in jazz music in “Cats of Any Color: Jazz Black and White”.
Gene wrote nearly one hundred liner notes for artists as diverse as Stan Getz, John Coltrane and Quincy Jones. As a novelist he published “And Sleep Until Noon” in 1967 and his second book, “Song Lake Summer” was published in 2008. He won his first of five ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards in 1978 for a series of articles published in High Fidelity about US music. Lees’ famous monthly “Jazzletter” was established in 1981, and contains musical criticism by Lees and others.
In the early 60s he studied composition by correspondence with the Berklee College of Music, piano with Tony Aless, guitar with Oscar Castro-Neves and became a lyricist translating and writing English lyrics for the Portuguese bossa nova tunes. He wrote the lyrics for Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Corcovado re-titled “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars”, also “Someone To Light Up My Life”, “Song of the Jet”, “The Happy Madness” and “Dreamer”. He has said that Frank Sinatra’s recording of Quiet Nights was the definitive rendition. He also contributed lyrics to Milton Nascimento’s Bridges, Charles Aznavor Broadway concert, “One World, One Peace” – the poems of Pope John Paul II recorded by Sarah Vaughan and recorded Bridges – Gene Lees Sings Gene Lees.
Gene Lees, music critic, biographer, lyricist and journalist struggled with heart disease in his later years and died on April 22, 2010 in Ojai, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gregory Tardy was born February 3, 1966 in New Orleans, Louisiana but was reared in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His interest in music began studying classical clarinet. By high school he excelled in music, winning many awards and scholarships, studying with renowned clarinetists and preparing for a symphony career. Over time he was asked to play saxophone, filling missing gaps in various high school and college ensembles. But it was the prodding of his older brother that made him explore the music of John Coltrane, and decide to follow a jazz path.
Gregory’s passion for the saxophone took over his studies, he moved to St. Louis, played the jazz and blues scene, returned to New Orleans to further study, gigged with the Neville Brothers and ended up in bands led by Nicholas Payton, Jason and Ellis Marsalis. In 1992, Tardy recorded his first solo project “Crazy Love”, was picked up by Elvin Jones Jazz Machine, and moved to New York City.
His performance and recording lists a large array of prominence not limited to Tom Harrell, Dave Douglas, Wynton Marsalis, Jay McShann, Steve Coleman, Betty Carter, James Moody, Ravi Coltrane, Mark Turner, Dewey Redman, Chris Potter, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell, Rashied Ali and John Patitucci. He has even brought his clarinet out of retirement playing with Andrew Hill, Steve Swallow, Stefan Harris and others.
Tardy continues to explore new territory while keeping in the tradition as he play his own music and perform in many great bands. As an educator he teaches private lessons and facilitates clinics around the world, but always speaking through his horn.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph Leslie Sample was born February 1, 1939 in Houston, Texas and began playing piano at age five, taking lessons from organ and piano great, Curtis Mayo. While in high school during the 1950s, Sample teamed up with two friends, saxophonist Wilton Felder and drummer Stix Hooper and formed the group “Swingsters”. While studying piano at Texas Southern University he added trombonist Wayne Henderson and several other players to the Swingsters, which evolved into the Modern Jazz Sextet and then the Jazz Crusaders in emulation of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Prior to graduation in 1960 the Jazz Crusader moved to Los Angeles.
The group quickly found opportunities on the West Coast, making its first recording, Freedom Sounds in 1961 and releasing up to four albums a year over much of the 1960s. The Jazz Crusaders played at first in the dominant hard bop style of the day, standing out by virtue of their unusual front-line combination of saxophone and trombone. Another distinctive quality was the funky, rhythmically appealing acoustic piano playing of Sample, who helped steer the group’s sound into a fusion between jazz and soul[2] in the late 1960s.
In 1969 Sample made his first recording under his own name titled Fancy Dance that was followed by a string of albums such as Rainbow Seeker and Street Life. He continued to record and perform as a solo artist while maintaining steerage of The Crusaders into jazz fusion, changing the name in 1971 which it remained until the group disbanded in 1987.
Sample has had a very successful career working and recording with the likes of Miles Davis, George Benson, Joni Mitchell, Jimmy Witherspoon, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Steely Dan, The Supremes, Minnie Riperton, Marvin Gaye, Ray Brown, Shelly Manne, Randy Crawford, Anita Baker, Lalah Hathaway, Howard Hewitt, George Duke and Lizz Wright, well into the new millennium.
His song “One Day I’ll Fly Away” was sung by Nicole Kidman in the film Moulin Rouge; and “Rainbow Seeker” is included on the Weather Channel Presents: Smooth Jazz II. Pianist, keyboardist and composer Joe Sample, who has played through various genres of jazz, continued to perform, record and tour with the Coryell Auger Sample Trio with his son Nicklas, who plays bass, until his passing on September 12, 2014 at age 75 in Houston, Texas.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bobby Hackett was born January 31, 1915 and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. At an early age he played the ukulele and by the time he was twelve, he was playing guitar, violin and had bought his first cornet. Leaving high school after his freshman year he took a steady job with a band that performed seven days a week at the Port Arthur and playing guitar regularly at the Rhodes and Arcadia ballrooms that often broadcasted on Providence radio and when Cab Calloway arrived short-handed and invited him to fill in.
In the fall of 1932 Bobby was recruited by The Herbie Marsh Orchestra, spent the summer of 1933 playing with Payson Re’s band, met Pee Wee Russell, by 1934, and playing college gigs with his band The Harvard Gold Coast Orchestra on weekends between Providence and Boston throughout 1935 and 36.
He worked with a new band at Nick’s in Greenwich Village, with Benny Goodman, Eddie Condon, Jack Teagarden and Teddy Wilson, played the new York World’s Fair in 1939, did the club circuit in New York, toured, recorded with his own band on MCA, took a seat with the Horace Heidt Musical Knights and recorded on the soundtrack of Fred Astaire vehicle “Second Chorus”.
After a dental surgery Bobby’s lip was in bad shape making it difficult for him to play, however, Glenn Miller offered him a job as a guitarist with the Miller Band and playing short trumpet solos. During the 1950s, he made a series of albums of ballads with a full string orchestra, produced by Jackie Gleason, in the Sixties toured with singer Tony Bennett, and by the early 1970s, Hackett performed separately with Dizzy Gillespie and Teresa Brewer. In his later years, he continued to perform in a Dixieland style even as trends in jazz changed.
Trumpeter Bobby Hackett passed away on June 7, 1976 from a heart attack. In 2012, he was selected to be inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame.
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