Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Freddie Hill was born Frederick Roosevelt Hill on April 18, 1932 in Jacksonville, Florida. He studied cello and piano as well as trumpet. After four years at Florida A & M on a music scholarship and then spent two years in the army that brought him into contact with the Adderley brothers, among others. He moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue graduate studies at Los Angeles State College and gigs with many artists, including Gerald Wilson and Earl Bostic, followed.
Steady studio work gave him security thanks to Wilson, Matthews, Nelson and H. B. Barnum. However, his opportunities to record as a jazz soloist were few. Playing on the Gerald Wilson Pacific Jazz sessions put him in the company of many outstanding soloists. Hill is prominently heard on Leroy Vinnegar’s Leroy Walks Again!!! And Buddy DeFranco’s Blues Bag, which included Curtis Fuller and Art Blakey.
Besides working with Wilson and Vinnegar, Freddie recorded with Oliver Nelson’s Big Band, South Central Avenue Municipal Blues Band, and The Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra.
Leaving the Los Angeles scene in 1971, he married and moved to the desert. By the end of the decade studio work was drying up and trumpeter Freddie Hill transitioned a forgotten man, date unknown.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph S. Romano was born in Rochester, New York on April 17, 1932 and learned to play clarinet, alto and tenor saxophone as a child. Enlisting in the United States Air Force in the 1950s, then joined the band of Woody Herman in 1956, playing intermittently with Herman into the 1970s, including at major jazz festivals and on several worldwide tours.
In the 1960s, he played with Chuck Mangione, Sam Noto, and Art Pepper and was a recurring sideman on Buddy Rich’s albums between 1968 and 1974. During the Seventies he played with Les Brown, Louie Bellson, Chuck Israels, Sam Noto again, and with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra.
A move to California led him to session work in the 1980s. In addition, he worked with Frank Capp and Nat Pierce. He would later return to his hometown.
Saxophonist Joe Romano transitioned in Rochester on November 26, 2008, from lung cancer, at the age of 76.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gérard Badini was born April 16, 1931 in Paris, France to an opera singing father. He began playing professionally in the early 1950s, playing clarinet in New Orleans jazz-style ensembles with Michel Attenoux, Jimmy Archey, Lil Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Bill Coleman, and Peanuts Holland.
In 1955, he joined Claude Bolling’s ensemble and then joined him on a worldwide tour as members of Jack Diéval’s orchestra. He switched principally to tenor sax beginning in 1958, continuing to work with Roger Guérin and Geo Daly in the late 1950s. In the 1960s he worked with Alice Babs, Duke Ellington, Jean-Claude Naude, Cat Anderson, Paul Gonsalves, Jef Gilson, and François Guin.
He founded his own group, Swing Machine, in 1973, working in this group with Bobby Durham, Raymond Fol, Michel Gaudry, Helen Humes, Sonny Payne, and Sam Woodyard. From 1977 to 1979, Badini lived in New York City, performing with Roy Eldridge, Major Holley, Oliver Jackson, Dick Katz, Clark Terry, Gerald Wiggins, and Reggie Workman.
In 1984, he formed a new big-band ensemble, Super Swing Machine, which he led and played piano in through the late 1990s. Known as Mr. Swing, bandleader, composer, reedist, and pianist Gérard Badini continues to .
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Milton Suggs was born on April 15th in Chicago, Illinois as a third generation musician. While growing up in Atlanta, Georgia he was continually exposed to music of varying styles, especially with his church choir at the age of seven. He recognized music as a gift from a young age; it was later that he would accept it as a calling. While in elementary and middle school, he gravitated toward the upright bass and later played the alto saxophone and drums, however, it was not until after high school that he committed to the pursuit of music as his life’s work.
Returning to Chicago, he began studying piano with the legendary Willie Pickens, while also honing his craft as a vocalist and performer. In 2012 Milton moved to New York City where he immediately took to performing throughout the city, branching out internationally as a performer and educator.
His voice and approach to music are a reflection not only of his direct lineage, but of the many great voices in Black American Music and culture from the past century and beyond. Firmly rooted in the blues Milton sports a rich baritone with the breadth and power reminiscent of Joe Williams, Donny Hathaway, and Nat King Cole.
Downbeat Magazine’s annual critc’s poll has been repeatedly voted a top 10 rising star male vocalist. Sugg’s fixture in jazz is cemented having worked with artists and bands such as the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Orrin Evans, Wycliffe Gordon, Ulysses Owens, and Marquis Hill among others.
Vocalist Milton Suggs has produced four albums to date and is continually developing new projects with new ensembles.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nicolas Masson was born on April 14, 1972 in Geneva, Switzerland. He took up the saxophone in his youth and at twenty years old he met Cecil Taylor in New York and took lessons from Frank Lowe and Makanda Ken McIntyre. Returning home he enrolled in the jazz program at the Conservatoire Populaire de Musique de Genève with Maurice Magnoni as a saxophone teacher.
While a student he attended master classes withLee Konitz, Dave Douglas and Misha Mengelberg. In 1999 Masson spent the summer in New York City studying with Chris Potter. Graduating from the conservatoire in 2000 with a jazz performance and teaching degree, he returned to New York City for a year and studied regularly with Rich Perry and played with local musicians.
His debut album Awake was released in 2002 on the Swiss label Altri Suoni. The session was recorded with his New York band featuring trumpeter Russ Johnson, bassist Eivind Opsvik and drummer Mark Ferber. A year later they were touring Switzerland and Italy.
Receiving a grant from the Bourse d’Aide à la Création he was able to tour Italy and record his sophomore album Yellow (A Little Orange) that was released in 2006 on the Fresh Sound/New Talent label. In 2005 and 2006, the Quartet toured Italy again, taking part in an itinerant Swiss festival organized by Rome’s Swiss Cultural Centre, sharing the evening with Irène Schweizer, Lucas Niggli and Malcolm Braff.
In 2007, a New York concert, European duo tour with Kris Davis of Switzerland, Italy, France and Germany, a New York gig with the Quartet and a 2009 release Thirty Six Ghosts on Clean Feed Records kept him busy. Saxophonist Nicolas Masson continues to record and play throughout Europe.
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