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

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Dodo Marmarosa was born Michael Marmarosa on December 12, 1925 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and received the uncomplimentary nickname Dodo as a child because of his large head, short body, and bird-like nose. He began taking piano lessons at the age of 9, receiving classical music lessons, but was influenced by the jazz playing of Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, and others after fellow pianist Erroll Garner, four years his elder, introduced him to their music. Attending Peabody High School, he practiced a lot, until his left and right hands were equally strong.

Beginning his professional career in 1941 by joining the Johnny “Scat” Davis orchestra at the age of 15, he followed this stint with Gene Krupa around the end of 1942. After Krupa’s orchestra broke up he played in Ted Fio Rito’s band then moved to Charlie Barnet’s big band.  He recorded debut was with Barnet in 1943 with “The Moose”, on which the 17-year-old pianist played, combining bebop and Count Basie-style minimalism. Marmarosa recorded some trio tracks with Krupa and DeFranco in 1944. He then worked with Tommy Dorsey and appeared in the MGM film Thrill of a Romance. After Dorsey he joined Artie Shaw’s big and small bands.

From the early 1940s Dodo had searched for and experimented with advanced progressive forms of jazz and became attracted to bebop after meeting and jamming with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. In 1945 Marmarosa moved to Los Angeles, California and played piano on  Parker’s first recordings for Dial Records. For the next two years he recorded extensively as a sideman in both bebop and swing contexts with Wardell Gray, Lionel Hampton, Mel Tormé, Willie Smith, Lester Young, and, became the house pianist for Atomic Records, Slim Gaillard and Barney Kessel.

Making his first recordings as leader in 1946, with trio tracks that included Ray Brown on bass and Jackie Mills on drums, and in a quartet with adding saxophonist Lucky Thompson, he also recorded his only vocal track, I’ve Got News for You, in the same year. He would go on to lead the first pizzicato jazz cello sessions for Dial with Harry Babasin on cello and Jackie Mills on drums.

The Fifties were not particularly productive, suffering from psychological problems and his family getting him no help, his behavior became erratic with him disappearing for weeks at a time. He recorded an Argo Records trio session in 1962 released as Dodo’s Back!, and made his final studio recordings that same year with saxophonist Gene Ammons and another with trumpeter Bill Hardman. His last public performance was contributed to his diabetes somewhere between the late Sixties to early to mid Seventies, leading to his permanent retirement.

Living in obscurity for the rest of his life, pianist, composer and arranger Dodo Marmarosa, who played in the bebop, modern, progressive and swing genres, passed away of a heart attack on September 17, 2002, in a veterans’ hospital in his hometown of Pittsburgh.

More Posts: piano

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Pops Mohamed was born Ismail Mohamed-Jan on December 10, 1949 in Benoni, Gauteng, South Africa. His career in music was the logical outcome of an early exposure at Dorkay House to the likes of Abdullah Ibrahim and Kippie Moeketsi. He started his first band The Valiants at 14.

Known by fans as the Minister of Music, Pops plays a wide variety of instruments, African mouth bow, bird whistle, berimbau, didgeridoo, guitar, keyboard, kora, and the thumb piano. He is also known for his wide range of musical styles which include jazz, kwela, pop, and soul. He produced Finding One’s Self, the late Moses Taiwa Molelekwa’s award-winning album.

His recorded his debut album Kalamazoo in 1991 and has since recorded eleven more, his last to date being 205’s Mood Africa. He performs regularly with and sits on the board of the Johannesburg Youth Orchestra Company. Multi-instrumentalist, jazz musician and producer Pops Mohamed, who plays the  African mouth bow, bird whistle, berimbau, didgeridoo, guitar, keyboard, kora, and the thumb piano, continues to pursue his career in music.

More Posts: African mouth bow,berimbau,bird whistle,didgeridoo,guitar,keyboard,kora,thumb piano

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Will Goble was born on November 25, 1983 in Durham, NC and became interested in Jazz and related art forms growing up within the creative music scene thriving around his city. Leaving home for Florida State University in Tallahassee in the early 2000s, he quickly flourished under the tutelage of bassist Rodney Jordan and famed pianist Marcus Roberts. His relationship with Roberts extended onto the bandstand as Marcus invited Will to perform with his trio on a number of performances through the years.

Through Roberts, Will met drummer and vibraphonist Jason Marsalis and eventually joined hiss quartet in 2008. He went on to record with Marsalis on Music Update, In a World of Mallets and The 21st Century Trad Band. Relocating to Atlanta, Georgia he set about documenting his work as a bandleader. His debut album, Some Stories Tells No Lies, features his trio with drummer Dave Potter and pianist Austin Johnson, joined by trumpeter Marcus Printup and saxophonist Chad Eby. His sophomore project, Consider The Blues was released in 2016 on OA2 Records with Potter, pianist Louis Heriveaux and saxophonist Gregory Tardy.

Goble returned home to Durham, continuing to tour with Marsalis and perform frequently as a sideman and bandleader. has performed with Marcus and Joan Belgrave, Wessell Anderson, Vincent Gardner, Eric Reed, Warren Wolf, Martin Bejerano, Nick Finzer, Eric Rasmussen, George Colligan, Lew Soloff, Etienne Charles, Michael Kocour, Fred Wesley and many others.

An active educator, he spent several years on the faculty at Scottsdale Community College in Scottsdale, as the coordinator of the College Prep Program at the Phoenix Conservatory of Music where he taught jazz ensembles and music theory, and as a community teaching artist at The Nash, the performance and education home of Jazz In Arizona. Will Goble is steadily carving out a unique space for himself as a bassist, composer, bandleader, and educator.

More Posts: bass