Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sonny Costanzo was born Dominic on October 7, 1932 in Greenwich Village, New York City, New York. Academically trained, he received additional education from on-the-road experience playing trombone with big bands.
Costanzo was a member of the Clark Terry Big Band, Woody Herman And His Orchestra, Woody Herman And The Swingin’ Herd. He led the Sonny Costanzo Big Band, and the Sonny Costanza Orchestra,
He recorded five albums as a leader or co-leader with Na Sonnyho Straně Ulice, Glenn Zottola, Golden Strings of Prague and the Czech Radio Big Band. Two of them are quartet led.
Trombonist and bandleader Sonny Costanzo died on December 30, 1993 in New Haven, Connecticut.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trombone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Fernando Álvarez Ariza was born in Santander, Columbia on October 6, 1977. He began his musical studies at the artistic culture department of Santander DICAS and continued his studies in harmony with Rito Mantilla and classical guitar with Silvio Martinez at the Universidad Industrial de Santander. He graduated with a Bachelor in music degree and took a workshop at Los Angeles International Christian University, strengthening his studies in electric guitar, jazz fundamentals, and production. He later received tutoring from guitarists Bruce Saunders and Pino Marrone.
He has done rock projects with the group Osmosis from Bucaramanga, Santander, with whom he recorded a single called Atrás de los Sueños with the collaboration of guitarist Mauricio Espinoza. His jazz projects include the staging of the work Santandereano by bassist José “Chepe” Ariza at the national festival Jazz al Parque in Bogotá.
He has shared the stage with Bruce Saunders, Eric Halvorson, Javier Colina, Héctor Martignon, Antonio Arnedo, Oscar Acevedo, Chepe Ariza, Gabriel Rondón, Sebastián Monsalve, Pacho Dávila, Ricardo Uribe, Oscar Serrano Prada, Lalo Ariza, Germán Sandoval, Sincopa Jazz Band, among others.
His recent album, Arquitectura Sonora, features Cuban saxophonist Leonardo Molina and trumpeter Jorge Méndez. He fuses electronic textures, improvisation, and elements of Colombian folk and urban culture. He has taught at the Gentil Montaña Foundation, Corporación Cristiana Universitaria, Los Angeles International Christian University, and is currently a professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Pamplona, Colombia.
More Posts: bandleader,guitar,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roxana Amed was born October 5, 1963 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The singer-songwriter blends South American folk traditions with art rock and modern jazz. Considered as one of the most important voices in South American music.
Once in the United States, she collaborated with musicians based in New York City as Guillermo Klein, Emilio Solla, Leo Genovese, Sofia Rei, and pianist/composer Frank Carlberg. She has performed at The Jazz Gallery, Dizzy’s Club at Lincoln Center, Jazz Standard, The Stone, Rockwood Music Hall, Smalls, and Mezzrow.
In 2017 was commissioned, with Brazilian pianist André Mehmari, to pay tribute to the legendary Astor Piazzolla at the Buenos Aires International Jazz Festival. An album of the performance is set to be released in 2021.
Amed is a post-graduate in Contemporary Literature in Spanish Language, as well as a vocal instructor and clinician. For ten years she has led a vocal workshop for hundreds of jazz vocalists at the Buenos Aires International Jazz Festival.
She worked on a special project for the CMA grant, which resulted in Becoming Human, her eleventh album. It illustrates the human journey and her own experience as an artist. Vocalist, composer, producer Roxana Amed is a full-time Voice Professor at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Harold Leon Breeden was born on October 3, 1921 in Guthrie, Oklahoma. At three his parents moved to Wichita Falls, Texas where he grew up and graduated from high school. He attended Texas Wesleyan College in Fort Worth, Texas on a scholarship and later transferred to Texas Christian University where he completed both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. A move to New York City had him doing graduate work at Columbia University, he studied clarinet with Reginald Kell with whom Benny Goodman studied.
In 1944 after military duty he became the Director of Bands at Texas Christian University and later served as Director of Bands at Grand Prairie High School, then Director of Jazz Studies at the University of North Texas College of Music, where Breeden remained until his retirement in 1984.
Breeden also played saxophone and studied composition and arranging at Texas Christian. As a producer of the NBC Symphony, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, he declined a position as staff writer and arranger for the orchestra to take care of his ill father. Moving back to Texas he worked as music coordinator for KXAS-TV in Fort Worth, known at the time as WBAP-TV.
In the last several years of his life, Leon frequently soloed on clarinet with The Official Texas Jazz Orchestra. In 2009, The University of North Texas awarded him with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.
Clarinstist, educator, composer and director Leon Breeden, who made the One O’Clock Lab Band internationally famous, died of natural causes on August 11, 2010 in Dallas,Texas.
More Posts: bandleader,clarinet,composer,educator,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paolo Ricca was born on October 2, 1963 in Turin, Italy and began studying classical piano at an early age. After school, he continued his studies and expanded into the realm of jazz performance and composition at CPM Music Institute in Milan, Italy where he graduated, under the tutelage of Franco D’Andrea.
The early 1980’s saw the beginning of his professional career performing for live audiences. A few years later Paolo performed in over 3000 concerts and festivals all over Europe, while simultaneously building a solid reputation as a studio musician. He has collaborated with John Etheridge, Soft Machine, Stèphane Grappelli, John Williams, Lee Brown, La Verne Jackson, Mokhtar Samba ( Joe Zawinul’s Sindycate, Jaco Pastorius, Carlos Santana, M. Orza, Dee D. Jackson, Haddaway and many others.
He ventured into music technology, computers, sequencers, looping, and sampling. Ricca began studio work with engineering, recording, as well as arranging and composing. He has worked for major recording companies, producing music on both a national and an international level.
Pianist Paolo Ricca, whose 2023 release, My Italian Piano Songbook, won First Prize for Best CD at the prestigious Swiss International Music Competition, continues to perform, tour and record as a leading voice in contemporary international piano music.
More Posts: arranger,bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano