Daily Dose Of Jazz…

The hard bop alto saxophonist John Jenkins was born January 3, 1931 in Chicago, IL where he initially studied clarinet in high school but switched to saxophone after six months on the instrument. He played in jam sessions led by Joe Segal at Roosevelt College from 1949-1956 going on to play with Art Framer in 1955 and led his own group in Chicago later that year.

Jenkins had a sound similar to Jackie McLean and the 50’s saw his most active period. In 1957 he played with Charles Mingus s and recorded two albums as a leader, “Jenkins, Jordan & Timmons” on the New Jazz label and “John Jenkins with Kenny Burrell” on Blue Note.

He played as a sideman with Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley, Paul Quinichette, Clifford Jordan, Sahib Shihab and Wilbur Ware.   in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but essentially dropped out of music after 1962, aside from a few dates with Gloria Coleman.

After leaving the jazz world John worked as a messenger in New York and dabbled in jewelry; he sold brass objects at street fairs in the 1970s. After 1983 he began practicing again and playing live on street corners and he played with Clifford Jordan shortly before his death on July 12, 1993.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Milt Jackson was born Milton Jackson on January 1, 1923 in Detroit, Michigan. Discovered by Dizzy Gillespie and hired in 1946 for his sextet and also for his larger ensembles. He quickly acquired experience working with the most important figures in jazz of the era, including Woody Herman, Howard McGhee, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker.

In the Gillespie big band, Jackson fell into a pattern that led to the founding of the Modern Jazz Quartet. He was part of Gillespie’s small group swing tradition within a big band, consisting of pianist John Lewis, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Kenny Clarke. They would become a working group in their own right around 1950 and became the Milt Jackson Quartet but by the time Percy Heath replaced Ray Brown, in 1952 they became the Modern Jazz Quartet.

After some twenty years the MJQ disbanded in 1974 and Jackson pursued more money and his longed for improvisational freedom. The group reformed in 1981, however, and continued until 1993, after which Jackson toured alone, performing in various small combos, although agreeing to periodic MJQ reunions.

He recorded prolifically, his tunes, “Bluesology”, “Bags & Trane”, “The Late, Late Blues” and “Bag’s Groove” are jazz standards. He has recorded with J.J. Johnson, Roy McCurdy, B.B. King, John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, Hank Mobley, Oscar Peterson, Stanley Turrentine, Don Sebesky, Cannonball Adderley and Ray Charles on the very short list.

A very expressive player, Bags, as he was affectionately known and referring to the bags under his eyes from staying up all night, differentiated himself from other vibraphonists in his attention to variations on harmonics and rhythm. He became one of the most significant vibist and was at the top of his game for 50 years playing bop, blues, and ballads with equal skill and sensitivity. Vibraphonist Milt Jackson, thought of as a bebop player but equally remembered for his cool swinging solos, left the jazz world on October 9, 1999 in Manhattan, New York.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

René McLean was born on December 16, 1946 in New York City, the son of altoist Jackie McLean. He started playing guitar before receiving his alto saxophone and instruction from his father at age nine. He made his debut with his father’s band in the mid Sixties as well as leading his own bands. His debut as a bandleader and producer began at the age of 16 in 1963.

He later studied music with the Jazz Arts Society, Haryou Act Cultural Program, and the Jazz Mobile, New York College of Music, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and privately with George Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Frank Foster, Kenny Dorham and Barry Harris among others. By the mid -1970’s McLean played in a quintet with Woody Shaw and Louis Hayes and toured with Hugh Masekela in 1978.

René has performed and recorded extensively as a leader and featured sideman with the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band, Lionel Hampton All Stars, Tito Puente Orchestra, Horace Silver, Dr. Bill Taylor, Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba, Abbey Lincoln, Dexter Gordon, James Moody, Yusef Lateef, Jaco Pastorius and Jerry Gonzales’ Forte Apache Band, as well as collaborating with poet-activist Amiri Baraka.

As a music educator McLean has performed, conducted workshops and lectured at numerous universities and cultural programs in the U.S. and Caribbean (including Cuba), as well as in South America, Europe, Lebanon, Japan, Indonesia, South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Mauritius and is presently Professor of African American music of the Jackie McLean Institute at The Hartt School, University of Hartford and Master Artist-in-Residence of Music at the Artists Collective in Hartford, Connecticut.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jay Leonhart was born December 6, 1940 in Baltimore, Maryland and grew up in a musical family where everyone played the piano. By the age of seven, Jay and his older brother Bill were playing banjos and guitars and mandolins and basses. They played country music, jazz and anything with a beat. In their early teens, Jay and Bill were television stars in Baltimore and were touring the country performing on their banjos.

When Jay was fourteen he started playing the bass in The Pier Five Dixieland Jazz Band in Baltimore. After studying at The Peabody Institute he attended the Berklee College of Music and The Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto before leaving school to start touring with the traveling big bands of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

By age 21 Leonhart moved to New York City to start his career and eventually began playing for many of the great jazz musicians, big bands, and singers like Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Lou Marini, Tony Bennett, Marian McPartland and Jim Hall. He played lots of funky road gigs with big bands, small bands and singers and visited many little jazz joints around the world.

Jay became a very busy studio musician in New York City, visiting every musical genre from James Taylor to Ozzy Osborne to Queen Latifah, has recorded fifteen solo albums, performs a one-man show, regularly plays with Wycliffe Gordon in a duo, was named The Most Valuable Bassist in the recording industry three times by the National Academy of Arts and Sciences and continues to record, perform and tour worldwide.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Chip Shelton was born Clarence Elmo Shelton, Jr. on December 2, 1944 in Welch, West Virginia.  He studied drums with his multi-instrumentalist record collector father from age 5 to 7. He studied piano from age 8 to 11 and clarinet from age 11 to14 and finally settled on flute. A well-rounded student he found time to participate in choir, dance and sports.

Shelton attended high school in Dayton, Ohio, followed by 3 years of pre-med at University of Cincinnati, experimenting with his own brand of self-taught improvisation on piano, clarinet, and saxophone. At age 20, he became more focused musically and while at Howard University he jammed with notables like Donny Hathaway, Sherry Winston, and Lloyd McNeil, and led his own straight-ahead jazz quintet, the “DMZ Revisited”.

At age 24 Chip moved to New York, studying and/or performed with Bill Barron, James Moody, Hank Mobley, Irene Reid, Jimmy Ponder, Frank Foster, Jimmy Heath, Frank Wess, Hubert Laws, Ernie Wilkins, Joe Newman, and many others around New York and New Jersey.

Chip Shelton has gone on to perform live alongside Greg Bandy, Peter Bernstein, Philip Harper, Herman Foster, Lou Donaldson, and TK Blue. In the 90s he would record for with Rise Up Label, Satellites Records, and performed with Louis Hayes, Bob Baldwin, Roy Ayers, Roy Merriwether, John Hicks, Lynn Seaton and numerous others. He has recorded nearly a dozen albums and continues to compose, perform and tour.

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