Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Raymond Allen Draper was born on August 3, 1940 in New York City. He attended the Manhattan School of Music in the mid-1950s. As a leader, he recorded his debut album, Tuba Sounds in 1957 for Prestige Records at the age of 16, with a quintet. His sophomore album, The Ray Draper Quintet featuring John Coltrane, was recorded at the age of 17 with slight changes in his quintet, including John Coltrane.

His drug use got him imprisoned, however, after his release in the late 1960s, Draper formed the first jazz rock fusion band composed of established jazz musicians of the day. This preceded Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew, which is normally recognized as the first jazz rock fusion group and recording by two years.

Original band members included George Bohanon on trombone, Hadley Caliman on tenor sax, John Duke on upright bass, Paul Lagos on drums and Tom Trujillo on guitar. This band, after its first live performance at Hollywood’s Whisky a Go Go and was offered numerous record deals and booked solid at rock venues for the rest of the year. Lagos went on to tour with John Mayall and was one of the founders of the group Pure Food & Drug Act, featuring Don ‘Sugarcane’ Harris.

He began using heroin again and the more experienced band members quit, except for the youngest member, guitarist Tom Trujillo and his landlord, Chuck Gooden. He hired San Diego trumpeter Don Sleet and saxophonist Ernie Watts. Eventually Draper brought drummer Paul Lagos back, along with saxophonist Richard Aplanalp, trumpeter Phil Wood, and bassist Ron Johnson, becoming a new group named Red Beans and Rice.

They recorded the album Red Beans and Rice Featuring Sparerib Ray Draper on Epic Records. They disbanded, he got hooked on drugs again, and left California for a couple of years in London, England. He was seen sporadically performing and recording. Returning to New York City in the hopes of becoming clean, he remarried and had two children, and continued to compose for other musicians.

He went on to play for a time with Max Roach, and in 1982 he joined the Lionel Hampton Orchestra. Tha year, coming out of a bank in Harlem, he was held up by a gang of juveniles. The 13-year-old leader of the gang shot him, after he had given him his money.

Tuba player Ray Draper, who had been clean of drug use and was working on a composition found in his attaché case, died on November 1, 1982.

More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,tuba

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Alan Gaumer was born on July 25, 1951 in Bethelehem, Pennsylvania.  He began playing the trumpet when he was eight and was a member of Kal’s Kid’s that appeared on the Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour as well as numerous other television shows. Throughout elementary, junior and high school he participated in band, orchestra, and stage bands and graduated from Freedom High School in 1969. 

He studied with John Nero and Willard Schissler and performed with the Allentown Band before attending the U.S. Navy School of Music. Upon graduation he spent the next three years living in Gaeta, Italy touring Europe, Africa and Asia with the Navy Show Band. Offered the jazz trumpet position at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis before his discharge, from 1973-75 he toured first as trumpeter and later as drummer with the well known group KATO. 

Settling back in the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania he was an integral part of a popular group P.F. & the Flyers and his own A.G.Q. After attending Rutgers University, Alan spent two years touring South America and West Africa with the U.S. Navy Show Band. When he got out in 1982, he worked for several years at well known hotels and resorts. 

He has performed with a long list of jazz musicians which include Randy Brecker, Phil Woods, Al Cohn, George Young, Bob Dorough, Tom Harrell, Bill Watrous, Urbie Green, Kim Parker, Vic Jurris, Charles Fambrough, Bill Washer, John Swanna, David Leonhardt, Steve Gilmore, Bill Goodwin, Bobby Routch, Tom Schuman of Spyro Gyra and others. 

As an educator Gaumer has been the jazz trumpet Artist/Lecturer at Moravian College since 1994 and served as Fusion ensemble director in 1998-99, 2003-04 and 2005-06. He is Artistic Director of the Pennsylvania Jazz Collective, a Lehigh Valley based non-profit jazz organization. 

Trumpeter and educator Alan Gaumer continues to perform, teach and produce jazz events.

 

More Posts: bandleader,educator,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Peter Perfido‘was born on July 21, 1956 in Hartford, Connecticut.  He started his drumming musical journey in the early Sixties being influenced by the British Wave of the Beatles, the Kinks, the Animals, and the Who. By the mid 70’s Peter had begun to discover jazz and improvised music. While predominantly self-taught, he studied privately with Kit McDermott, Bob Moses and Jerry Granelli. His career has involved playing jazz, improvised music, rock and blues with scores of lauded musicians from diverse styles and backgrounds.

Peter has performed and/or recorded with Chet Baker, Gary Peacock, Lee Konitz, Jimmy Woode, Bill Barron, Art Lande, Julian Priester, David Friedman, Tomasz Stanko, Sal Nistico, Kent Carter, Rasul Siddik, Bob Degen, Heinz Sauer, Bob Mover, Ed Schuller, Anthony Braxton, Joe Lee Wilson, Lou Bennett, Bobby Few, Barney Wilen, Bobby Few, Liz McComb, Michelle Hendricks, Ferenc Snetberger, Rinde Eckert, Lonnie Plaxico , Stephen Haynes, Michel Pilz, Lonnie Plaxico, and the list goes on.

