Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Darrell Grant was born on May 30, 1962 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania but his family moved to Denver, Colorado while still a young child. He started piano lessons before his teens and was considered enough of a prodigy to join and tour for two years with the Boulder-based Pearl Street Jazz Band, from the age of fifteen.
At 17 Grant won a scholarship to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York and while at Eastman focused on performance studies over theory, which he covered in his graduate studies in jazz theory and composition at the University of Miami.
Relocating to New York in the mid-’80s, Grant concentrated on a series of low-profile sideman gigs with the likes of Betty Carter, Chico Freeman and Greg Osby before finally stepping out as a bandleader for the first time. His 1994 Black Art was well received and reviewed and sold respectably, and his sophomore project The New Bop was an even bigger critical success.
He has recorded for 32 Jazz, Criss Cross, Monarch, Lair Hill and Origin record labels, has relocated to the Pacific Northwest and has added teaching credits to his resume of performance, composition and bandleader and sideman in Tony Williams’ quintet as he continues in the tradition of bop and post-bop jazz.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lynne Arriale was born May 29, 1957 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was adopted as an infant only to discover the piano keyboard at three. Her initial training being classical, eventually earned her Master’s from the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. However, it wasn’t until after college that her interest in the works of Keith Jarrett and Herbie Hancock led her to jazz.
She gained renown in the 1990s with her collaborator, drummer Steve Davis and bassist Jay Anderson. Lynne first came to prominence when she won the 1993 International Great American Jazz Piano Competition and performed at the Jacksonville Jazz Festival. She has toured Japan with the acclaimed 100 Golden Fingers ensemble, performed with jazz legends Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Barron, Harold Mabern, Junior Mance, Monty Alexander, Roger Kellaway, Ray Bryant, and Cedar Walton.
An active educator and adjudicator pianist Lynne Arriale is a member of The Jazz Education Network has adjudicated the Montreux Jazz Competition, American Pianists Association Fellowship Awards, and The Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Competition, and the Jacksonville Piano Competition. She is currently Associate Professor of Jazz Studies and Director of Small Ensembles at The University of North Florida in Jacksonville and conducts educational clinics and master classes as she continues to perform and tour throughout the world.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Claudio Roditi was born on May 28, 1946 in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. He began his musical studies of trumpet when he was just five years old and his native Brazilian music nearly took a back seat as he became enamored with jazz recordings of Louis Armstrong, Harry James and other American trumpeters.
By 13, he became familiar with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. At the age of twenty, he was named a finalist in the International Jazz Competition in Vienna, and the following year, moved to Mexico City where he was active on the contemporary music scene. Relocating to Boston in 1970 he enrolled at the Berklee School of Music.
In 1976 Roditi moved to New York eventually establishing himself in the highly competitive atmosphere of the world’s jazz capital. He would go on to perform with Joe Henderson, Charlie Rouse, Herbie Mann, Tito Puente, McCoy Tyner, and Paquito D’Rivera. He has been a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nation Orchestra, The Jazz Masters led by Slide Hampton and his solo work Symphonic Bossa Nova with Ettore Stratta and the Royal Philharmonic earned Roditi a Grammy nomination in 1995 as well as Brazilliance X4 in 2010.
Claudio easily integrates post-bop elements and Brazilian rhythmic concepts, is in demand as a studio musician and a sideman, has composed, arranged and recorded seventeen critically acclaimed albums. The trumpeter currently tours leading his own band, is frequently travels as a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nations Orchestra and is on the faculty of the School of Contemporary Music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen was born May 27, 1946 in Osted, near Roskilde on the Danish island of Zealand. As a child he played piano and started learning the double bass during his teenage years. By age 14 while still studying he began his professional jazz career in Denmark with his first band, Jazzkvintet 60. At 17, he had already turned down an offer to join the Count Basie Orchestra, being too young to legally live and work in the U.S.
The 1960s saw Pedersen playing with several visiting or residing musicians in Denmark such as Bud Powell, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Roland Kirk, Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, Bill Evans, and Ben Webster to name a few. He became the bassist of choice whenever a big-name musician was touring Copenhagen.
Pedersen worked in duo and trio arrangements with pianist Kenny Drew, recording over 50 albums together, worked with Oscar Peterson, Stephane Grappelli and Joe Pass and recorded extensively as a leader. His best-known songs are “My Little Anna”, “Jaywalkin” and “The Puzzle”. He was awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize, the “Best Bass Player Of The Year” by the Downbeat Critics’ Poll, co-led a duo with Mulgrew Miller that toured Europe, Japan, Australia, and Korea and later enlarged into a trio with drummer, Alvin Queen. Bassist Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen, known as The Great Dane With The Never Ending Name, died of heart failure on April 19, 2005 at the age of 58 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz….
Elaine Leighton was born on May 22, 1926 in New York City and while in high school she was in the same class as Stan Getz and Shorty Rogers. Early in her career around 1949 Leighton worked with Jackie Cain and Roy Kral. She then went to work with Ann Mae Winburn who led the International Sweethearts of Rhythm.
In the mid-Fifties Leighton would play in a trio with pianist Carl Drinkard and accompanied Billie Holiday, recording with her on several sessions including the 1954 Koln live recording. She would be part of an all female trio with bassist Bonnie Wetzel and pianist/singer Beryl Booker. Following a European tour Elaine started freelancing in New York, from 1957 to 1959, then led her own trio.
She has worked with Buddy DeFranco and Red Norvo, was a part of the Jazz USA tour with Clark Terry, Lucky Thompson, Tal Farlow, Kenny Clarke, Terry Pollard, Norma Carson and Mary Osborne, and recorded as a part of the Leonard Feather “Cats vs. Chicks” sessions for MGM. Drummer Elaine Leighton never led a recording session but performed on many classic recording dates but no longer performs at the age of 91.
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