DailyDose Of Jazz…
Leonard Ware was born in Richmond, Virginia on December 28, 1909. He went to college at the Tuskegee Institute and learned to play the oboe.
By 1938 Ware was playing electric guitar on recordings by Sidney Bechet. He then started working with Jimmy Shirley, who was one of the first groups to have two electric guitarists.
In December 1938, he played at Carnegie Hall with the Kansas City Six alongside Lester Young and Buck Clayton. 1939 saw him recording Umbrella Man with Benny Goodman. He performed in a trio during the 1940s and recorded as a leader in 1947. Leonard also recorded with Don Byas, Albinia Jones, Buddy Johnson, and Big Joe Turner.
Ware was the co-composer of Hold Tight, which he recorded with Bechet and I Dreamt I Dwelt in Harlem with Jerry Gray and Buddy Feyne, which was recorded by Glenn Miller and The Delta Rhythm Boys in 1941.
Dropping out of music a few years later, guitarist Leonard Ware, who was one of the first American jazz guitarists to play electric guitar, died at the age of 64 on March 30, 1974.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Greg Hyslop was born in Montgomery, West Virginia on December 27, 1951 but grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina since 1957, He graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts in 1977 and returned to his hometown to settle down and raise a family.
With his hollow-bodied electric guitar, Hyslop performs straight ahead jazz with a bebop flavor. To date he has released two recordings, his debut with Kenny Werner on piano and John Riley on drums is titled Manhattan Date in 1987. His sophmore recording, The Greg Hyslop Trio features pianist David Fox and bassist Charles Gambetta.
Guitarist Greg Hyslop, who has been a member of the groups Peace Chant and The Third Floor Orchestra, continues to be a long standing member of the piedmont North Carolina jazz community.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lowell Dwight Dickerson was born in Los Angeles, California on December 26, 1944 and grew up in the city where his influences were Horace Silver, McCoy Tyner, Kenny Barron, and Bud Powell, among others. He became active on the local jazz scene in the 1960s.
In the early Sevenites he appeared on the Chicago, Illinois tenor titan Gene Ammons’ Free Again album on Prestige, and the latter part of the decade found him being featured on a few LPs by baritone saxophonist Nick Brignola. In the 1980s Dickerson started recording as a leader when he provided his debut album, Sooner or Later, for Discovery. In 1992,
Dickerson recorded Dwight’s Rights which features Red Holloway on tenor sax for the small Night Life label. He has played as a sideman in the 1990s with saxman Rickey Woodard, singer Michael Martin and Albert “Tootie” Heath. The early 2000s saw him featured on singer David Coss’ Simple Life album.
Pianist Dwight Dickerson, who occasionally sings and plays a variety of genres ranging from hard bop, funk and soul jazz, to modal post-bop, continues to perform and record at 80.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ronald Edward Cuber was born on December 25, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York. In 1959 he was playing tenor saxophone when he joined Marshall Brown’s Newport Youth Band at eighteen, but switched to the baritone. His first notable work was with Slide Hampton in 1962 and then went with Maynard Ferguson the following year until 1965. George Benson recruited him for a year in ‘66 to 1967.
As a leader he was known for hard bop and Latin jazz, the latter with Eddie Palmieri, As a sideman he played outside the genre with B. B. King, Paul Simon, Eric Clapton, J. Geils Band, and one of his most spirited performances is on Dr. Lonnie Smith’s 1970 Blue Note album Drives. He was also a member of the Saturday Night Live Band.
Ronnie played with Frank Zappa on the live album Zappa in New York, which was recorded in 1976. He went on to gain membership in the Lee Konitz nonet from 1977 to 1979.He was a member of the Mingus Big Band from its inception in the early 1990s until his death. He performed as an off-screen musician for the movie Across the Universe.
Baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber, who also played soprano and tenor saxophones, clarinet and flute, died at the age of 80 on October 7, 2022 in his New York’s Upper West Side studio from internal injuries sustained after a fall that could not be treated due to overwhelming Covid patients at the start of the pandemic.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tatsuya Takahashi was born on December 24, 1931 in Tsuruoka, Yamagata, Japan.
In the early 1950s Tatsuya played on US military bases and later in the decade moved to Tokyo, Japan. He worked with Keiichiro Ebihara from 1961, and by 1966 was leading his own ensemble, Tokyo Union, which remained active until 1989.
The 1970s saw him playing at the Monterey and Montreux Jazz Festivals. After leaving Tokyo Union, Takahashi worked in jazz education, and in 1996 founded a new ensemble, Jazz Groovys.
Saxophonist Tatsuya Takahashi died on February 29, 2008 in Tokyo, Japan.
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