He has toured across the USA, Western Canada, Europe, Asia, the USSR and the Pacific islands. Currently living in Hohrod, Alsace, France, drummer Peter Perfido performs mostly in Europe these days with groups spanning a wide spectrum of influences from mainstream modern jazz to open ended explorations with free improvisation, as well as shuffling and rocking the blues.

More Posts: bandleader,drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Nicole Glover was born on July 18, 1991 in Portland, Oregon. Her musical journey began when her father introduced her to improvised music at a young age. She started playing the clarinet at the age of ten, transitioning to tenor saxophone the following year. Her interest and curiosity for music blossomed in high school, becoming involved in a variety of performance groups, both within her school and in the community.

Nicole was chosen to be one of nineteen students from across the nation for the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, who embarked on a national tour that involved performances with Bobby Watson and Julian Lage, and concluded with a performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival with Wynton Marsalis.

After studying at William Paterson University, in 2011 Nicole returned to Portland where she was invited to record on Esperanza Spaulding’s Grammy-award winning album Radio Music Society. She now performs in multiple groups with multi-instrumentalist George Colligan, as well as her own jazz trio and several other improvisational ensembles, such as, the Alan Jones Storyline Sextet, Thomas Barber’s Spiral Road, and the Kerry Politzer Quintet.

2015 saw Glover releasing her debut album First Record, featuring pianist and trumpeter George Colligan, bassist Jonathan Lakey and drummer Alan Jones. She leads her own trio with bassist Tyrone Allen II and drummer Kayvon Gordon. This was followed with the release of Plays, and HighNote-Savant Records Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

Throughout her musical career, Nicole has performed with Mulgrew Miller, Esperanza Spalding, Kenny Garrett, George Colligan, Geoffrey Keezer, Bennie Maupin, Bobby Watson, Mike Clark, Carl Allen, Kenny Washington, Al Foster, Victor Lewis, Lenny White, Joe Farnsworth, Reggie Workman, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ben Wolfe, Bill Stewart, Essiet Essiet, Mel Brown, Julian Lage, Obo Addy, Rob Scheps, Red Holloway, Terell Stafford, Helen Sung, Dana Hall, Scotty Barnhart, and Thara Memory, to name a few.

Glover is a member of Ural Thomas and Pain, Artemis led by Renee Rosnes, Ursa Major led by Christian McBride, and has toured with Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Tenor saxophonist, bandleader, composer, and educator Nicole Glover, who is on faculty at the Manhattan School of Music and has taught masterclasses and private lessons to students around the world, continues to fit performance in her busy schedule.

More Posts: bandleader,educator,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Edwin John Prévost was born June 22, 1942 in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England of Huguenot heritage. Brought up by a single parent mother in war-damaged London Borough of Bermondsey. He won a state scholarship to Addey and Stanhope Grammar School, Deptford, London. Enrolled in the Boy Scouts Association’s 19th Bermondsey Troop to join the marching band and as a teenager began to get involved with the emerging youth culture music, first skiffle, then introduced to a big jazz record collection of a school friend with rich parents.

Prévost worked part-time after school, purchasing his first snare drum from the Len Hunt Drum Shop on Archer Street. Leaving school at 16, he took various clerical positions, while continuing his musical interests. Immersed in the music of bebop, his playing technique was insufficient, however, New Orleans trad jazz offered scope for his growing musical prowess.

He played in various bands mostly in the East End of London. It was during a tenure with one of these bands he met trumpeter David Ware, who shared a passion for hard-bop jazz. Together, while in their early twenties they formed a modern jazz quintet which included Lou Gare, who was a member of the Mike Westbrook Jazz Orchestra.

In 1965 AMM was co-founded by Eddie, Lou Gare, and Keith Rowe and were shortly joined by Lawrence Sheaff. All had a jazz background and were soon augmented by composer Cornelius Cardew. They stayed together until 1972 when some split and others took their place.

Over the years Prévost has conducted many improvised music workshops. However, as a result of a seminar he conducted at The Guelph Jazz Festival, Canada in 1999, Prévost began to formulate a framework for a workshop based upon a more thorough working of AMM principles and practice.

Percussionist Eddie Prévost, who has recorded twenty albums as a leader, twenty-eight with the free improvisation group AMM, and another thirty as a sideman with Derek Bailey, John Wolf Brennan, John Butcher, Cornelius Cardew, Chris Corsano, Sachiko M, Jim O’Rourke, Bruce Russell, David Sylvian, Telectu, Ken Vandermark, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Christian Wolff, Marilyn Crispell, continues to perform and record.

More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,percussion