Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Randy Sutin was born on May 14, 1958 in Great Falls, Montana where he studied piano starting at age four and guitar when he turned eight. By the time he was ten he began study of the drums. He began playing mostly rock and some country professionally with local groups at age thirteen. At 20, he began to study mallet percussion, in particular the vibraphone, which became the main staple of his professional life as a musician.
In 1985, Randy relocated to Trenton, New Jersey, then to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area four years later. He was a regular member of the Bill Hollis Quartet and soon began working regularly and recording with the Barry Sames Jazz Ensemble. A regular member of the late pianist Eddie Green’s group, he was featured on Eddie’s last recording, Shades of Green. He has also played and recorded with Walter Bell and the Latin Jazz Unit.
Over the last fifteen years, Sutin has continued playing as a regular member of the Barry Sames Jazz Ensemble, which does jazz arrangements of Christian music. He is featured as a soloist on both of Barry Sames’ recordings, Awaiting the Spirit and Celebration. This association with playing jazz for spiritual purposes and a desire to do a project with his wife, Marianne, who is an experienced yogi, led to his latest musical endeavor.
In 2007 they released Meditations for Percussion and Flute, a suite of compositions based on yoga practice blending a mixture of styles, but always falling back to jazz as its core. Together they created their record label, Balanced American Music. Recent work has focused on The Birdhouse Project, a trio with Jim Miller and Tyrone Brown, performing the compositions of Charlie Parker.
His most current project is with The Tyrone Brown String Ensemble. Randy is featured on both of their 2008 releases, The Magic Within and Moon of the Falling Leaves.
Vibraphonist Randy Sutin, who also plays marimba, continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
ELEW was born Eric Robert Lewis on May 13, 1973 in Camden, New Jersey where he studied piano as a child. Graduating from Overbrook High School in 1991, he received a full merit scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music. He graduated on the Dean’s List in 1995, then began touring.
Lewis began his career as a jazz purist, playing as a sideman for jazz artists like Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, Elvin Jones, Jon Hendricks, and Roy Hargrove as well as performing as a member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Eventually becoming interested in rock music he embarked on a solo career as a crossover musician, quickly gaining recognition for his instrumental Rockjazz piano covers of mainstream rock hits like The Rolling Stones’ Paint It, Black and The Killers’ Mr. Brightside. He released his debut album of instrumental covers, titled ELEW Rockjazz Vol. 1, on his own label, Ninjazz Entertainment, in 2010.
Lewis became disillusioned with the jazz world after a solo record deal failed to materialize and struck out on his own to find success. It was around this time that he heard his first rock album, Linkin Park’s Meteora, which made a profound impression on his musical sensibilities. Taking the stage name ELEW, he adjusted his stage presence accordingly, growing an afro and adopting a distinctive style of dress, wearing armored vambraces over tailored suits. Discarding his piano bench for standing, he reached inside to grab the strings and beat on its wooden case like a percussion instrument.
Mainstream recognition came when he played a cover of Evanescence’s Going Under and an original composition, and was a featured speaker at the Long Beach TED Conference in 2009. He drew the interest of fashion designer Donna Karan, for whom he composed an original piece inspired by her fall 2009 collection and at her next New York City fashion show. That led to an invite by White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers to play in the East Room for President Obama and the First Lady.
Pianist Eric Lewis, popularley known as ELEW, continues his journey of performing, composing, recording and touring.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ronnie Foster was born in Buffalo, New York on May 12, 1950. Attracted to music at the age of four, he attended Public School 8, Woodlawn Jr. High for a year, McKinley Vocational High School for two years, and then spent his final year at Lafayette High School. The only formal musical instruction he received was a month of accordion lessons. Taking music more seriously from his early teens, he had his first professional gig aged fifteen, playing in a strip club.
He initially performed with other local musicians. Moving to New York City with his own band, he acquired a publishing company. Foster performed as a sideman with a wide range of musicians, frequently working with guitarist George Benson, including playing on the guitarist’s album Breezin’.
Ronnie has played organ with Grant Green, Grover Washington, Jr., Stanley Turrentine, Roberta Flack, Earl Klugh, Harvey Mason, Jimmy Smith, and Stevie Wonder.
He is also a record producer and his song Mystic Brew was sampled in Electric Relaxation by A Tribe Called Quest and in J. Cole’s song Forbidden Fruit, where it was reversed, pitched, and slowed down in the song Neighbors as well as the instrumental of Forbidden Fruit.
Funk and soul jazz organist Ronnie Foster continues to perform, record, tour and produce.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ralph Humphrey was born on May 11, 1944 in Berkeley California. While still a student at California State College Northridge he recorded with the Don Ellis Big Band in 1968, and stayed with the band until 1973.
Leaving Don Ellis and jazz he joined Frank Zappa’s band in 1973 and his drumming can be heard on at least a dozen albums. Humphrey, never far from jazz, played drums for Wayne Shorter, Al Jarreau, and Manhattan Transfer, as well aas pop stars Barbra Streisand, José Feliciano, Bette Midler, Captain and Tenille, Richard Carpenter. His music has been heard in television series such as American Idol, Charmed, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and more.
As an educator he has taught the drum curriculum at the Los Angeles Music Academy. He and Joe Porcaro created the drum program for the Percussion Institute of Technology, a part of the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California. Between 1980 and 1996 he taught the program and headed the department.
Drummer Ralph Humphrey, whose name has been spelled differently in some credits as Humphry or Humphries, continues to perform, record, tour and educate.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Julius Wechter was born on May 10, 1935 in Chicago, Illinois and studied and learned to play the vibraphone and percussion, which he did with the Martin Denny group by the time he was out of highschool in the 1950s. The early Sixties saw him moving to movie soundtracks, television and session work for the Beach Boys, the Monkees, Sonny & Cher, and various Phil Spector productions.
His long and successful association with Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass started when he played percussion on their first hit, The Lonely Bull in 1962. He later composed Spanish Flea. He went on to play marimba and vibes on many of Alpert’s songs in the 1960s, as well as writing at least one song on most of those albums.
Encouraged by Alpert, he formed the Baja Marimba Band which was quite successful, hitting four chart songs in Billboard’s Top 100, and numerous on its Easy Listening Top 40. Disbanding in the mid Seventies, Julius turned his attention to television and movies again, but continued to play with Alpert.
In his later years, he devoted himself to psychology, earned a master’s degree, and served as vice president of the Southern California chapter of the Tourette Syndrome Association.
Marimba and vibraphonist Julius Wechter died on February 1, 1999 at his home in California of lung cancer, at the age of 63, a day after his song Spanish Flea was used in The Simpsons episode Sunday, Cruddy Sunday.
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