Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jørgen Emborg was born in Copenhagen, Denmark on March 29, 1953 and was influenced by Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett.
He has played at international festivals since 1975, releasing his first album, Sargasso in 1979 on the Kong Pære label. In the following years he belonged to Six Winds with Marilyn Mazur, Uffe Markussen and Alex Riel and formed with Palle Mikkelborg, Bjarne Roupé, Bo Stief and Ole Theill the ensemble Alpha Centauri.
By1986 he recorded with Bjarne Rostvold and through the Nineties he performed and/or recorded with Thomas Hass and Tomas Franck. Emborg teamed up with Alex Riel again and recorded Over The Rainbow on the Storyville label, with the saxophonist Fredrik Lundin, the bassist Steve Swallow. He played in the Tolvan Big Band and the Per Carsten Quintet.
Jørgen has also composed music for children, rhythmic choir music, big band, a cappella work, ironworks and piano quizzes. He taught piano, theory and composition at the Rytmisk Conservatory of Music from 1988 to 2016.
In 1981, his LP en 20:33 with Alpha Centauri received an award from Statens Kunstfond, the State Art Foundation. He received the Ben Webster Prize with the Frontline Fusion Group as well as others.
Pianist and composer Jørgen Emborg, who ensures there is a Nordic feel to his compositions, continues to perform and compose.
More Posts: bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Andy Raphael Thomas Hamilton was born on March 26, 1918 in Port Maria, Jamaica, and learnt to play saxophone on a bamboo instrument. He formed his first band in 1928 with friends who played oil drums and Hamilton a bamboo saxophone. He was influenced by Duke Ellington and Count Basie and by the Kingston-based bands of Redver Cook and Roy Coburn.
Spending some time in the United States Andy worked as a cook and farm labourer, while having short jazz residencies in Buffalo and Syracuse, New York. Returning to Jamaica he worked as musical arranger for Errol Flynn at his hotel The Titchfield, and on his yacht the Zaka.
Emigrated as a stowaway to the United Kingdom in 1949 and eventually lived and worked in Birmingham, England. By day he worked in a factory, by night he played jazz with his own group, the Blue Notes that included fellow Jamaican pianist Sam Brown. Besides playing mainly local gigs, Hamilton booked an early Steel Pulse and numerous Jamaican bands around town before establishing a regular weekly venue in Bearwood. There he invited visiting musicians such as Joe Newman, Al Casey, Teddy Edwards, Art Farmer, Harry Sweets Edison, and David Murray. He fronted weekly gigs on Thursday nights at Bearwood Corks.
Having recovered from a diabetic coma in 1986, he celebrated his 70th birthday in 1988 playing at his regular venue, The Bear. He performed at the Soho Jazz Festival, and in 1991 at the age of 73, Andy made his first ever recording with Nick Gold, Silvershine on World Circuit Records. It became the biggest selling UK Jazz Album of the Year, The Times Jazz Album of the Year, and one of the 50 Sony Recordings of the Year. It was followed two years later by Jamaica at Night.
He continued to play, teach and promote music even as he approached his 94th birthday. Saxophonist Andy Hamilton, who in 2008 was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), transitioned peacefully on June 3, 2012
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Santo J. “Sonny” Russo was born on March 20, 1929 in New York City, New York and grew up in a musical family, both his father and grandfather were professional horn players. He first played piano and violin, and played with his father’s group at age 15, before settling on the trombone.
The consummate sideman, through the late Forties he started out playing with Buddy Morrow in 1947, Lee Castle in 1948, Sam Donahue in 1949, and Artie Shaw in 1949–50. The 1950s saw him performing with Art Mooney, Tito Puente, Jerry Wald, Tommy Tucker, Buddy Rich, Ralph Flanagan, the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, Neal Hefti, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, and Maynard Ferguson.
