Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Pierre Favre was born June 2, 1937 in Le Locle, Switzerland and originally was a self-taught drummer. He went on to study classical composition and immersed himself in the diverse percussion music of the wider world, particularly those of India, Africa, and Brazil. Gradually he consolidated all of this new information in the “sound-color poems” he was writing for his Singing Drums group.
He recorded the album Singing Drums for ECM in 1984 with Paul Motian, Fredy Studer, and Nana Vasconcelos. Over the course of his career, Pierre has recorded twenty-nine as a sideman working with John Surman, Tamia, Michel Godard, Mal Waldron, Paul Giger, Jiří Stivín, Michel Portal, Samuel Blaser, the ARTE Quartett, Barre Phillips, Irene Schweizer, Philipp Schaufelberger, Manfred Schoof, Joe McPhee, Dino Saluzzi, London Jazz Composers Orchestra, Stefano Battaglia, Furio Di Castri, Paolo Fresu, Jon Balke, Denis Levaillant, Yang Jing, and Andrea Centazzo.
As a leader, drummer and percussionist Pierre Favre has recorded seven albums and continues to perform and record.
More Posts: bandleader,drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chip Jackson was born on May 15, 1950 in Rockville, New York. He became a jazz bassist and over the course of his career, he became a member of the Chuck Mangione Quartet, Manhattan Jazz Orchestra, Pratt Brothers Big Band, Red Rodney Quintet, The Danny Gottlieb Trio, The Super Septet, Woody Herman And His Orchestra, Woody Herman And The Thundering Herd.
As a sideman and session musician, he has recorded with Al Di Meola, Teddy Edwards, Danny Gottlieb, Elvin Jones, Jack Walrath, Ernestine Anderson, Michael Wolff, Liza Minelli, Sonny Fortune, Anita O’Day, Ian Shaw Chris Connor, and Gerry Mulligan among others.
Bassist Chip Jackson, who was Billy Taylor’s favorite, continues to perform and record.
More Posts: bandleader,bass,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Oscar Valdambrini was born on May 11, 1924 in Turin, Italy and his professional career didn’t begin until the late 1940s when he played with Rex Stewart. Soon afterward he co-led a small ensemble with Gianni Basso and his association with Basso would continue through the early 1960s.
He also arranged and played as a sideman for Armando Trovajoli toward the end of the Fifties. During the 1960s he played with Gil Cuppini, Duke Ellington, and Giorgio Gaslini, and by the early Seventies, he was working with Maynard Ferguson.
Joining forces once again with Basso the two performed together from 1972 to 1974. He went on to also play with Franco Ambrosetti, Conte Candoli, Dusko Goykovich, Freddie Hubbard, Mel Lewis, Frank Rosolino, Ernie Wilkins, and Kai Winding in the 1970s.
Growing increasingly sick from the middle of the 1980s, trumpeter and flugelhornist Oscar Valdambrini, had a central role in the emergence of a modern jazz movement in Italy, receded from active performance and passed away on December 26, 1996 in Rome, Italy.
More Posts: arranger,bandleader,flugelhorn,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Krzysztof Komeda was born Krzysztof Trzciński on April 27, 1931 in Poznań, Poland and grew up in Częstochowa and Ostrów Wielkopolski. He took music lessons from early childhood and became a member of the Poznań conservatorium at the age of eight, but World War II thwarted his plans. He explored the theory of music, and learned to play piano during this period.
While attending the Liceum for Boys, where he graduated from in 1950, he participated in the Music and Poetry Club. After high school he entered the Medical Academy in Poznań to study medicine. He finished his six-year-long studies and obtained a medical doctor diploma in 1956. He chose to specialize as a head and neck surgeon.
Komeda was interested in light and dance music and met Witold Kujawski, a graduate of the same school and already a well-known swinging bass player. He introduced him to jazz and took him to Kraków where the romantic period of Polish jazz, called the catacombs, was in the spotlight. Jam sessions with famous musicians as Matuszkiewicz, Borowiec, Walasek, and Kujawski took place in Witold’s legendary small apartment in Kraków.
Fascinated with be-bop performed by Andrzej Trzaskowski, his fascination with jazz and the friendship with famous musicians strengthened his connections with the music. He worked for some time with the first, postwar, pioneer Polish jazz band called Melomani. Later, he played with various pop groups, a Dixieland band before turning his attention to modern jazz and the creation of the Komeda Sextet.
Trzciński used the stage name ‘Komeda’ for the first time to protect his medical profession from the scutiny of those of Polish society who regarded jazz as a cheap suspicious music of night clubs. The sextet became the first Polish jazz group playing modern jazz, and its pioneering performances opened the way for jazz in Poland. He played jazz that related to European traditions and which was the synthesis of the two most popular groups at that time: The Modern Jazz Quartet and the Gerry Mulligan Quartet.
He would go on to tour Moscow, Grenoble, Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Prague, Blend, Koenigsberg, Bulgaria and both West and East Germany. He was a part of a show called Jazz and Poetry, began scoring films and overall, Komeda composed more than 70 soundtracks. While staying in Los Angeles, California in 1968 he composed the film music for Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and Kulik’s The Riot.
In 1968, in Los Angeles, while having a friendly rough-and-tumble with writer Marek Hłasko he was pushed over an escarpment and suffered a haematoma of the brain. Medical treatment in the US hospital did not save his life. After being transported home to Poland in a coma and in a terminal state. Pianst Krzysztof Komeda, who is credited with creating an original style, often described as the Polish school of jazz, hung on until passing away on April 23, 1969 at the age of 37.
More Posts: bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frank Vignola was born December 30, 1965 in Long Island, New York where his father played accordion and banjo and his brother plays trumpet. When he was five, he picked up the guitar, learning from his father and from records by Django Reinhardt, Bucky Pizzarelli, Joe Pass, and Johnny Smith. At 12 he started on the banjo, and two years later he won a national championship in Canada.
He studied guitar at the Cultural Arts Center and early in his career, he went to used record stores to buy albums by musicians whose work he didn’t know, so that he could study their music. 1987, when he was 23, saw Frank forming the Hot Club quintet, named after the Quintette du Hot Club de France. In the early 1990s, a move to New York City he was playing in groups with Max Morath, Andy Stein, Herman Foster, Joe Ascione, and tuba player Sam Pilafian.
Vignola formed the Concord Jazz Collective with veteran guitarists Howard Alden and Jimmy Bruno and has worked with includes Leon Redbone, Ken Peplowski, Susannah McCorkle, Charlie Byrd, Joey DeFrancesco, Gene Bertoncini, Johnny Frigo, Bucky Pizzarelli, Wynton Marsalis, David Grisman, Jane Monheit, Mark O’Connor, and Donald Fagen.
He has recorded two dozen albums as a leader, recorded another 50+ as a sideman, has written over fifteen instructional books for Mel Bay, produced several instructional DVDs, and teaches courses over the internet. Sadly, in May 2017, guitarist Frank Vignola was in a serious ATV accident where he was thrown into a tree, sustaining numerous injuries. In November of 2017, friend and fellow guitarist Tommy Emmanuel posted an update on Vignola’s status, stating that he would be unable to play the guitar and may only recover after many surgeries and a long period of physical therapy.
More Posts: guitar