Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Larry Coryell was born April 2, 1943 in Galveston, Texas moved to Washington as a child. After graduating from Richland High School in eastern Washington, he moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington.

 In 1965, Coryell moved to New York City where he became part of Chico Hamilton’s quintet replacing Gabor Szabo. In the Sixties he recorded with Gary Burton, played with The Free Spirits and extended his musical landscape to include influences of rock, jazz and eastern music.

He formed his own group, “The Eleventh House” in 1973 and following the break-up of this band, Coryell played mainly acoustic guitar but returned to electric guitar later in the 1980s.

In 1979, Coryell formed “The Guitar Trio” with jazz-fusion guitarist John McLaughlin and flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia. The group toured Europe, released “Meeting of Spirits” recorded at Royal Albert Hall in London, however, his drug addiction led to his being replaced by Al Di Meola.

By the turn of the century he settled back into a more mainstream style of playing releasing “Cedars of Avalon”, “Monk, Trane, Miles & Me”, “Tricycles”, and “Power Trio: Live In Chicago”. In 2007, Coryell published an autobiography titled “Improvising: My Life in Music”. Guitarist Larry Coryell remains active in the music industry performing, touring and recording.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Marian McPartland was born Margaret Marian Turner on March 20, 1920 in Windsor, England. A musical prodigy from the time she could sit at a piano at age three, she pursued classical studies on piano and violin at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. However, much to the dismay of her family, she developed a love for American jazz and musicians such as Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, and Mary Lou Williams among many others.

By 1938, despite her family’s efforts to keep her at Guildhall, Marian left to join Billy Mayerl’s Claviers, a four-piano vaudeville act, performing under the stage name of Marian Page. The group toured throughout Europe during WWII entertaining Allied troops where she met and performed with Jimmy McPartland, and later married, moving to the United States.

1944 saw the McPartlands in New York with Marian forming her own trio and enjoying an 8-year engagement at the Hickory House bringing drummer Joe Morello into the fold. After many years of recording for labels such as Capitol, Savoy, Argo, Sesac, Time, and Dot, in 1969 she founded her own record label, Halcyon Records, before having a long association with the Concord Jazz label.

Marian launched a weekly radio program that featured recordings and interviews with guests in 1964 on WBAI-FM in New York City. This series paved the way for the NPR program Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz that began on June 4, 1978 and is the longest-running cultural program on NPR as well as being one of the longest-running jazz programs ever produced on public radio.

A master at adapting to her guest’s musical styles and having a well-known affinity for beautiful and harmonically rich ballads, McPartland also has recorded many tunes of her own. Her compositions include “Ambiance”, “There’ll Be Other Times”, “With You In Mind”, “Twilight World”, and “In the Days of Our Love”.

Marian a participated in 60 years of jazz evolution, was awarded a Trustees’ Lifetime Achievement Award Grammy for her work as an educator, writer, and host of Piano Jazz, and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2010. Pianist and composer Marian McPartland passed away on August 20, 2013 of natural causes at her home in Port Washington, New York. She was 95 years old.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Michele Rosewoman was born on March 19, 1953 in Oakland, California. She began playing the piano at age six and as a teenager studied with organist/pianist Ed Kelly. After extensive work locally leading several jazz groups she also played with Baikida Carroll, Julius Hemphill and Julian Priester. In 1977 Michele moved to New York where she involved herself in the avant-garde scene playing and recording as a sidewoman with Oliver Lake, Billy Bang, Greg Osby, Ralph Peterson and the members of M Base among others.

Rosewoman is most notable for her work and recordings with her Quintessence ensemble as well as several trio and quartet sessions. Steeped in Cuban percussion and African music and since the early 80s for her Afro Cuban jazz big band “New Yor-Uba Ensemble” featuring Orlando “Puntilla” Rios.

Michele has played with such jazz masters as Freddie Waits, Rufus Reid, Billy Hart, Reggie Workman and Latin music greats such as Celia Cruz, Chocalate, Nicky Marrero, Paquito D’Rivera, and Daniel Ponce among others. She continues to perform and record around the world.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jimmy Garrison was born on March 3, 1933 in Miami, Florida but grew up in Philadelphia where he learned to play the bass, coming of age during that city’s thriving jazz scene that including McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, Henry Grimes and Lee Morgan. He played around Philadelphia with local groups until 1958 when Philly Joe Jones brought him to New York City.

During the time he would freelance with Lennie Tristano, Benny Golson, Bill Evans and Kenny Dorham but got seriously noticed when he joined Ornette Coleman at the Five Spot. Garrison’s long association with Ornette Coleman produced his first recording with him on “Ornette on Tenor” and “Art of the Improvisers”.

Jimmy would go on to play and record with Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders but his greatest collaboration was his six-year collaboration with the John Coltrane Quartet when he replaced Reggie Workman. In concert with Trane he would play unaccompanied solos, sometimes as a prelude to a song before the other musicians joined in.

He and drummer Elvin Jones have been credited with eliciting more forceful playing than usual from Coleman on the albums “New York Is Now” and “Love Call”. Before his passing he would play with Kenny Dorham, Curtis Fuller, Jackie McLean, Lee Konitz, Hampton Hawes, Benny Golson and Tony Scott.  Bassist Jimmy Garrison passed away on April 7, 1976.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Lewis Nash was born December 30, 1958.Growing up in Phoenix, Arizona he was encouraged into jazz by his high school band teacher. By the age of 18, the drummer was a first call sideman for visiting musicians to Phoenix, and received the call to move to New York and join Betty Carter’s band at the age of 22.

he became a highly in-demand sideman during this period, and since his tenure with Carter, has gone on to record and tour with some of the most important and highly regarded jazz musicians of all time. Among them were Tommy Flanagan, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Oscar Peterson, Sonny Rollins, Ron Carter, Hank Jones, Nancy Wilson, McCoy Tyner, Wynton Marsalis, Joe Williams and the list goes on and on.

A renowned master stylist, particularly in be-bop and post-bop styles, Nash is at home in a wide range of stylistic territory, including funk, free, and Latin based jazz styles. He is known for his seemingly endless depth of melodic vocabulary, drawing from all eras of jazz percussion, while adding his own unmistakably identifiable approach to the construction of his comping figures and soloing. His versatility has made him one of the foremost brush stylists of his generation.

Nash is also passionate and dedicated to jazz education, and has fostered the careers of a long list of younger players. He is in high demand as a clinician and educator at schools, workshops and major educational jazz festivals worldwide. He formed his own group in the late 1990s and currently leads several groups of varying instrumentation, from duo to septet, as well as a member of Blue Note 7.

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