Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Elias Haslanger was born on July 9, 1969 in Austin, Texas. Growing up during the 1980s he listened to the Marsalis Brothers, Mark Whitfield and Roy Hargrove among others. In sixth grade he picked up the saxophone, and by the time he was in high school, he was playing gigs around his hometown and San Antonio.

After graduating from high school he attended the University of Texas at Austin studying with Harvey Pittel, then moved to New York to matriculate the Manhattan School of Music. From there his education took him back to study at Southwest Texas State University (TSU), during which time he received the Downbeat Student Music Award for College Outstanding Tenor Saxophone Performance.

His 1994 debut album Standards is a collection of straight-ahead bop and swing tunes featuring the top Austin area musicians. His second project titled For The Moment followed by his 1998 release of Kicks Are For Kids that brought the Marsalis patriarch in to collaborate. That same year Elias put on his educators cap and began teaching theory and composition at TSU.

A move to Brooklyn, New York in 2000 got the attention of Maynard Ferguson and in short order Haslanger was sitting in the same chair that Wayne Shorter once occupied. This experience help shaped him as a bandleader and performer.

In 2004 he returned to Austin, started his own label Cherrywood Records, released it debut release Dream Story. He has performed with Harry Connick Jr., Frank Foster, Clark Terry, Steve Turre, Al Grey, Lew Soloff, Marvin “Smitty” Smith, Ron Westray, Jesse Davis, J. J. Johnson, Peter Martin, Russell Gunn, among other jazz luminaries. He has also played with Chirstopher Cross, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Alejandro Escovedo, Asleep At The Wheel, Sheryl Crow and countless others in pop and soul genres.

Tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone player Elias Haslanger continues to perform, record and tour around the world with annual invites to play the North Sea and Montreux Jazz Festivals.

Inspire A Young Mind

More Posts: saxophone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Massimo de Majo was born in Rome, Italy on July 8, 1957 and began studying music at a very young age. By 1980 while matriculating through Rome University studying Music and Literature he earned a Masters Degree in Percussion Instruments. He went on to study, apprentice and refine his skills under David Liebman, Elvin Jones, Marvin Bugalu Smith, Horace Parlan, Billy Hart, Max Roach, Richie Beirach, Wayne Shorter, Buster Williams, Harold Land, Carlos Santana and Larry Coryell.

He has developed an intense energy flow, wide dynamics and an acute sense for interplay, being comfortable playing free form music, as well as within more structured frameworks. Over the course of his career de Majo has spent most of his life outside Italy performing across Europe, the United States, Scandinavia and Japan. Though not widely known to the general public, the percussionist is regarded as a musicians’ musician and sought after on the jazz circuit.

During the last thirty years, focusing mostly on performing and teaching, he has recorded with Horace Parlan, Per Goldschmidt, Al Swainger, Andy Williamson, Biancamaria Stanzani Ghedini and Philip Clouts, among others. As a composer he has also created pieces for the theatre, contemporary dance, video, sound design and installation art. Drummer Massimo de Majo is also an educator and sits on the faculty of the University of Malta teaching several different courses in the Music Department. He continues to perform and record.

Dose A Day – Blues Away

More Posts: drums

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Tony Miceli was born July 1, 1960 in Cincinnati, Ohio and grew up in Willingboro, New Jersey. He starting playing classical guitar at an early age and then took up the drums, piano and trumpet. He played drums in a high school band called Minas Tirith. Graduating from high school he took drum lessons and secured admission into the University of the Arts. It was there that he was drawn to the vibraphone. Upon completion of his matriculation 1982, through the decade and into the Nineties he toured through Germany with a percussion group called Mallet Madness.

In the late 1990s Miceli created the Philadelphia based group Monkadelphia, a group “dedicated to performing the music of Thelonious Monk. Regularly performing in the Netherlands with the band Thelonious 4, he also plays in an Irish tribute band to the Modern Jazz Quartet.

In addition to performing Tony is an educator and by 2000 he was teaching at Temple University, the University of the Arts, teaching master classes in jazz improvisation and conducting numerous workshops throughout North America and Europe.

Over the course of a career that includes composing, recording and teaching vibraphonist Tony Miceli has performed with Chris Farr, Tom Lawton, Micah Jones, Gina rocjJim Miller, David Friedman, Joe Magnarelli, Dave Liebman, Elio Villafranco, Steve Slagele, Jimmy Bruno, Dave Stryker, Peter Bernstein, Gerald Veasley and Joanna Pascale. He continues to perform a wide variety of musical genres on both the club and festival circuits.

Dose A Day – Blues Away

More Posts: vibraphone

Daily Dose OF Jazz…

Glenn Ferris was born on June 27, 1950 in Los Angeles, California. He studied classical music from 1958 to 1967, but from 1964 onward he also studied jazz with Don Ellis. He went on to perform with a variety of musicians in varied genres before moving to France in 1980.

In France, trombonist Glenn Ferris worked with Tony Scott, Brotherhood of Breath, Henri Texier and others. As an educator he currently teaches at the Conservatoire de Paris and leads a trio and a quintet.

Give A Gift Of Jazz – Share

More Posts: trombone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Pablo “Chino” Nunez was born on June 25, 1961, adopted as an infant, the only son of Puerto Rican immigrants and raised in New York City’s Sunset Park section of Brooklyn. Inspired and encouraged at a young age, he attributes his success to the “masters” he studied as well as idolizing many instrumentalists and vocalists most notably Tito Puente, Orestes Villato, Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Nicky Marrero, The Beatles, The Jackson 5, James Brown, and Ella Fitzgerald among others.

Self-taught, Chino’s career spans four decades he established himself as a percussionist, multi-Instrumentalist, producer, arranger, composer, recording artist, band leader, and educator. He is a multiple Grammy, Latin Grammy and Billboard nominee and winner. He has amassed hundreds of music credits as a producer including the documentary film, “Pedro “Cuban Pete” Aguilar: Dancing En Clave”. He has toured with a who’s who list of performers and has garnered critical acclaim with his Chino Nunez Orchestra.

Nunez has recorded and performed with Tito Puente, Hector Lavoe, Celia Cruz, Johnny Pacheco, Marc Anthony, El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, Ray Barretto, Willie Colon, Ruben Blades, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Larry Harlow, Tito Nieves, Spanish Harlem Orchestra and a host of others.  He has performed all over the world including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, North Sea Jazz Festival, Madison Square Garden, Montreal Jazz Festival, the Tito Puente Amphitheatre and Bellas Arte Performing Arts Center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to name a few.

He creates a unique and rhythmic swing fusing Salsa, Big Band, Latin Jazz, Christian, Gospel, Bachata, Reggaeton, Hip Hop and R & B. On Broadway he has performed in “The Life of Celia Cruz”, “Evita”, “Cape Man”, “Lion King”, and “A Tale of Two Cities” featuring his arrangement “Another 100 People”. In 2005, he released his debut album Chino Nunez & Friends, A Tribute to the Dancers, It’s ShoTime. Producer of voice-overs, jingles, radio and television and commercials, Chino Nunez continues to perform and tour worldwide.

Dose A Day – Blues Away

More Posts: percussion