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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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Horace Parlan was born on January 19, 1931 in Pittsburgh, PA who became an influential hard bop and post-bop pianist. Stricken with polio as a child that partially crippled his right hand, Parlan turned this would be handicap into what has been described as a “pungent left hand chord voicing style while complimenting highly rhythmic phrases with this right”.
He began playing in R&B bands in the 50’s until his move to New York where he joined Charles Mingus’ band from 1957 to 1959, a collaboration that greatly influenced Parlan’s career. Time would see him playing with Booker Ervin, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Johnny Griffin and Rahsaan Roland Kirk; was the house rhythm section for Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem with bassist George Tucker and drummer Al Harewood while recording a strong series of sessions for Blue Note in the 60’s.
By 1973 Horace was on his way to Europe, settling in Copenhagen and gained international recognition through his Steeplechase recordings including exceptional duet dates with Archie Shepp. He also recorded with Dexter Gordon, Red Mitchell and in the 80’s with Frank Foster and Michael Urbaniak.
His later work, notably a series of duos with the tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp, including the album Goin’ Home, is steeped in gospel music. He has recorded nearly two-dozen albums as a leader and more as a sideman. In 2000 he was a recipient of the Ben Webster Prize given by the Ben Webster Foundation. Horace Parlan, the hard bop/post-bop pianist who attributes Ahmad Jamal and Bud Powell as his major influences, resided and performed regularly in Copenhagen, Denmark until his passing on February 23, 2017 in Korsør, Denmark.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kenny Wheeler was born Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler and came into this world on January 14, 1930, in Toronto, Canada. He began playing the cornet at the age of 12, becoming interested in jazz in his mid-teens. Spending a year at the Royal Conservatory in Toronto, he moved to Britain in 1952 at the age of 22 and found his way into the jazz scene of London playing with Tommy White, Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott.
In the 60’s Wheeler worked with John Dankworth, recording “Windmill Tilter” which is now a collector’s item since the master tapes have been lost. He has also enjoyed being active in free improvisation creating orchestral writing with passages of free improvisation infused in the bi band album “Song For Someone” in 1973 named Album of the Year by Melody Maker magazine in 1975.
Kenny’s lists of recordings or performances are too vast but includes Paul Gonsalves, Dave Holland, Anthony Braxton, Keith Jarrett, Steve Coleman, John Taylor, and Lee Konitz among a host of other notables in jazz.
Highly respected among his peers for his beautiful tone and extensive range on the trumpet and flugelhorn, Wheeler has written over one hundred compositions and is a skilled arranger for small groups and larger ensembles. His compositions blend lyrical melodies with a distinctive and ever changing harmonic palette. He has occasionally contributed to rock music recordings, is the patron of the Royal Academy Junior Jazz course, has been based in the UK since 1950 and remained faithful to the jazz genres of avant-garde, post bop, chamber jazz and free improvisation until his passing on September 18, 2014 at age 84 in London, England.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Max Roach was born Maxwell Lemuel Roach into the musical family of Alphonse and Cressie Roach on January 10, 1924 in the township of Newland in Pasquotank County, North Carolina. At the age of 4 the family moved to Bedford–Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, New York and few years later he was playing bugle and by 10 he was drumming in gospel bands. Upon graduation from Boy’s High School in 1942, the eighteen year old was called up to the majors filling in for Sonny Greer in the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
Roach’s most significant innovations came in the 1940s, when he and jazz drummer Kenny Clarke devised a new concept of musical time. By playing the beat-by-beat pulse of standard 4/4 time on the “ride” cymbal instead of on the thudding bass drum, Roach and Clarke developed a flexible, flowing rhythmic pattern that allowed soloists to play freely. The new approach also left space for the drummer to insert dramatic accents on the snare drum, “crash” cymbal and other components of the trap set. By matching his rhythmic attack with a tune’s melody, Roach brought a newfound subtlety of expression to his instrument.
Max along with Kenny Clarke were the first drummers to play bebop and performed in the bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Coleman Hawkins, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. He played on many of Parker’s most important records including the Savoy 1945 session, a turning point in recorded jazz.
Roach went on to lead his own groups, and made numerous musical statements relating to the Black civil rights movement. He once observed, “In no other society do they have one person play with all four limbs.” Jazz percussionist, drummer, composer and innovator Max Roach left the jazz world on August 16, 2007.
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