Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Funkhouser was born on October 16, 1966 in Boston, Massachusetts and studied classical piano from the age of seven, and classical bass starting at nine. He earned a B.A. in Musicology at Cornell University and returned to Boston to earn a Master’s degree from New England Conservatory in jazz piano, bass and composition in 1995. After a year performing in Singapore and four years performing and teaching in New York City, he again returned to Boston in 2000. This move was to raise a family, perform, and accept a job at Berklee College of Music, where he taught ear training, piano, bass, harmony, and ensembles until 2021.
Performing a wide spectrum of music, including all types of jazz, funk, rock, hiphop, Indian classical music, reggae, other world music and Western classical music, John is in equal demand as a jazz bassist and pianist. He has performed and/or recorded with Grammy winners Joe Lovano, Charles Neville, Steve Gadd, Abe Laboriel Sr., Luciana Souza, Mark Walker, Max Weinberg and Grammy nominees Bobby Watson, Francisco Mela, and Tierney Sutton.
In addition he has performed with among others Geri Allen, Bill Pierce, Joe Hunt, Herb Pomeroy, Francisco Mela, and Rebecca Cline. He leads Piandia, a duo specializing in Indian classical music, with tabla player Jerry Leake and the John Funkhouser Group, and has toured the U.S., Europe, Africa and Asia several times with both bands.
Pianist, bassist, arranger, and producer John Funkhouser, whose discography catalogue includes over 80 compact discs, currently resides, performs and teaches in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Thore Jederby was born October 15, 1913 in Stockholm, Sweden and received his formal training in music at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. He began playing jazz in the mid-1930s, playing with Arne Hülphers’s band from 1934 to 1938, and then with Thore Ehrling’s ensemble from 1938 through the end of World War II.
Thore led his own group, the Swing Swingers, for studio recordings in the mid-1930s, and led smaller ensembles for recording sessions in the 1940s.
Later in his life, Jederby became active in the capturing of the history of Swedish jazz. He was involved in reissues of early Swedish recordings, curated radio shows devoted to Swedish jazz, and participated in a national commission on the history of jazz in Sweden.
Double bassist, record producer, and radio broadcaster Thore Jederby died on January 10, 1984 in his city of birth.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chris Karan was born Chrisostomos Karanikis on October 14, 1939 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. In the early 1960s he played in the Three Out Trio with Mike Nock and Freddy Logan in Sydney, Australia.
A move to London, England in 1962 saw him becaming the drummer in the Dudley Moore Trio. He toured and recorded with Moore for many years, including appearances on the TV series Not Only But Also and the soundtrack of the 1967 movie Bedazzled. Their association continued until Moore’s last major public appearance at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 2001.
Karan has worked with Michel Legrand, Lalo Schifrin, Charles Aznavour, the Swingle Singers, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Stanley Myers, Basil Kirchin, Tony Hatch, Jackie Trent, Jerry Goldsmith, Jerry Fielding, Pat Williams, André Previn, Richard Rodney Bennett, Barry Tuckwell, Carl Davis, Henry Mancini, the Beatles, the Seekers, Katie Melua and Roy Budd.
He toured with John Dankworth and Cleo Laine, the Bee Gees, Caterina Valente, Dusty Springfield, Lulu and the Yardbirds. He was a member of the Harry Stoneham group, which provided the musical backing for the Michael Parkinson shows on BBC-TV.
As a member of Roy Budd’s band, the Roy Love Trio, he performed on the Get Carter 1971 film soundtrack. He plays the tabla on some albums, having studied the instrument under the Indian musician Alla Rakha. He has recorded with Dudley Moore, Ronnie Scott, Teresa Brewer, Ian Carr, Ray Ellington, Stephane Grappelli, Cleo Laine, Oliver Nelson, among numerous others.
Drummer and percussionist Chris Karan, who at 84 years of age has recorded 84 albums as a sideman, continues to perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Pharoah Sanders was born Ferrell Lee Sanders on October 13, 1940 in Little Rock, Arkansas, an only child. He began his musical career accompanying church hymns on clarinet but his initial artistic accomplishments were in the visual arts. When he was at Scipio Jones High School in North Little Rock, he began playing the tenor saxophone.
After graduating from high school in 1959, Sanders moved to Oakland, California, where he lived with relatives. He briefly studied art and music at Oakland City College. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from an unknown art institution.
He began his professional career playing tenor saxophone in Oakland, then moved to New York City in 1962. The following year he was playing with Billy Higgins and Don Cherry and caught the attention of Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane. In 1965, he became a member of Coltrane’s band, as the latter gravitated towards the avant-garde jazz of Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, and Cecil Taylor.
Sanders first recorded with Coltrane on Ascension, followed by their dual-tenor album Meditations, then joined Coltrane’s final quintet. Pharoah released his debut album as a leader, Pharoah’s First, was not what he expected. In 1966 he signed with Impulse! and the years Sanders spent with the label were both a commercial and critical success.
The 1970s had Sanders continuing to produce his own recordings including the 30-minute wave-on-wave of free jazz, The Creator Has A Master Plan from the album Karma, featuring vocalist Leon Thomas and to work with Alice Coltrane on her Journey in Satchidananda album. Although supported by African-American radio, Sanders’ brand of brave free jazz became less popular.
His major-label return came in 1995 when Verve Records released Message from Home, followed by Save Our Children (1998). But again, Sanders’s disgust with the recording business prompted him to leave the label. In the 2000s, a resurgence of interest in jazz kept Sanders playing festivals and was awarded a NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship for 2016 and was honored at a tribute concert in Washington DC on April 4, 2016.
In 2020 he recorded the album Promises, with the English electronic music producer Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra. It was widely acclaimed as a clear late-career masterpiece.
Saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques, died on September 24, 2022 at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 81.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Yoshiaki Masuo was born in Tokyo, Japan on October 12, 1946. The son of a jazz bandleader and pianist, he grew up surrounded by jazz. Never having any formal training, by the time he was 15 he started playing the guitar and his influences were Wes Montgomery and Grant Green.
Discovered by alto saxophonist Sadao Watanabe in 1967 he joined the group and started his professional career with one of Japan’s leading groups. During the three years he was with the group Masuo was Swing Journal’s reader’s poll #1 guitarist and went on to win it five more times.
A move to New York City in ‘71 saw him playing with Teruo Nakamura, Lenny White, Michael Brecker, Chick Corea, Elvin Jones, Ashford & Simpson and was a member of Lee Konitz’s group. Two years later he joined up with Sonny Rollins and recorded four albums and toured the U.S., Japan and Europe. Forming his own electric fusion group he began recording and touring Japan, the West Coast and played in New York City.
In Soho, New York City he began experimenting with electronic instruments and it turned into a self-titled album Masuo in which he was composer, arranger, engineer and mixer. He produced dozens of albums over the next ten years and his performing was put on hold the deeper he got into producing. By the end of the century he closed his studio in New York.
Guitarist Yoshiaki Masuo returned to performing in 2008, recording two albums in successive years and continues to performa and record.
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