Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Howard Roberts was born on October 2, 1929 in Phoenix, Arizona and began playing guitar at age 8. By age15 he was playing professionally locally. 1950 saw him moving to Los Angeles where he began playing with musicians like Bobby Troup, Chico Hamilton and Barney Kessell. Around 1956, Bobby Troup signed him to Verve Records and he decided to concentrate on recording, both as a solo artist and session musician.
Roberts played rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass and mandolin in the studio, for television and movie projects on such projects as The Twilight Zone, The Munsters, I Dream of Jeannie. He would work on Julie London’s Blue Moon recording, with Peggy Lee, George Auld, Shelley Fabares, Chet Atkins, Dean Martin, The Monkees, Roy Clark and many others.
In 1961, Howard designed a signature guitar with a round sound hole and single pickup that was originally produced by Gibson’s Epiphone division. Two years later he recorded his first two albums of nine with Capitol, before signing with ABC/Impulse Records. From the late 1960s, Roberts began to focus on teaching, traveling around the country giving guitar seminars, and writing several instructional books.
For some years he also wrote an acclaimed column “Jazz Improvisation” for Guitar Player magazine and founded the Guitar Institute of Technology and Playback Publishing. Guitarist Howard Roberts died of prostate cancer in Seattle, Washington on June 28, 1992, leaving a jazz catalogue of more than two-dozen albums as a leader and sideman.
More Posts: guitar
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dave Holland was born on October 1, 1946 in Wolverhampton, England and taught himself how to play stringed instruments, beginning at four on the ukulele, graduating to guitar and later bass guitar. Quitting school at age 15 to pursue a profession in a top 40 band, but gravitated to jazz buying albums of Ray Brown, Leroy Vinnegar, Charles Mingus and Jimmy Garrison and trading his electric bass in for an acoustic.
After moving to London in 1964, Holland began playing acoustic bass in small venues and studied with James Edward Merrett, learning to sight read, and enrolling in a three-year scholarship program at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
At 20, Holland was keeping a busy schedule in school, studios and Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club playing behind American musicians like Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Joe Henderson and British musicians such as John McLaughlin, Evan Parker and began a working collaboration with Kenny Wheeler that has continued to today.
In 1968 he joined Miles Davis’ group, recorded on Files de Kilimanjaro, In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew and Live at the Fillmore East, March 7, 1970: It’s About Time. Leaving Miles he joined the group Circle with Chick Corea that started a 34-year association with ECM record label. During the Seventies and 80s he worked as a leader and a sideman with Anthony Braxton, Stan Getz, John Abercrombie, Jack DeJohnette, Bonnie Raitt, Steve Coleman, Kevin Eubanks, Billy Higgins, Roy Haynes, Hank Jones, Pat Metheny and Marvin “Smitty” Smith.
Dave would go on to tour with Herbie Hancock, renew his affiliation with Joe Henderson and Betty Carter, formed his third quartet introducing Steve Nelson to the world, record dozens of albums as a leader and sideman, form his current quintet, win his first Grammy for big band album “What Goes Around”, win numerous other recognitions and he continues to compose, record, perform and tour.
More Posts: bass
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nicholas Payton was born on September 26, 1973 in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of bassist and sousaphonist Walter Payton. He took up the trumpet at age four and by nine was playing in the Young Tuxedo Brass Band. Upon leaving school, he enrolled first at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and then at the University of New Orleans under the tutelage of Ellis Marsalis.
Payton toured with Marcus Roberts and Elvin Jones in the early 90s, signed a recording contract with Verve Records, and released his first album, From This Moment in 1994. In 1996 he performed on the soundtrack of the movie Kansas City.
After seven albums on Verve, Nicholas signed with Warner Bros. and would perform and record with Wynton Marsalis, Dr. Michael White, Christian McBride, Joshua Redman, Roy Hargrove and Joe Henderson among others. He became a member of the Blue Note 7 in 2008, releasing an album in 2009 that produced a U.S. promotional tour.
Trumpeter Nicholas Payton also plays piano and is a prolific blogger and has written a notable blog titled “On the Difference Between Prejudice and Racism…” in which Payton theorizes that blacks cannot be racist because a prerequisite to racism is power.
He has recorded more than a dozen albums as a leader and sideman, received a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Solo for his playing on the album Doc Cheatham & Nicholas Payton and continues to compose, record and perform.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lonnie Plaxico was born on September 4, 1960 in Chicago, Illinois and started playing the bass at age twelve. He turned professional at 14 playing both double bass and bass guitar. His first recording was with his family’s band, and by the time he was twenty he had moved to New York City, where he had stints playing with Chet Baker, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, Junior Cook and Hank Jones.
In 1978 he won the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award but first came to public attention through his work with the Wynton Marsalis group in 1982. Lonnie’s first regular attachment was with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers from 1983–1986, with whom he recorded twelve albums. At the end of his work relationship with Blakey he joined Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition, and stayed with them until 1993.
Plaxico held the musical director and featured bassist position for Cassandra Wilson for fifteen years and has performed and recorded with a wide range of artists, including David Murray, Alice Coltrane, Stanley Turrentine, Andrew Hill, Abbey Lincoln, Joe Sample, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Cosby, Lonnie Liston Smith, Barbara Dennerlein, Helen Sung and Ravi Coltrane among others.
Bassist Lonnie Plaxico has thirteen albums to his credit as a leader and continues to perform and record.
More Posts: bass
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tineke Postma was born on August 31, 1978 in Heereveen, The Netherlands. At the age of eleven she began playing the saxophone and studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Graduating the conservatory in 2003, Tineke received a Masters from the Manhattan School of Music in New York and during this period of her education Tineke was taught by David Liebman, Dick Oatts and Chris Potter. She has been teaching at the Amsterdam Conservatory since 2005.
Performing internationally the saxophonist and composer has worked with Esperanza Spaulding, Terri Lyne Carrington and Wayne Shorter; she has received numerous recognitions from Down Beat Poll, won the Dutch Edison Award, the Jazz Juan Revelations Award, the Midem International Jazz Revelation of the Year Award and The Sisters in Jazz All Star Award.
Postma leads the Tineke Postma Quartet and The Tineke Postma International Quartet featuring Geri Allen on piano, Scott Colley on bass and Terri Lyne Carrington on drums. They have played festivals around the globe and recorded five albums under the leaders name. Postma has recorded as a sideman and collaborator and continues to compose, perform and tour.
More Posts: saxophone