Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rafael Antonio Cortijo was born on December 11, 1928 in Santurce, Puerto Rico and as a child became interested in Caribbean music and enjoyed the works of some of the era’s most successful Bomba y Plena music musicians. Throughout his life, he had a chance to meet and work with some of them and learned how to make his own congas and pleneras, the handheld drums used in bomba y plena music.
He met salsa composer and singer Ismael Rivera when both were youngsters growing up in the Villa Palmeras neighborhood. They became lifelong friends and Rivera impressed with his friend’s conga-playing skills, asked him to join his orchestra, which played at Fiestas patronales all over Puerto Rico.
Becoming well known across Latin America, Rafael attributed his success to the sound of his percussion, as Afro-Caribbean music was known worldwide. As a member of the Conjunto Monterrey, based in Monterrey, Mexico, he later toured with Daniel Santos’ orchestra and worked on radio.
By 1954, as a member of El Combo, Cortijo’s big break came when El Combo’s leader and pianist Mario Román left the band to him. Ismael Rivera, then the lead singer of Lito Peña’s Orquesta Panamericana, joined Cortijo’s orchestra known as Cortijo y su Combo in 1955. From then until 1960, his orchestra played live on Puerto Rican television shows, and sometime during the 60s, they became the house band at La Taberna India.
The orchestra virtually disbanded in 1962 when Ismael Rivera was arrested for drug possession in Panama. Rafael and the other bandmates went on to found Puerto Rico’s salsa group, El Gran Combo. He went on to create another orchestra, El Bonche, where he was joined by his adopted niece, Fe Cortijo, who would become a well-known singer on her own. He and Rivera went on to live in New York City but he soon returned impoverished to Puerto Rico, where he forged a friendship with composer Tite Curet Alonsothe who helped produce a comeback album. In 1974, Coco Records reunited all the former members of “Cortijo y su Combo” orchestra for a one-time-only concert and a subsequent studio recording issued a few months afterward.
Their friendship was so important to Rivera, that when orchestra leader, musician, and composer Rafael Cortijo passed away of pancreatic cancer on October 3, 1982 at his sister Rosa Cortijo’s apartment in the Luis Llorens Torres public housing project in Santurce, Rivera said he would no longer sing.
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Conversations About Jazz & Other Distractions
Conversations About Jazz
Spotlights The Producers on December 10
Hammonds House Digital invites you to join us for Conversations about Jazz & Other Distractions hosted by former jazz radio host and founder of Notorious Jazz, Carl Anthony. On Thursday, December 10 at 7:30 pm (EST), Carl’s special guests will be some of the industry’s top Producers: Leatrice Ellzy Wright, Executive Director of Hammonds House Museum; Sunny Sumter, Executive Producer of the DC Jazz Festival; and Laura Greer, Senior Producer for The Apollo Theater. This is the last Conversations About Jazz for the year. The program is free and will stream live on Hammonds House Museum’s Facebook and YouTube.
Leatrice Ellzy Wright is a curator, producer, thinker, and fan of disruption. She is the Executive Director of Hammonds House Museum where she curates and produces art exhibitions, as well as cultural and music programming. Her unique skill set has been developed over 29 years of migrating through non-profit management and development, broadcast, media relations, arts presenting and technology. Her arts management and administration experience developed through work at Woodruff Arts Center and the National Black Arts Festival (NBAF). She produced for NBAF from 2002-2005. In 2005 she was hired to manage the organization’s artistic programming and later became the organization’s 5th Artistic Director. More info HERE.
Sunny Sumter is the Executive Director of the DC Jazz Festival, a nonprofit service organization established in 2004 to present jazz-related cultural and educational programs in the nation’s capital. Its signature programs are the annual DC JazzFest held each June, the year-round DC Jazz Festival Education Program; and the Charles Fishman Embassy Series. Prior to her tenure at the DC Jazz Festival, Sumter held management/director positions with the Aspen Institute, National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. Sumter earned her bachelor’s degree in music business from Howard University where she minored in jazz voice. More info HERE.
Laura Greer is the Senior Producer for The Apollo Theater where she has served for more than a decade overseeing the performing arts, education, and community programs of the historic theater. Prior to her current position, Greer was the Associate Producer at the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta, Georgia (1999-2005) where she was responsible for the artistic and production oversight of the annual festival. She has also served as the Director of Programming at 651 Arts at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Majestic Theater, specializing in works grounded in the African Diaspora and held various leadership positions at Aaron Davis Hall at City College of New York (1985-1998).
