Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lennie Niehaus was born June 1, 1929 in St. Louis, Missouri. A musical family heralded a concert pianist sister and a father who was an excellent violinist who started his son on the violin at seven, then switched to the bassoon. At 13 he began learning the alto saxophone and clarinet.
Always interested in composing and writing music Lennie studied music in college and in 1946 began playing professionally with Herb Geller, Herbie Steward and Teddy Edwards in 1946. Six months later he joined Stan Kenton, then drafted in 1952 but two years late rejoined Kenton after his discharge.
Leaving Kenton in 1959, Niehaus began composing, moved back to Los Angeles and arranged for the King Sisters, Mel Torme, Dean Martin, and Carol Burnett. Three years later saw him orchestrating for film composer Jerry Fields, a relationship that yielded more than sixty TV shows and films.
He orchestrates his own pieces and never forgets his jazz roots in film, writing jazz and using jazz musicians like Marshall Royal, Bill Perkins, Pete Jolly, Mike Land, and Clint Eastwood. He was the musical director for the Charlie Parker bio-feature, Bird.
After many years of not playing his alto saxophone at all, Niehaus returned to performing, reportedly in top form. He continues to arrange, compose and play alto on the West Coast jazz scene.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Christian McBride was born May 31, 1972 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania into a family of bassists, his father Lee Smith and great uncle Howard Cooper who served as his early mentors.
Widely considered to be one of the best bassists of his generation in the jazz community, McBride has performed and recorded with Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Diana Krall, Roy Haynes, Joshua Redman, Chick Corea and Sonny Rollins to name a few as well as in the hip hop, soul, pop and classical genres with The Roots, Kathleen Battle, Carly Simon, Sting, James Brown and others.
Since 2000 Christian has fronted his own band and has become one of the least predictable bands if not intoxicating. Equally adept on the electric bass he was part of The Philadelphia Experiment with Uri Caine and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. He took over the relinquished Creative Chair of Jazz with the L.A. Philharmonic from Dianne Reeves, that he held until Herbie Hancock took over four years later in 2010. He is co-director of the new National Jazz Museum in Harlem.
McBride released his first big band album, titled “The Good Feeling” in 2011 for which he won his third Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance.
He currently leads four groups – “Inside Straight” featuring alto/soprano saxophonist Steve Wilson, vibraphonist Warren Wolf, pianist Peter Martin and drummer Carl Allen; a trio with pianist Christian Sands and drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr.; an 18-piece big band, and an experimental group called “A Christian McBride Situation” with pianist/keyboardist Patrice Rushen, turntablists DJ Logic and Jahi Sundance, saxophonist Ron Blake and vocalist Alyson Williams.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Hilton Ruiz was born in New York City on May 29, 1952 of Puerto Rican heritage. He began playing piano at the age of eight, and gigged with Freddie Hubbard and Joe Newman when he was young. Later, he was Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s main pianist from 1974 to 1977 and was featured on such records as The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color and The Return of the 5000 Lb. Man.
Hilton recorded several solo albums between the 1980s and 2000s. On May 19, 2006, found unconscious on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, police concluded that he stumbled and fell and was not attacked. As a result of the accident, he remained in a coma until eventually passing away on June 6, 2006 at the age of 54.
Hilton Ruiz, jazz pianist steeped in Afro-Cuban music, was also a talented bebop musician.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Allen “Al” Tinney was born on May 28, 1921 in Ansonia, Connecticut. As a child he was taught piano, worked in local dance bands and as a stage actor/dancer in several Broadway plays and was an original cast member in the production of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. His piano playing was so good that he became rehearsal pianist and assistant to Gershwin.
From 1939 to 1943 he held sway in the house band at Monroe’s Uptown House playing with young musicians who gravitated to him like Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Little Bennie Harris, George Treadwell and Victor Coulsen. An influential bebop pianist his playing was light, flowing and occasionally percussive, while his improvisations were harmonically advanced for the period and his style can be heard in the playing of Bud Powell, George Wallington, Al Haig, and Duke Jordan.
Abhorring the connection between jazz and drugs, by 1946 Tinney began to play less jazz and more in other styles. He was a member of The Jive Bombers who were one hit wonders with “Bad Boy” in 1957. He moved to Buffalo in 1968, played local jazz clubs, worked in the state prison music program, and lectured at SUNY Buffalo. He recorded one album as a leader with Peggy Farrell titled Peg & Al in 2000.
Pianist Allen Tinney passed away on December 11, 2002 in Buffalo, New York at age 81.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dee Dee Bridgewater was born Denise Eileen Garrett on May 27, 1950 in Memphis, Tennessee but grew up in Flint, Michigan. Exposed to jazz as a young girl by her father who was a jazz trumpeter and music teacher, she was singing in rock and R&B bands by age sixteen. Two years later she enrolled at Michigan State University, then transferred to the University of Illinois and toured the Soviet Union with their jazz band in 1969. Then in 1970 she met trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater, married and moved to New York City where he got a gig playing with Horace Silver.
In the early seventies Bridgewater joined the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra as lead vocalist, marking her commencement of her jazz career. She subsequently performed with such greats as Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Max Roach, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and others over the course of a career spanning four plus decades.
Dee Dee Bridgewater is a two-time Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter, a Tony Award winning actress, host of NPR’s Jazzset, and a United Nations Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization. She has paid musical tribute to Ella Fitzgerald with her 1997 Grammy winning Dear Ella recording, to Horace Silver with her Love and Peace, and Billie Holiday with her 2010 Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959) To Billie With Love from Dee Dee.
Her album This Is New investigated the music of Kurt Weill, sang French classics on J’ai Deux Amours and brought the contributions of African musicians of Mali alive with Red Earth. She has performed on nearly every major stage around the world and continues to record, perform and tour.
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