For a short period during the mid-1950s Russo found work in the bands of various Broadway shows, then in the late 1950s and 1960s he worked with Louie Bellson, Machito, Bobby Hackett, Benny Goodman, and Doc Severinsen. From 1969to 1972 he was a member of The Tonight Show orchestra, and he worked with Frank Sinatra from 1967 to 1988.
He played on Urbie Green’s 21 Trombones, soloed on numerous others, and toured with The World’s Greatest Jazz Band. Sonny recorded extensively with Jimmy Rushing, Tony Bennett, Lena Horne, Perry Como, Dinah Washington, Liza Minnelli, Elvis Presley, Paul Anka, Ray Charles, Steve Lawrence, and Eydie Gorme. He performs on the soundtracks to the films The Godfather, The Godfather II, Goodfellas, and Sophie’s Choice, and in 1971 on The Tonight Show he shared the stage with Louis Armstrong, playing the solo on Someday You’ll Be Sorry.
A fixture in the recording studios for radio and television, he was a regular in the Orchestra for Jerry Lewis’s Muscular Dystrophy Telethon in New York City. Always in demand he continued to work with Lewis on his one-man show, toured around the world with Sinatra who announced his playing a trombone solo on the tune I’ve Got You Under My Skin.
He has also done many gigs with the likes of Al Cohn, Zoot Simms, Mousey Alexander, and Milt Hinton. Trombonist Sonny Russo, a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, transitioned on February 23, 2013.
More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,trombone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Leroy Lovett was born on March 17, 1919 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and studied piano with Sophie Stokowski, the wife of Leopold Stokowski, from the age of four. He began composing early and went on to receive a bachelor’s degree from Temple University and then continued his studies at the Schillinger House of Music.
He led his own band in Philadelphia before settling in New York City in 1945. The move saw him arranging for Tiny Bradshaw and Luis Russell, and working with Noble Sissle, Lucky Millinder, and Mercer Ellington. During his period away from Duke Ellington, Leroy was in the band of Johnny Hodges and recorded with him until 1955. At the end of the 1950s, he was in the Cootie Williams band and the Cat Anderson band.
During the 1950s he was a music publisher, a record producer, and had a dance orchestra in Philadelphia. From 1959, he worked for Wynne Records, and from 1968 to 1973 for Motown Records. He was still active as a musician and arranger with the Melodymakers Orchestra, he also appeared with the Uni-Bigband of Halle.
He recorded two albums under his own name and also recorded with Al Sears, Harry Carney, Al Hibbler, Lawrence Brown, Billie Holiday, Cootie Williams, Cat Anderson, and Johnny Hodges.
Pianist and arranger Leroy Lovett, who also wrote music for film, transitioned on December 9, 2013 in Chatsworth, California.
More Posts: arranger,bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marty Sheller was born March 15, 1940 in Newark, New Jersey. Sheller initially studied percussion, but switched to trumpet as a teenager. He played with Hugo Dickens in Harlem, and arranged for Sabu Martinez, before working with Afro-Latin percussionists such as Louie Ramirez and Frankie Malabe.
In 1962 he became a trumpeter in Mongo Santamaria’s band, and worked with Santamaria for more than forty years as a composer and arranger. He also had an extensive association with Fania Records. As their house arranger Marty worked with Joe Bataan, Ruben Blades, Willie Colon, Larry Harlow, Hector Lavoe, and Ismael Miranda.
Outside of Fania, he arranged for musicians, not limited to, George Benson, David Byrne, Jon Faddis, Giovanni Hidalgo, T.S. Monk, Idris Muhammad, Manny Oquendo, Dave Pike, Tito Puente, Shirley Scott, Woody Shaw, Lew Soloff, and Steve Turre.
In the 2000s, he led his own ensemble, which included the sidemen Chris Rogers, Joe Magnarelli, Sam Burtis, Bobby Porcelli, Bob Franceschini, Oscar Hernández, Ruben Rodriquez, Vince Cherico, and Steve Berrios.
Trumpeter and arranger Marty Sheller, who plays primarily in latin jazz idioms, continues to pursue his musical endeavors.
More Posts: arranger,bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet