Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jan Bertil Allan was born on November 7, 1934 in Falun, Sweden and at 17 began his career in 1951 as a pianist. After moving to Stockholm, he switched to the trumpet as his main instrument, playing in Carl-Henrik Norin’s orchestra. From 1954–55 he worked with Lars Gullin and Rolf Billberg and again with Norin from 1955–59 while earning a Ph.D. in physics.
In the early Sixties, he led a quintet with Billberg and throughout the decade worked with Arne Domnérus, Georg Riedel, and Bengt Hallberg, among others. From 1968 to 1975 he was a member of the Swedish Radio Jazz Group. His album Jan Allan~70, featuring Rolf Ericson, Nils Lindberg, Bobo Stenson, Jon Christensen, and Rune Gustafsson, won a Grammis Award for Jazz of the Year in 1970.
Allan played with the same group and Georg Riedel on the trio-album Sweet And Loverly. His 1998 album Software has an affinity with the West Coast jazz genre of Gerry Mulligan and Stan Getz.
Over the course of his career, Allan also recorded albums with Bosse Broberg, Benny Carter, Dorothy Donegan, Lars Gullin, Jan Johansson, Thad Jones, Roger Kellaway, Lee Konitz, Nils Lindberg, Georg Riedel, George Russell, and Monica Zetterlund.
In 2000, his Bach trumpet, which was engraved with his name and he played for 35 years, was stolen. A movie about the theft and missing trumpet was broadcast on Swedish television in 2015 and had 1.1 million viewers. In 2009 he was honored with a Swedish Golden Django as a Master of Jazz. He composed for several films such as The Adventures of Picasso, Sopor, and Trollkarlen. He recorded eight albums as a leader and forty-six as a sideman.
Trumpeter and pianist Jan Allan, is considered among the most important modern jazz musicians in Sweden, continues to compose and perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Masabumi Kikuchi was born on October 19, 1939 in Tokyo, Japan and lived his early life in World War II and post-war country. He studied piano and music at the Tokyo Art College High School. After graduating, he joined Lionel Hampton’s Japanese touring band.
Known for his eclectic music that ranges from vanguard classical to fusion and digital music. Not only working with Hampton, but he also performed with Sonny Rollins, Woody Herman, Mal Waldron, Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Gil Evans, Elvin Jones, Miles Davis, Gary Peacock, Paul Motian, Billy Harper, and Hannibal Peterson.
As a leader and co~leader, he recorded twenty-five albums, and as a sideman or member of other groups, he recorded twenty~eight albums. Pianist and composer Masabumi Kikuchi passed away from a subdural hematoma on July 6, 2015 at a hospital in Manhasset, New York.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Robert William Troup Jr. was born on October 18, 1918 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Graduating from The Hill School in 1937, he went on to graduate Phi Beta Kappa from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics. His earliest musical success came in 1941 with the song Daddy and Sammy Kaye and His Orchestra recorded it sending it to #1 for eight weeks on the Billboard chart and #5 record of 1941.
After graduating from college in 1941, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, completed officer training, and was assigned to recruit the first Black Marines at Montford Point. While there, he organized the first Negro band of U.S. Marines. During this time he composed Take Me Away From Jacksonville, which became an anthem of sorts for the Marines at Montford Point and other areas of Camp Lejeune. In 1942, his song Snootie Little Cutie was recorded by Frank Sinatra and Connie Haines with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and the Pied Pipers.
In 1946, Nat King Cole had a hit with Troup’s most popular song, Route 66. Troup’s fifteen albums in the 1950s and 1960s were not commercially successful, recording for Liberty and Capitol. He composed the music for the instrumental version of his song The Meaning of the Blues that appeared on the Miles Davis album Miles Ahead.
While relying on songwriting royalties, Bobby worked as an actor, appearing in Bop Girl Goes Calypso, The High Cost of Loving, The Five Pennies, and playing musician Tommy Dorsey in the film The Gene Krupa Story. He also appeared on several television shows in the Sixties. It was during this time that he met Julie London, encouraged her to pursue her singing career, and in 1955 produced her million-selling hit record Cry Me a River. Four years later, London married Troup. On February 7, 1999, pianist, singer, songwriter and actor Bobby Troup passed away of a heart attack in the Los Angeles, California neighborhood of Sherman Oaks.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roy Powell was born on October 2, 1965 in Langham, Rutland, England. His mother was a historian, his father a scientist who moved the family to Canada. His father had given him piano lessons and had been playing the piano for five years. Returning to England when he was ten, he attended New Mills Grammar School at the same time as Lloyd Cole.
In the 1970s, Powell was listening to Duke Ellington and Miles Davis and buying albums through the mail from America. He attended the Royal Northern College of Music, studying piano and classical composition during the day and playing in Manchester jazz clubs at night. After departing school, he started a jazz fusion band and choreographed a ballet. In 1992 he was a member of the Creative Jazz Orchestra. Three years later he moved to Norway to teach.
Powell has been a member of the group InterStatic with Jacob Young, and Jarle Vespestad, and the group Naked Truth with Lorenzo Feliciati, Pat Mastelotto, and Graham Haynes. He recorded the album Mumpbeak with Feliciati, Mastelotto, Bill Laswell, Tony Levin, and Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz. Pianist, organist, composer, and educator Roy Powell has recorded fifteen albums as a leader and continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Meyer or Johnny Meijer was born Jan Cornelis Meijer on October 1, 1912 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He began playing accordion as a child and before World War II was playing in Dutch big bands. The post-war years were fertile for him and the liberating sound of his swing accordion, opened opportunities for him to record many swing standards from 1952 to 1957.
He toured Europe but mainly performed in the Netherlands and for a time was known as a virtuoso jazz accordionist. Besides the popular songs, Meyer also played fast swing numbers, Romanian music and classical pieces. In 1974 he recorded the Dutch Swing College Band Johnny Goes Dixie LP, which went gold.
Typically seen during performances with a cigar in his mouth, his accordion showed several burn marks as a result of this. In the last years of his life, Johnny Meyer was rarely invited to play large performances, mainly in connection with his short temper and his drinking, and thus the King of the Accordion saw out his final days mostly in silence, reduced to occasionally playing weddings and parties.
Accordionist Johnny Meyer, who played jazz, swing, classical, folk and was the subject of a film, passed away on January 8, 1992 in Amsterdam.
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