Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wayne Shorter was born August 25, 1933 in Newark, New Jersey and attended Newark Arts High School where his love of music flourished under the encouragement of his father to take up the saxophone. In his youth Shorter had acquired the nickname “Mr. Gone”, which later became an album title for Weather Report.
Graduating in 1952, he matriculated through New York University in 1956, spent two years in the Army, during which he briefly played with Horace Silver and after his discharge, he played with Maynard Ferguson.
In 1959, Shorter became a Messenger joining Art Blakey, stayed five years and became the bands musical director. When Coltrane left Miles Davis’ band he proposed Wayne, as his replacement but his unavailability di not release him from Blakey until 1964. Along with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, the Second Great Quintet was born.
During his tenure with Miles, Wayne would compose “Prince of Darkness”, “E.S.P.”, “Footprints”, “Sanctuary”, “Nefertiti”, and many others; often providing half of the compositions on an album, typically hard bop workouts with long, spaced-out melody lines above the beat. He remained in Davis’s band after the breakup of the quintet in 1968, playing on the early jazz-fusion recordings including “In A Silent Way” and “Bitches Brew”.
Until 1968, he played the tenor saxophone exclusively but the next year he put down the tenor after his final Davis recording of Filles de Kilimanjaro and began playing the soprano, which he used on his own Super Nova release with Chick Corea and John McLaughlin. By the early 1970s, however, he chiefly played soprano.
Shorter recorded eleven albums for Blue Note Records featuring almost exclusively his own compositions, with a variety of line-ups, quartets and larger groups. He would enlist the talents of Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman and Elvin Jones.
Juju, Speak No Evil and Adam’s Apple The All Seeing Eye and Schizophrenia played in the spaces between free-jazz and carefully constructed melodies. Hey incorporated old friends like Hancock, Carter, Curtis Fuller and Joe Chambers. He recorded occasionally in the sideman slot with Donald Byrd, McCoy tyner, Grachan Moncur III, Hubbard, Morgan, Hancock and Williams.
In 1970, Shorter formed the fusion group Weather Report with Joe Zawinul and Miroslav Vitous, Airto Moreira and Alphonse Mouzon. They lasted until 1985. One of the most notable alumni included revolutionary bassist Jaco Pastorious and the band produced funk, bebop, Latin jazz, ethnic music and futuristic recordings.
He would record with Milton Nascimento, Carlos Santana, V.S.O.P Quintet, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan’s Aja, Terri Lynne Carrington, Marilyn Mazur, Jim Beard, Don Henley, Wallace Roney, and can be heard on the Harrison Ford film soundtrack of The Fugitive. By the mid 90s Wayne released his Verve Records debut High Life and received a Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album in 1997.
Into the millennium Shorter has continued to receive wide acclaim working with Hancock once again in 1997, on the much acclaimed and heralded album 1+1. The song “Aung San Suu Kyithem won them both a Grammy Award. He continues to work in a number of group configurations and winning Grammys for his Beyond The Sound Barrier & Alegria – Best Instrumental Jazz Album amongst his 10 Grammy Awards, and has been a Down Beat reigning critics’ poll winner for ten consecutive years and the readers’ for 18. The soprano saxophonist has amassed an impressive discography and continues to compose, reinvent his music, perform and tour.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Bonner was born on April 20, 1948 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. He studied and earned a B.S. in Classical Music from Virginia State College in Petersburg. His early influences were McCoy Tyner and Art Tatum but he cites that he learned much from the musicians he worked with in the ‘70s including Freddie Hubbard, Billy Harper, Pharoah Sanders and Roy Haynes, who hired Bonner to replace Chick Corea.
Joe’s musical travels led him to Denmark where he joined or accompanied traveling jazz artists. Bonner has appeared on a long list of recordings as a bandleader or sideman, with titles released on Evidence, Muse, Capri, and ABC/Impulse! He has over a dozen sides out on the Steeplechase label recorded during his twelve-year stint in Europe, especially Copenhagen.
