Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ronnell Bright was born July 3, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois. Wanting to be a classical pianist, at age nine he won a prize and played with the Chicago Youth Piano Symphony Orchestra. He went on to study at the Juilliard School, completing his studies in the early 1950s. His first encounter with jazz was in a United States Navy band. After his discharge he went back home and worked and recorded with bassist Johnny Pate and it was in the mid 1950s that he became the pianist for singer Carmen McRae.

1955 saw Bright moving to New York City where he performed and recorded with Rolf Kühn, and with Buddy Tate on the Swingville Sessions. Two years later he joined the Dizzy Gillespie big band and formed his own trio with Richard Davis and drummer Art Morgan. From 1958 he was pianist and music director of the orchestra for Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne and Gloria Lynne. In 1964, he became Nancy Wilson’s arranger, pianist and musical director and moved to Los Angeles, California.

Working mainly in the Hollywood studios, in 1972 Ronnell became a member of the Supersax formation for two years, taught at high school for a year and worked as a composer with lyricist Johnny Mercer. He also composed songs performed by Sarah Vaughan, Cal Tjader, Horace Silver and Blue Mitchell and was involved in recordings by Coleman Hawkins, Anita O’Day, Shirley Scott and Frank Wess.

By the beginning of the 1990s he settled in Denver, Colorado and gave himself the title of “Doctor of Divinity”  and with his wife Reverend Dianne Bright, he produced jazz programs for their own church community, the Harmony Church, where local musicians often performed as guests of the Harmony Orchestra.

Pianist, arranger and composer Ronnell Bright who recorded four albums as a leader grooved to modern jazz and swing, continued to play and produce occasionally until he passed away at 91 years old on August 12, 2021.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Monika Herzig was born June 12, 1964 in Germany and studied piano in her childhood. After receiving a scholarship in 1987 from the pedagogical institute in Weingarten, Germany for a one-year exchange program at the University of Alabama. Arriving in the United States in 1988 with one suitcase and a guitar, she went on to complete her Doctorate in Music Education and Jazz Studies at Indiana University, where she is a faculty member.

She recorded with the jazz fusion group BeebleBrox and has produced four albums as leader of the Monika Herzig Acoustic Project. Peace on Earth was released locally in Indianapolis, Indiana in 2008 and was released nationally in 2009 on the Owl Studios label.

She was awarded 1994 Best Original Composition, Let’s Fool One by DownBeat, was a two times finalist with BeebleBrox in 1994–1996, was a winner with Oliver Nelson Jr., WTPI Winter Jazzfest Competition in  Indianapolis, and in 2000, 2003 and 2005 was the recipient of the Individual Artist Grant from the Indiana Arts Commission. Pianist Monika Herzig continues to perform, record and tour.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jon Georg Balke was born on June 7, 1955 at Furnes, Ringsaker, Norway and started playing classical piano, but switched to blues at 12, and eventually migrated into jazz. At the age of 18 he joined Arild Andersen’s quartet.

By the mid-1980s he was working on his own and has become one of Norway’s leading jazz composers. He was active in the groups of Radka Toneff, the Afrofusion group E´olén, Oslo 13 and Masqualero in the early 1980s. From 1989 he focused on his own projects, such as JøKleBa with Audun Kleive and Per Jørgensen, and the Magnetic North Orchestra.

Forming the percussion group Batagraf in 2002, he created a series of multimedia concerts at Vossajazz festival, labeled Ekstremjazz that included the extreme sports of parachuting, paragliding, hang-gliding, and bmx biking. In 2016 he launched the solo piano concept Warp, with a subtle use of live electronics accompanying the grand piano in live performances.

Pianist and composer Jon Balke has received numerous awards for his contributions to jazz, has been an artist in residence at Moldejazz and currently works with his Magnetic North Orchestra.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Hilaria Kramer was born June 1, 1967 in Frauenfeld, Switzerland and began to play trumpet, when she was ten years old. From 1983, she attended the vocational school department of Jazz school St. Gallen, where she studied under Benny Bailey and Art Lande.

Finished with her studies she then went to Italy and worked with the Claudio Fasoli Quintet, with Gianluigi Trovesi. She has performed with Steve Lacy, Enrico Rava, Joe Henderson, Bob Mover, Sal Nistico, Chet Baker or Sangoma Everett.

In 1988, she led a recording session of her debut album, Hilaria Kramer Quartet and released the following year on the Unit Records label. In 1991, she performed on the TV program Ladies in Jazz with singers like Nina Simone and Carmen McRae.

In the years to follow she has performed with Uli Scherer toured around Europe, has recorded 18 albums, and was awarded the Jazz Prize of the Fondation Suisa for her contributions and her work in various organisations to support Swiss jazz. Trumpeter, composer and band leader Hilaria Kramer continues to perform, record and tour.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

John William Barber was born May 21, 1920 in Hornell, New York outside Rochester and was also known as Bill Barber or Billy Barber. He started playing tuba in high school and studied at the Juilliard School of Music. After graduating, he travelled west to Kansas City, Missouri, where he played with the Kansas City Philharmonic and various ballet and theatre orchestras.[1]

Joining the United States Army in 1942 he played in Patton’s 7th army band for three years. After the war, he started playing jazz, joining Claude Thornhill’s big band where he became friends with trombonist Al Langstaff, Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan in 1947. Bill became one of the first tuba players to play in a modern jazz style, playing solos and participating in intricate ensemble pieces.

Barber became a founding member of Miles Davis’s nonet in 1949 in what became known as the Birth of the Cool recording sessions. He then worked in theatre pit orchestration of the King and I, Paradiso and the City Center Ballet before joining up with Davis and Gil Evans in 1957 to record albums such as Sketches of Spain, Miles Ahead, Quiet Nights and Porgy and Bess. He also performed on John Coltrane’s album Africa/Brass.

During the 1950s and Sixties her recorded several albums with Art Blakey, Bob Brookmeyer, Kenny Burrell, Gigi Gryce, Slide Hampton and Pete Rugolo. Completing a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music he chose to go into education and became an elementary school music teacher in Copiague, New York. He continued to play where possible including with the Goldman Band.

In 1992, he recorded and toured with a nonet led by Gerry Mulligan, reworking material from Birth of the Cool. From 1998 to 2004 he was part of The Seatbelts, New York musicians who played the music of the Japanese anime Cowboy Bebop.

Tubist Bill Barber, who never led a recording session, passed away of heart failure in Bronxville, New York on June 18, 2007.

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