Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dimitar Bodurov was born on September 17, 1979 in Bulgaria and studied at the Conservatory of Sofia and the Rotterdam Conservatory, where he graduated in 2004 jazz piano and in 2006 jazz composition.
In 2000 Dimitar moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands and began performing throughout the country and Europe. He recorded his debut recording as a leader in 2004 titled Melatonic on the Acoustic Records label followed by his live sophomore release the same year titled Resumption Suite. He would go on to record solo and trio albums on both Dutch and Norwegian labels.
Bodurov ventured into composing for theater, opera, and orchestra. He has received several jazz awards, receiving a mention at the Martial Solal Jazz Solo Piano Competition in Paris. He has released a number of CD and digital albums as a leader, producer, and guest for Dutch and Norwegian labels. In 2012 he founded his own label Optomusic.
As an active event organizer, Dimitar has initiated several events: Jazz and Vino ~ a series of concerts with charity purpose in Varna, Bulgaria; Keys and Stix Festival ~ celebrating duets of piano and drums in collaboration with Bimhuis, Amsterdam & Unterfahrt, Münich; and since 2013, he has been the artistic leader of Radar Festival, Varna, Bulgaria.
Pianist and composer Dimitar Bodurov, who has worked with Randy Brecker, Didier Lockwood, Theodosii Spassov, Claron Mcfadden and Svetlin Rouseev, continues to compose, perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ayako Shirasaki was born on September 16, 1969 in Tokyo, Japan and started classical piano lessons at age five, and was intrigued by her father’s professional trombone-playing. By age twelve she began her professional career playing gigs at the “J” jazz club in Tokyo.
After attending the Tokyo Metropolitan High School for Arts, Shirasaki majored in classical music at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and gave concerts as a classical pianist for several years after graduating before returning to play jazz.
Her 1997 move to New York City saw her pursuing a master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music, studying with pianist Kenny Barron. Landing in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, Ayako operates the Brooklyn location of the Sakura Music School, which specializes in teaching music to small children with an emphasis on those of Japanese ancestry.
Performing regularly in the New York area, she tours internationally, in addition to recording. Her debut trio album Existence brought drummer Lewis Nash and bassist Marco Panascia together in 2003. She has since recorded four addition albums, has been featured on Marian McPartland’s National Public Radio show Piano Jazz, and was a finalist in the Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Piano Competition in 2005 and 2006 and the Great American Jazz Piano Competition in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Pianist and educator Ayako Shirasaki continues to perform, tour, record, and teach.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Adriano Acea was born September 11, 1917 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Adriano Acea of Cuba and Leona Acea of Virginia. One of six children, he was stricken with rheumatic fever and wasn’t expected to live during his first decade of life.
During the 1930s, Acea started out as a trumpeter and saxophonist and after his military service in the Army in 1946, he switched to playing the piano. He later became a session musician with jazz veterans Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Cootie Williams, Dizzy Gillespie, Illinois Jacquet, Dinah Washington, James Moody, Zoot Sims, and Roy Haynes. Between 1951 to 1962 he would record with Grant Green, Dodo Greene, Joe Newman, Leo Parker, Don Wilkerson, and Jesse Powell.
Acea is listed as co-composer of Nice ‘N’ Greasy that was the closing track to Lou Donaldson’s 1962 album, The Natural Soul. He is also credited as a composer on recordings by Gillespie, Jacquet, and Moody.
Pianist Adriano Acea, known as Johnny Acea, passed away on July 25, 1963.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Willie Ruff was born on September 1, 1931 in Sheffield, Alabama and learned to play both the French horn and the double bass. He attended the Yale School of Music graduating with a Bachelor and Master of Music degrees by 1954.
He met pianist Dwike Mitchell in 1947 when they were teenage servicemen stationed at the former Lockbourne Air Force Base in Ohio. They began a professional relationship when Mitchell recruited him to play bass with his unit band for an Air Force radio program. They later played in Lionel Hampton’s band but left in 1955 to form their own group, then together as the Mitchell-Ruff Duo that lasted over fifty years. They also played as the second act to artists such as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie.
From 1955 to 2011, the duo regularly performed and lectured in the United States, Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 1950 the Mitchell-Ruff Duo was the first jazz band to play in the Soviet Union and in China in 1981. Ruff was chosen by John Hammond to be the bass player for the recording sessions of Songs of Leonard Cohen, was one of the founders of the W. C. Handy Music Festival in Florence, Alabama in 1982.
As an educator, Willie was a faculty member at the Yale School of Music, teaching music history, ethnomusicology, and arranging. He is founding Director of the Duke Ellington Fellowship Program at Yale, held a visiting appointment at Duke University, where he oversaw the jazz program and directed the Duke Jazz Ensemble, and also has been on faculty at UCLA and Dartmouth.
French hornist, double bassist, music scholar, and educator Willie Ruff, was awarded the Sanford Medal, the Connecticut Governor’s Arts Award, and was an inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, primarily a Yale professor from 1971 to 2017, and continues to reside in Alabama.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lou Colombo was born in Brockton, Massachusetts on August 22, 1927 and started playing the trumpet when he was twelve. At seventeen he turned his attention to professional baseball and was signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers for seven years until a knee injury ended his career at 24.
Turning his attention to music Lou dove in full-time, mostly as an ensemble player and studio musician, playing and recording in the big bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Buddy Morrow, and Pérez Prado. He also worked sessions with Meredith D’Ambrosio on the 1989 recording South to a Warmer Place, George Masso on That Old Gang of Mine, 1996) and Jerry Jerome’s Something Borrowed, Something Blue.
Under his own name, Colombo recorded some albums one, including 1,990 at Concord Records, a tribute album for Bobby Hackett, one with Dave McKenna and Keith Copeland. Active on the Cape Cod jazz scene for five decades, trumpeter Lou Colombo passed away due to a traffic accident on March 3, 2012 at the age of 84.
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