Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Buddy DeFranco was born Boniface Ferdinand Leonard DeFranco in Camden, New Jersey on February 17, 1923. By the age 14 he had won an amateur swing contest sponsored by Tommy Dorsey. Just four short years later he was working with the big bands of Gene Krupa in 1941 and Charlie Barnet in 1943. Those stints were followed with him playing off and on with Tommy Dorsey over the next few years.

Outside of a short-lived association with the Count Basie Septet in 1950, Buddy mainly lead his own bands from then on, playing and recording with Tal Farlow, Art Blakey, Kenny Drew and Sonny Clark, Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson as his sidemen, among others too numerous to name. He also played in some of Norman Granz’s Verve jam sessions and during the late 60’s DeFranco became the bandleader of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, an association that lasted until 1974. He has found more artistic success co-leading a quintet with Terry Gibbs off and on since the early 80’s and has recorded numerous albums.

Buddy DeFranco is considered one of the great clarinetists of all time and, until the rise of Eddie Daniels, he was indisputably the top clarinetist to emerge since 1940. It was DeFranco’s misfortune to be the best on an instrument that after the swing era dropped drastically in popularity and, unlike Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, he has never been a household name for the general public and while most jazz clarinet players were unable to adapt to fading popularity, Buddy Defranco was one of the few bebop musicians who successfully continued to play clarinet exclusively until he passed away on December 24, 2014 in Panama City, Florida at age 91.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Kirkland “Kirk” Lightsey was born on February 15, 1937 in Detroit, Michigan and started his piano instruction at the age of five, adding clarinet through high school. After his Army service he worked accompanying singers around Detroit and in California, gaining some attention when he recorded with Sonny Stitt in 1965 and on five Prestige dates with Chet Baker.  He would work with Yusef Lateef, Betty Carter, Bobby Hutcherson, Kenny Burrell, Pharaoh Sanders and many others.

From 1979 to 1983 he toured with Dexter Gordon and was a member of the Leaders. Through out the 80’s he led sessions including duets with Harold Danko, performed with Jim Raney, Clifford Jordan, Woody Shaw, David Murray and Harold Land.

Rooted in the hard-bop genre, Kirk has developed his own style and sound that is marked by a certain openness and playfulness. An accomplished flautist, he occasionally doubles in live performances.

In 2004 he released a duo album with Rufus Reid titled Nights At Bradley’s and recorded a quintet project Lightsey To Gladden in 2008, dedicated to the late great drummer, Eddie Gladden. Over the course of his career he has amassed some three-dozen albums as a leader and sideman and pianist Kirk Lightsey continues to create music and perform worldwide.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Tubby Hayes was born Edward Brian Hayes on January 30, 1935 in London and started playing the violin at the age of 8, changed to the tenor at twelve and started playing professionally at fifteen. His early influences were Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz. In 1951 he joined Kenny Baker and playing in the big bands of Ambrose, Vic Lewis and Jack Parnell.

Tubby led his own octet in 1956 and encourage by Victor Feldman he started playing the vibes in December of that year. Following his octet, Tubby co-led the Jazz Couriers with Ronnie Scott from ’57 to ’59 and toured Germany with Kurt Edelhagen. His international reputation grew rapidly and he was the first British contemporary to appear regularly in the U.S. at the Blue Note, the Boston Jazz Workshop and Shelly Manne’s Manne-Hole.

In 60’s London he led his own big bands, hosted his own TV show, sat in with Duke Ellington’s orchestra, and with Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck and others. Tubby appeared in All Night Long, and with his own quintet in The Beauty Jungle and House of Horrors.

Hayes was a virtuoso musician on tenor and flute, an excellent vibist, and a composer/arranger of rare talent. He toured extensively through Europe playing the major festivals, such as Antibes, Lugano, Vienna and Berlin. He was one of the few Brits that recorded as a leader of all-American groups with Clark Terry, Roland Kirk and James Moody.

Plagued with heart trouble he underwent open-heart surgery in the late Sixties, putting him out of action until 1971. Working again was brief and while undergoing a second heart operation, Tubby Hayes died on June 8, 1973 in Hammersmith, London, England. He was just 38 years old.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bobby Hutcherson was born January 27, 1941 in Los Angeles, California and studied piano with his aunt as a child. Not enjoying the formality of the training he tinkered with it on his own, especially since he was already connected to jazz through a brother’s high school friendship with Dexter Gordon and a singing sister who later dated Eric Dolphy. But it was hearing Milt Jackson that made everything clicked for Hutcherson during his teen years, working until he saved up enough money to buy his own set of vibes.

He began studying with Dave Pike and playing local dances in a group led by his friend, bassist Herbie Lewis. Parlaying his local reputation into gigs with Curtis Amy and Charles Lloyd in 1960. And joined an ensemble led by Al Grey and Billy Mitchell. A year later he’s in New York at Birdland and ends up staying on the east coast as his reputation of his inventive four mallet playing spread.

Attracted foremost to more experimental free jazz and post-bop, he made early recordings in this style for Blue Note with Jackie McLean, Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill, Granchan Moncur, but ironically his debut recording for the label in 1963, The Kicker, not released until 1999, demonstrated his background in hard bop and the blues.

His vibraphone playing is suggestive of the style of Milt Jackson in its free-flowing melodic nature, but his sense of harmony and group interaction is thoroughly modern. Easily one of jazz’s greatest vibraphonists, Bobby Hutcherson helped modernize the vibes by redefining what could be done with it — sonically, technically, melodically, and emotionally. In the process, he became one of the defining voices in the “new thing” portion of Blue Note’s glorious ’60s roster.

Throughout his career Hutcherson has performed or recorded with a who’s who list of avant-garde, free improvisation, modernist post-bop, straight-ahead, mainstream, fusion and bop jazz players on the scene, staying ever current in his message.  As a leader he has recorded nearly four-dozen albums for Blue Note, Landmark, Columbia, Cadet, Timeless, Evidence, Atlantic and Verve. Vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson maintained his reputation as one of the most advanced masters of his instrument until he passed away on August 15, 2016 in Montara, California.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jimmy Wilbur Cobb was born January 20, 1929 in Washington, DC. Playing around the nation’s capital with the leading local musicians, by the age of 22, Jimmy left DC to tour with Earl Bostic; and with his wife Dinah Washington, doubling as her musical director until 1955. After freelancing for a while in New York he joined Cannonball Adderley from 1957-58, played briefly with Stan Getz, and Dizzy Gillespie.

In late 1958 Cobb followed Cannonball into the Miles Davis group until 1963. It was during this period of his career that he was a part of what many consider to be the quintessential jazz album Kind Of Blue. He also recorded with Davis on Sketches Of Spain, Someday My Prince Will Come, Live at the Blackhawk and Carnegie Hall, Porgy & Bess and the Sorcerer.

During the 70’s he played with Wynton Kelly, Sarah Vaughan with copious freelance work and a long relationship with Nat Adderley continued well into the nineties. His resume is an impressive testament to his time playing, well-constructed improvisation or slow compelling sounds having worked extensively with a wide range of artists from Pearl Bailey and John Coltrane to Eddie Gomez and Geri Allen.

The drummer has received the Don Redman Heritage award and has been inducted as a NEA Jazz Master. He remained vibrant in the jazz idiom touring and performing regularly with his group, as of 2011, the Jimmy Cobb “So What” Band, as a tribute to 50 years of Kind of Blue and the music of Miles Davis.

Drummer and bandleader Jimmy Cobb, having been suffering from lung cancer, passed away on May 24, 2020 at his Manhattan home at the age of 91.

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