Hammonds House Museum is generously supported by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, Fulton County Arts and Culture, the City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, The National Performance Network, AT&T and WarnerMedia.
Hammonds House Museum’s mission is to celebrate and share the cultural diversity and important legacy of artists of African descent. The museum is the former residence of the late Dr. Otis Thrash Hammonds, a prominent Atlanta physician and a passionate arts patron. A 501(c)3 organization which opened in 1988, Hammonds House Museum boasts a permanent collection of more than 450 works including art by Romare Bearden, Robert S. Duncanson, Benny Andrews, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Hale Woodruff, Amalia Amaki, Radcliffe Bailey and Kojo Griffin. In addition to featuring art from their collection, the museum offers new exhibitions, artist talks, workshops, concerts, poetry readings, arts education programs, and other cultural events throughout the year.
Located in a beautiful Victorian home in Atlanta’s historic West End, Hammonds House Museum is a cultural treasure and a unique venue. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they continue to observe CDC guidelines, but look forward to welcoming in-person visitors soon! For more information about upcoming virtual events, and to see how you can support their mission and programming, visit their website: hammondshouse.org.
MEDIA: Contact Karen Hatchett at Hatchett PR, karen@hatchettpr.com
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Lang was born on December 10, 1941 in Los Angeles, California. He obtained a bachelor of music at the University of Michigan in 1963, and studied under Leonard Stein, George Tremblay, Pearl Kaufman and Lalo Schifrin.
Well versed in various music forms, including jazz, classical, pop and R&B, he has collaborated and recorded more than two-dozen albums with Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee, Natalie Cole, Robbie Williams, Dusty Springfield, Solomon Burke, Tom Waits,, José Feliciano, Vince Gill, Bette Midler, Kenny Rogers, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, Amy Grant, Paul Anka, Melissa Manchester, Neil Diamond, Michael Bolton, Barry Manilow, Carole Bayer Sager, and Barbra Streisand.
Pianist and composer Michael Lang, who has composed more than 2000 film scores, continues to play and compose.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gil Rodin was born in Russia on December 9, 1906 and studied saxophone, clarinet, flute, and trumpet in his youth. He played in Chicago, Illinois with Art Kahn in the middle of the 1920s. Moving to California and played with Harry Bastin before joining Ben Pollack in 1927, remaining in his band until 1934.
He simultaneously did studio work and played with Red Nichols’s radio band. Making his only recordings as a leader in 1930-31, amounting to four tracks which included Jack Teagarden on vocals, he also enlisted Eddie Miller and Benny Goodman as sidemen.
After Pollack’s band dissolved in 1934, Gil played with some of the players in the group until Bob Crosby regrouped them into his own ensemble. Rodin remained with Crosby through 1942, when he was drafted. While serving in the Army he played in the Artillery Band and after his discharge in 1944 he played with Ray Bauduc for a year, then with Crosby again.
His major composition was Big Noise from Winnetka, for which he wrote the lyrics with Bob Crosby. The music was written by Ray Bauduc and Bob Haggart. The song appeared in the films Raging Bull, Cannery Row, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Saving Mr. Banks, and What If.
Later in his career, Gil worked radio and television production, with Bill Cosby among others. He produced the soundtracks to the films American Graffiti and The Sting. Saxophonist, songwriter, and record producer Gil Rodin passed away on June 10, 1974.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sol Yaged was born on December 8, 1922 in Brooklyn, New York and began playing the clarinet at the age of 12 after hearing Benny Goodman’s broadcasts for Nabisco in 1935. He studied under a New York Philharmonic clarinetist, however turned down a classical career to play jazz in New York City nightclubs.
After three years in the Army during World War II, Yaged played clarinet professionally and continuously for over 70 years, with Phil Napoleon, Coleman Hawkins, Red Allen, and Jack Teagarden among others. In the 1960s, he began working primarily as an ensemble leader in City. In the Nineties he worked in Felix Endico’s swing band, and served as a consultant on Benny Goodman’s musical style for the 1956 film, The Benny Goodman Story.
For two years in the mid-1990s he worked under the musical direction of bandleader Jack Vartan at the Stony Hill Inn in Bergen County, New Jersey. He recorded four albums as a leader and six as a sideman. Clarinetist Sol Yaged, who was strongly influenced by Benny Goodman passed away on May 11, 2019.
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