Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Toshiyuki Honda was born on April 9, 1957 in Tokyo, Japan. A professional saxophonist while still a university student, he released his debut album in 1978 as a leader titled “Burnin’ Wave”.

Honda is one of Japan’s best-known saxophonists and has since recorded with a host of world-celebrated musicians including Chick Corea, Freddie Hubbard, and Christopher Cross among others. He is widely known for his composing and arranging, having scored for television dramas, commercials, movies, and classical music genres.

He has received the Japan Academy’s highest honors for his work on the soundtrack for the movie, Marusa no onna. Toshiyuki’s “Concerto du vent”, a work commissioned by classical saxophonist Nobuya Sugawa, was recorded with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. The album was subsequently released on Chandos, a label for classical masterpieces.

Honda has released numerous original albums and soundtracks. One of his latest releases is with the Hyper Chamber Music Unit, “SMILE!” and has composed a work commissioned by Band Restoration 2012. Composer, arranger and producer Toshiyuki Honda continues to perform, record and tour in between utilizing his other talents.

Dose A Day – Blues Away

More Posts: saxophone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Leron Thomas was born on April 8, 1979 in Houston, Texas and his musical journey began with inspiration fro his family rich with respect and understanding of quality music. He graduated from Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and ventured to New York City to develop as a trumpet player and composer, enrolling in Manhattan’s The New School.

While studying, Leron’s own music was evolving and maturing and began performing professionally with various artists including Bilal, Billy Harper, Charles Tolliver and Roy Hargrove. The quality of his original compositions was enhanced when playing live alongside talented peers Robert Glasper, Damion Reid, Vicente Archer, Marcus Strickland, Harold O’Neal, Isaac Smith, Reggie Quinerly and Omer Avital.

After matriculation through The New School in 2003 he remained in Manhattan to pursue his professional career as a writer and trumpeter. Thomas expanded his scope of playing and has worked with many artists from a variety of genre’s including Michael Stipe, Lauryn Hill, Bobby Watson and Mos Def, to name a few. Subsequently he found ways to liberate himself through a natural, fluid progression into writing and performing ‘other music’. These compositions required his personal trumpet tone along with his vocals to emphasize the diverse sound.

Since 2004 he has developed this genre-crossing music incorporating jazz, blues, pop, country, electro-pop and rock. With eight independently released projects and critical acclaim, he explores a range of artistic media. Having composed for film, he is featured in an independent short film 2010 and appears on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Bubblers Eight. Trumpeter Leron Thomas continues to compose, perform and record.

Inspire A Young Mind

More Posts: trumpet

Requisites

This is My Beloved, recorded by Arthur Prysock, eight years before the author, Walter Benton, death in 1976. His recitation of the poems written in diary form are addressed to Lillian and is set to a beautifully scored background of jazz. The book was first published in 1943 and became one of the bet selling books of poetry, selling over 350,000 copies at that time. This landmark recording is a necessity for every collector who has ever wanted to understand love.

Record Label: Verve

Record Date: December 16,1968 / Los Angeles, California

Producer: Hy Weiss, Pete Spargo

Music Accompaniment Composer: Mort Garson

Liner Notes: Helen Hanff

Playing Time: 37 Minutes

Songs: I Need Your Love, Your Eyes, Your Words, Your Body Makes Eyes At Me, Come Love Me, I Was Very Tired And Lonely, You Did Not Come, I Stood Long Where You Left Me, Each Season, Every Year, Eleven Years, Remembering How We Could Be Warm Together, Sleeping…So Still, So Still, I Shall Wish For You

More Posts: collectible,vocal

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Victor Stanley Feldman was born on April 7, 1934 in Edgware, London, England and caused a sensation as a musical prodigy when he was discovered at aged seven. His family members were all musical and his father founded the Feldman Swing Club in 1942 to showcase his talented sons. His first professional appearance was playing drums at No. 1 Rhythm Club as a member of the Feldman Trio with brothers Robert on clarinet and Monty on piano accordion.