Since the turn of the new century Bonner has put out more fine records as his “Monkisms” and the highly acclaimed “The Art of Jazz Piano” that display his amazing knowledge of jazz piano structure and his ability to navigate the lucid joining of passionate solos, soulful harmonies, driving rhythms and orchestrating spirited improvised journeys into a celebration of rich modern jazz textures, rooted in bebop, gospel and blues.
Pianist Joe Bonner is known for playing hard bop and modal jazz, this enigmatic pianist has become a Denver jazz scene staple, currently leading the jazz quartet, The Bonner Party and for the past two decades has thrilled audiences with his virtuoso sensibility.
Inspire A Young Mind
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Garrison was born on March 3, 1933 in Miami, Florida but grew up in Philadelphia where he learned to play the bass, coming of age during that city’s thriving jazz scene that including McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, Henry Grimes and Lee Morgan. He played around Philadelphia with local groups until 1958 when Philly Joe Jones brought him to New York City.
During the time he would freelance with Lennie Tristano, Benny Golson, Bill Evans and Kenny Dorham but got seriously noticed when he joined Ornette Coleman at the Five Spot. Garrison’s long association with Ornette Coleman produced his first recording with him on “Ornette on Tenor” and “Art of the Improvisers”.
Jimmy would go on to play and record with Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders but his greatest collaboration was his six-year collaboration with the John Coltrane Quartet when he replaced Reggie Workman. In concert with Trane he would play unaccompanied solos, sometimes as a prelude to a song before the other musicians joined in.
He and drummer Elvin Jones have been credited with eliciting more forceful playing than usual from Coleman on the albums “New York Is Now” and “Love Call”. Before his passing he would play with Kenny Dorham, Curtis Fuller, Jackie McLean, Lee Konitz, Hampton Hawes, Benny Golson and Tony Scott. Bassist Jimmy Garrison passed away on April 7, 1976.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Yōsuke Yamashita was born February 26, 1942 in Tokyo, Japan. He first began to play piano professionally at the age of 17 in 1959 and attended the Kunitachi College of Music from 1962 to 1967. It was during his college matriculation that he released his first recording in 1963, becoming a pioneer of avant-garde and free jazz.
In 1969, Yosuke formed the Yosuke Yamashita Trio, which has been through various incarnations, each introducing and highlighting the skill of the new member. In the 1980s, Yosuke formed the “New York Trio” with bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Pheeroan akLaff.
In 1994 he was invited to perform at the 50th anniversary concert of the Verve jazz label at Carnegie Hall. Yamashita then moved into film scoring in 1998, scoring “The Girl Of The Silence”, Dr. Akagi”, “Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands” and the Shohei Imamura film “Kanzo Sensei”, earning him the “Minister of Education Award,” amongst others.
As an educator he has been a visiting professor of music at Senzoku Gakuen College of Music, Nagoya University of Arts and the Kunitachi College of Music in addition to published work on improvisation and music. He has been nominated for the Japanese Academy Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Music.
Yōsuke Yamashita, jazz pianist, composer, essayist and writer has been praised by critics for his unique piano style and in 2003 he was conferred the Imperial Medal of Honor by the Japanese government for his contributions to the arts and academia. He continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bobby Jaspar was born February 20, 1926 in Liege, Belgium and at a very young age learned to play piano and clarinet. He later took up the tenor saxophone and flute that became his working instruments. Bobby took his first steps in the jazz world with the Bop Shots band but in 1950, Jaspar moved to Paris, played and recorded with the best musicians of the era and met his future wife, Blossom Dearie.
In 1956, Jaspar was persuaded to try his luck in the U.S. where his reputation in jazz circles had preceded him. He played and recorded with J. J. Johnson, Kenny Burrell, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Donald Byrd and many others.
In 1961/1962, Jaspar returned to Europe for a year for a series of concerts and a number of recordings. With his colleague, Belgian guitarist Rene Thomas, they formed a successful quintet and in some sessions, this was expanded to a powerful sextet with American trumpeter Chet Baker.
Bobby Jaspar, tenor saxophonist and flautist of the hard bop and cool jazz genres, died from a heart attack in New York City on February 28, 1963 at age 37.