Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Louis A. Levy, generally known as Lou Levy, was born on March 5, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois and started playing piano when he was twelve. His chief influences were Art Tatum and Bud Powell. A professional at age nineteen, he played with George Auld, Sarah Vaughan, Chubby Jackson, Boyd Raeburn and Woody Herman’s Second Herd during the late Forties. Still with Woody Herman by 1950, he moved on to play with Tommy Dorsey, Flip Phillips before leaving music for a few years.
Lou returned to music and gained a strong reputation as an accompanist to singers, working with Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, June Christy, tony Bennett, Anita O’Day and Pinky Winters. He would also go on to play with Shorty Rogers, Stan Getz, Sonny Stitt, Coleman Hawkins, Bob Cooper, Bennie Wallace, Terry Gibbs, Benny Goodman, Quincy Jones, Supersax, and most of the major West Coast players.
Over the course of his career he recorded as a leader for Nocturne, RCA, Jubilee, Philips, Interplay and Verve leaving behind a catalogue of fourteen albums as a leader and another eighty-one as a sideman.
Bebop and cool jazz pianist Lou Levy died of a heart attack in Dana Point, California at the age of 72 on January 23, 2001.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bobby Shew was born Robert Shew on March 4, 1941 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He began playing the guitar at the age of eight but by ten switched to the trumpet. By thirteen he was playing at local dances with various groups and at fifteen put together his own group. This gave him the opportunity to play dances, concerts, jazz coffee houses and dinner clubs.
After leaving college in 1960 he was drafted into the U.S. Army and played trumpet with the NORAD band in Colorado Springs and on tour. After leaving the Army he joined the big bands of Tommy Dorsey and Woody Herman, Della Reese and followed by the Buddy Rich Big Band in the mid to late 1960s.
By 1972 Bobby had moved from Las Vegas to Los Angeles where he became a top shelf studio musician. He also played with some of the top big bands of the era through the end of the 1970s: Toshiko Akiyoshi, Lew Tabackin, Louis Bellson, Maynard Ferguson and numerous others. In addition to playing on several notable Big Band recordings starting in the 1960s, he recorded several albums as leader starting with his 1978 debut recording Telepathy.
Shew has held the position of Trumpet chairman of the International Association of Jazz Educators, has authored numerous books on trumpet performance and technique, andis on the Board of Directors of the International Trumpet Guild.
Trumpeter and flugelhorn player Bobby Shew, now living near his hometown of Albuquerque, spends time mentoring jazz musicians in the area and leading the local Albuquerque Jazz Orchestra. As an educator he is a member of the faculty at the Skidmore Summer Jazz Institute, a two-week residential jazz workshop primarily for high school students, located in Saratoga Springs, New York. He continues to perform, record and tour.
Inspire A Young Mind
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gavin Barras was born on March 2, 1981 in Kendal, Cumbria in Northwest England. Due to his tuition benefactors, Roberto Carillo-Garcia and Corin Long, he was afforded the opportunity to study music at the University of Manchester. Whilst studying classical music, he continued developing his love for jazz and received lessons from Steve Berry in jazz bass.
Barras notes his bass influences include Ray Brown, Paul Chambers, Wilbur Ware, Charlie Haden, Christian McBride, George Mraz, Hein van de Geyn and electric bassist Jaco Pastorius. Notwithstanding, he is heavily influenced by Chet Baker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Enrico Pieranunzi and Billy Higgins.
Performing around the world has lent his talents to play jazz festivals and clubs Ronnie Scott’s, Dizzy’s Jazz Club and the Royal Festival Hall with the likes of Tim Garland, Iain Dixon, Ed Jones, Neil Yates, Steve Waterman, Les Chisnall, Dan Whieldon, Zoe Rahman, Mike Walker, Stuart McCallum, Gary Boyle Luke Flowers, Dave Walsh and Eryl Roberts to name a few.
A founding member of the jazz quartet EU4, Gavin is currently a member of the Dan Whieldon Trio, Jadid Ensemble, Sarah Ellen Hughes Band, 6Pac Jazz Sextet, Nat Birchall Band, Matthew Halsall Band, Unfurl and Steve Plews Trio.
