Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Scott Robinson was born on April 27, 1959 in Pompton Plains, New Jersey and was the son of a piano teacher and National Geographic book editor. Graduating from the Berklee College of Music in 1981, the following year he joined the college’s staff, becoming its youngest faculty member.
Robinson has appeared on more than 275 LP and CD releases, including twenty under his leadership, with musicians Frank Wess, Roscoe Mitchell, Ruby Braff, Joe Lovano, Ron Carter, Paquito D’Rivera, David Bowie, Maria Schneider, Rufus Reid, Buck Clayton, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Four of these recordings won a Grammy Award. He has received four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 2000, the U.S. State Department named him a jazz ambassador for the year 2001, funding a tour of West Africa in which he played the early works of Louis Armstrong. Material from these appearances was released on the album Jazz Ambassador: Scott Robinson Plays the Compositions of Louis Armstrong by Arbors Records.
Throughout his career, Scott has worked to keep unusual and obscure instruments in the public view. His main instrument is a C-melody saxophone, however he has recorded with the ophicleide, and the rare contrabass saxophone.
Saxophonist Scott Robinson has operated his record label, ScienSonic Laboratories since 2009, in addition to his performing and recording.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Leonard Arthur Barnard was born on April 23, 1929 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Before forming his own traditional jazz band in the late 40s he played drums in the family band. This band, one of the earliest Australian groups to make jazz records, was so popular that it remained active for more than two decades.
During this same period Barnard played with other groups ranging from jazz to dance music. He gigged and recorded with Ade Monsbourgh and Dave Dallwitz. In the early 1970s his relocation to Sydney, Australia saw him playing with many of the country’s leading musicians including Errol Buddle and John Sangster. Then he joined Galapagos Duck, a band led by Tom Hare.
On occasion Len played with bands led by his younger brother, Bob Barnard. By the late 90s he remained active playing and recording with a variety of artists including Janet Seidel. His playing and able use of brushes made him an accomplished mainstream drummer.
Drummer Len Barnard, whose playing was forceful yet had a discreet and propulsive swing, died on November 5, 2005 in Sydney.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Patrick Earl Rebillot was born on April 21, 1935 in Louisville, Ohio and studied music at Mt. Union College and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music with Jeno Takacs. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music Education in 1957.
A long-time member of Herbie Mann’s various line-ups and credited as arranger, Pat appears on recordings by David Newman, Jon Faddis, Flora Purim, Michael Franks, Freddy Cole, Patti Austin and Chris Connor as well as Steely Dan, the Average White Band, Gloria Gaynor, Irene Worth, Bette Midler, Hall & Oates, Morrissey–Mullen, Barbra Streisand, Judy Collins, Carly Simon, The Spinners, and Laura Lieberman.
Rebillot has played live with Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, Anita O’Day, Benny Powell, Jimmy Rushing, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, James Moody, Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Benny Goodman, Gary Burton, Paul Winter, Joan Baez, Liza Minnelli, Cissy Houston, O.C. Smith, and others.
Rebillot is associated with fellow session and studio musicians Hugh McCracken, Tony Levin, Steve Gadd, Ray Barretto and Ralph MacDonald.
Pianist and composer Pat Rebillot performs occasionally at the age of 90.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Czesław Kazimierz Bartkowski was born April 19, 1943 in Łódź, Poland. He has been involved in music since he was six years old. He graduated from the Secondary Music School in Wrocław, Poland in percussion class. He made his official debut in 1960 as a drummer in Jerzy Pakulski’s Far Quartet.
In 1963 he started working with Zbigniew Namysłowski Quartet and also played with Czesław Niemen’s Niemen Enigmatic, and Michał Urbaniak’s Grupa .
He has played in a variety of trios with pianists Adam Makowicz, Wojciech Karolak, Artur Dutkiewicz, Andrzej Jagodziński, tenor saxophonist Tomasz Szukalski, guitarist Marek Bliziński, trumpeter Tomasz Stańko, and double bassists Andrzej Cudzich, Zbigniew Wegehaupt, Adam Cegielski.
Moreover, he took part in the recording of such singers as Ewa Bem, Urszula Dudziak and Stanisław Sojka, and American musicians Freddie Hubbard, Clark Terry, Joe Newman, Art Farmer, Ben Webster, and the Polish band Novi Singers.
He has collaborated with the Polish Radio Jazz Studio and with Sławomir Kulpowicz’s Mainstream and InFormation bands. He has performed in Poland, India, United States, New Zealand, Australia and numerous European countries. He has been a lecturer and participated in jazz workshops.
Drummer and teacher Czesław Bartkowski continues to perform, record and educate..
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Last was born Hans Last on April 17, 1929 in Bremen, Germany. He grew up in the suburb of Sebaldsbrück and began studying the piano at ageten, although he could play simple tunes when he was nine. He switched to the double bass as a teenager and entered the Bückeburg Military Music School of the German Wehrmacht at the age of fourteen and continued learning to play bass, piano and tuba.
After the end of World War II he joined Hans Günther Oesterreich’s Radio Bremen Dance Orchestra. In 1948 he became the leader of the Last-Becker Ensemble, which performed for seven years. He was voted as the best bassist in the country in a German jazz poll for 1950, 1951 and 1952. When they disbanded, he became the in-house arranger for Polydor Records, as well as a number of European radio stations. During the next decade he helped arrange hits for artists such as Helmut Zacharias, Freddy Quinn, Lolita, Alfred Hause and Caterina Valente.
He won numerous popular and professional awards, including Billboard magazine’s Star of the Year trophy in 1976, and was honoured for lifetime achievement with the German ECHO prize in 1994. In addition, Last sold an estimated 200 million records worldwide in his lifetime of which 80 million were sold by 1973 and won numerous awards including 200 gold and 14 platinum discs in Germany.
In February 2015, after almost 50 years on tour he announced that he was finally bidding adieu to the stage and the last concert of his farewell tour took place in Lanxess Arena in Cologne on April 26, 2015. Composer, bassist and big band leader of the James Last Orchestra, wose “happy music” made him a bestseller in Germany, died on June 9, 2015 in Florida at the age of 86.
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