At eight years old the drummer was featured in the films King Arthur Was A Gentleman and Theatre Royal, in 1944 he was featured as “Kid Krupa” at a Glenn Miller AAAF band concert when he was 10, and went on to play vibraphone for Ralph Sharon Sextet and the Roy Fox band. Victor eventually made piano his instrument of choice and became best known.

Feldman recorded with Ronnie Scott’s orchestra and quintet from 1954 to 1955, and then in 1955 came to the U.S. He first worked with Woody Herman, then with Buddy Defranco. He recorded some thirty albums as a leader and recorded with Benny Goodman, George Shearing, Milt Jackson, Blue Mitchell, Lalo Schifrin, John Klemmer Sam Jones, Cannonball Adderley and others, as well as, Miles Davis on Seven Steps To Heaven, having composed the title track. He was a part of the 5-LP recording of Shelly Manne Black Hawk sessions in 1959.

Feldman settled in Los Angeles permanently and specialized in the lucrative session work for the film and recording industry. He also branched out to work with a variety of musicians outside of jazz, working with artists such as Frank Zappa, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits and Joe Walsh through the Seventies and Eighties.

Vibraphonist, drummer, percussionist, pianist and composer Victor Feldman died on May 12, 1987 at his home in Woodland Hills, California at age 53, following a heart attack. In 2009, he was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee.

Give A Gift Of Jazz – Share

More Posts: drums,percussion,piano,vibraphone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Randy Weston was born April 6, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York of Jamaican heritage and studied classical piano and dance as a child. He attended and graduated from Boys High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant taking piano lessons from Professor Atwell who allowed him to play outside the classical music paradigm. Among his piano heroes are Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Art Tatum, Duke Ellington and his cousin Wynton Kelly but it was Thelonious Monk who had the greatest impact.

After serving in the Army during World War II he ran a restaurant that was frequented by many of the leading bebop musicians. In the late 1940s Weston began gigging with bands including Bullmoose Jackson, Frank Culley and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson. He worked with Kenny Dorham in 1953 and Cecil Payne in ’54 before forming his own trio and quartet. That same year he recorded and released his debut as a leader, Cole Porter In A Modern Mood.

In 1955 Randy was voted “New Star Pianist” in Down Beat magazine’s International Critics’ Poll. Several fine albums followed, with the best being Little Niles near the end of that decade for which trombonist Melba Liston provided arrangements for a sextet playing his compositions.

By the 1960s, Weston’s music prominently incorporated African elements, and again teamed up with arranger Melba Liston on two albums, a large-scale suite Uhuru Afrika and Highlife. During these years his band often featured the tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin, traveled throughout Africa, settled in Morocco, running the African Rhythm Club in Tangier from 1967 to 1972 and produced a best-selling record for CTI titled Blue Moses on which he plays electric keyboard.

For a long stretch Weston recorded infrequently on smaller record labels but in 1992 he released a two-CD recording The Spirits of Our Ancestors featuring once again arrangements by his long-time collaborator Melba Liston as well as Dizzy Gillespie and Pharoah Sanders guest playing. He would go on to produced a series of albums in a variety of formats: solo, trio, mid-sized groups, and collaborations with the Gnawa musicians of Morocco.

Among his many honors and awards he has received the French Order of Arts and Letters, Japan’s Swing Journal Award, the Black Star Award, the NEA Jazz Master. Randy has been given honorary degrees from Brooklyn College, City University of New York and Colby College, was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, has been honored by King Mohammed VI of Morocco, and he has been celebrated in a “Giant of Jazz” concert with all-star musicians Monty Alexander, Geri Allen, Cyrus Chestnut,, Barry Harris, Mulgrew Miller, and Billy Taylor.

After more than five decades devoted to music, pianist and composer Randy Weston continues to perform throughout the Americas, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Europe and uses Ghananian master drummer Kofi Ghanaba’s composition “Love, the Mystery Of…” as his theme song for some 40 years.

Jazz Is Global – Share

More Posts: piano