Keeping busy is not an option for Gavin having recorded as a leader his debut album in 2008, and a second in 20011 while taking the sideman chair on bass for recordings on three albums with the Matthew Halsall Quintet that required him to put on his composer hat. He has appeared on Jamie Cullum’s BBC Radio 2 jazz show, been involved in several live sessions for BBC 6 Music and for Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Show on BBC Radio One with both the Matthew Halsall and Nat Birchall Bands.
In between performing, recording and touring Gavin is committed to teaching and, in addition to a large portfolio of students at his home, he has worked as a tutor at the Dartington Jazz Summer School for the last five years and has been involved in Live Music Now as a member of 6Pac Jazz Ensemble delivering regular education workshops in schools, prisons, young offenders institutions and hospitals.
Jazz Is Global – Share
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marty Morell was born on February 25, 1944 in New York City. He attended the Manhattan School of Music studying mallets, and tympani at the Julliard School of Music.
Marty worked and/or recorded with the Al Cohn-Zoot Sims Quintet, Henry “Red” Allen, Gary McFarland, Steve Kuhn and Gabor Szabo before joining pianist Bill Evans. This would be his most prolifically recording period alongside bassist Eddie Gomez from late 1968 through 1974. After leaving the trio, Marty settled in Toronto, Canada where he became a highly sought after studio drummer and percussionist.
Morell fronted his own bands as a drummer and also worked as a vibist and pianist with his Latin band and played congas with the 1970s funk-jazz band Ravin’. He would go on to work with Don Sebesky, Pee Wee Russell, Henry “Red” Allen, Stan Getz, Kenny Wheeler, Claus Ogerman, Rob McConnell & the Boss Brass and Kenny Drew Jr.
A highly versatile musician, Marty has performed with the Toronto Symphony, Canadian opera Company, the Hamilton Philharmonic and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and with The Phantom of The Opera orchestra in Toronto.
In 1998 he moved back to his hometown, New York City, to play the Tony award-winning musical Ragtime. After a two-year run on Broadway, he toured nationally with the show, did the Tony award winning revival of Kiss Me Kate, and Seussical: The Musical.
Marty took the drumming seat with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 2006 and the following year accepted a professorship to teach jazz drum set and percussion at the University of Central Florida. In addition to teaching, he is currently a member of the Jazz Professors, has released two hit albums, and I has been performing a Bill Evans Tribute program with Japanese pianist Takana Miyamoto.
Inspire A Young Mind
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wayne Escoffery was born on February 23, 1975 in London, England. He and his mother emigrated to the U.S. in 1986 and settled in New Haven, Connecticut. At age eleven he joined The New Haven Trinity Boys Choir and began taking saxophone lessons from Malcolm Dickinson. By sixteen, he had left the choir and engaged in a more intensive study of the saxophone in New York City at the Jazzmobile, the Neighborhood Music School and the ACES Educational Center for the Arts, both in New Haven.
During his senior year in high School, he attended the Artists Collective, Inc. in Hartford, Connecticut. While there he met Jackie McLean who founded the jazz program at The Hartt School, that Escoffery would ultimately attend under scholarship. He went on to matriculate through the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at the New England Conservatory in Boston. During this time, he toured with Herbie Hancock and performed and studied with several jazz greats. In 1999, he graduated with a Masters degree and moved to New York to begin his professional career.
Since 2000, Wayne has been working in New York City with Carl Allen, Eric Reed, Mingus Big Band, Ralph Peterson, Ben riley, Ron Carter, Rufus Reid, Bill Charlap, Bruce Barth, Jimmy Cobb, Eddie Henderson, Mary Stallings, Cynthia Scott, Nancie Banks, Laverne Butler and his wife, Carolyn Leonhart.
Tenor saxophonist Wayne Escoffery has released nine albums to date and in addition, he collaborates with his wife, continues to perform with his own quartet and quintet, the Tom Harrell Quintet, Abdullah Ibrahim’s Akaya and Jazz At Lincoln Center and others.
Jazz Is Global – Share
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