Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Hank Jones was born Henry Jones on July 31, 1918 in Vicksburg, Mississippi but grew up in Pontiac, Michigan. Raised in a musical family, his mother sang, his two older sisters studied piano and his two younger brothers— Thad played trumpet and Elvin, drums. He studied piano at an early age and came under the influence of Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum.
By age 13 Jones was performing locally in Michigan and Ohio and while playing with territory bands in Grand Rapids and Lansing in 1944 he met Lucky Thompson who invited Jones to work in New York City at the Onyx Club with Hot Lips Page.
In New York he mastered the bop style and worked with John Kirby, Howard McGhee, Coleman Hawkins, Andy Kirk, and Billy Eckstine. In 1947 he began touring with Jazz at the Philharmonic and from 1948 to 1953 he was accompanist for Ella Fitzgerald. During this period he made several historically important recordings with Charlie Parker that included “The Song Is You”, from the Now’s the Time album.
This led to engagements with Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Lester Young, Cannonball Adderley and Wes Montgomery. In addition to being the “house pianist” at one time on the Savoy label, Hank was the staff pianist for CBS studios from 1959 through 1975 backing such artists as Frank Sinatra, and for Marilyn Monroe when she sang her famous Happy Birthday for President Kennedy, and pianist and conductor for the Broadway musical Ain’t Misbehavin’.
During the late 1970s and the 1980s, Jones continued to record prolifically with John Lewis, Tommy Flanagan, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Buster Williams, Eddie Gomez, Al Foster, Jimmy Cobb, Art Farmer, Benny Golson and Nancy Wilson to name a few as his list of jazz collaborators is extensive.
Jones has racked up an impressive catalogue of recordings numbering over sixty as a leader and more as a sideman, worked with Roberta Gambarini at the Monterey Jazz Festival, with Diana Krall on the compilation “We All Love Ella”, was nominated for five Grammys and was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award, was inducted into the society of NEA Jazz Masters, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts among other accolades. Pianist Hank Jones passed away at a hospice in Manhattan, New York, on May 16, 2010.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Spaulding was born July 30, 1937 in Indianapolis, Indiana and started playing bugle while in grade school. He later learned to play trumpet and saxophone and flute. While in high school he studied clarinet and made his professional debut around his hometown in a rhythm and blues band.
After a three-year enlistment in the Army he settled to Chicago in 1957 leading his own groups. It was during this period he joined the Sun Ra Arkestra, making several recordings and remaining through 1959, while furthering his studies of flute at the Chicago Cosmopolitan School of Music. Spaulding subsequently freelanced as a studio musician and occasionally led his own groups before returning to Indianapolis in 1961.
Relocating to New York City in 1963, he recorded extensively for Blue Note Records as a sideman, and led several sessions as a leader for Storyville, Muse, 32 and High Note. He was also a member of the World Saxophone Quartet and recorded with Grant Green, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Lee Morgan, David Murray, Duke Pearson, Sam Rivers, Pharoah Sanders, Wayne Shorter, Stanley Turrentine, Larry Young and others.
As an educator he taught flute as an adjunct professor at Livingston College in New Jersey. Alto saxophonist James Spaulding continues to perform and record.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joel Harrison was born on July 27, 1957 in Washington D.C. In the Sixties he became enamored with the inventive guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and John McLaughlin. By his twenties, after graduating from Bard College, he hitchhiked across America exploring the rich diversity contained between its coasts.
Joel’s musical style encompasses a melding of jazz, classical, country, rock and world influences as the composer, arranger, songwriter, vocalist and bandleader stretches from concert hall to jazz club and the occasional dive bar. Finding inspiration from music too often barred from admission into the jazz consciousness, he continues his exploration into the reinterpretations of Miles Davis, Charles Ives, Walt Whitman, Jack Kerouac and Hank Williams.
He is a Guggenheim Fellow, a two-time winner of the Jazz Composer’s Alliance Composition Competition, 1st Place at the Percussive Arts Society worldwide competition, and has received grants from Chamber Music America, Meet the Composer, the Flagler Cary Trust, NYSCA, and the Jerome Foundation.
With a string of albums under his belt in a variety of genres, guitarist Joel Harrison has played and recorded with an impressive list of collaborators that includes Christian Howes, Donny McCaslin, Nels Cline, David Binney, Norah Jones, Dave Liebman, Uri Caine, Jamey Haddad, and Dewey Redman. He continues to compose, record, perform and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Etienne Charles was born in Trinidad on July 24, 1983 into a family with four generations of musicians. He was immersed in the folk music of his country suffused with the sounds of calypso, steel pan and African Shango drumming to create the diverse colors of his harmonic palette.
The Bishop Anstey Junior School proved to be a potent incubator where he began playing the recorder, followed by trumpet at 10 and formal lessons. An athlete with prowess, Etienne eclipsed his musical success with academics with football, cricket, swimming and water polo teams at Fatima College, winning the Provincial Cup three times, first at the age of 13. He studied privately, at the Brass Institute, become a member of the band, added drums and percussion, landed his first job in a pit orchestra, worked with his father on the road during carnival and with Phase II for the Panorama steel pan competition.
By sixteen Charles was attending the summer performance program at Berklee College of Music, then on to Florida State University, placed or won several competitions, performed at North Sea Jazz Festival, attended the Henry Mancini Institute and received his Master’s from Julliard School of Music.
Etienne has toured, performed or recorded with the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, Grammy Award winners Roberta Flack, Wynton Marsalis, Johnny Mandel, Ralph MacDonald, Maria Schneider and the Count Basie Orchestra as well as Marcus Roberts, Monty Alexander, Frank Foster, Wycliffe Gordon, Rene Marie, Lord Blakie and David Rudder.
He released his debut album “Culture Shock” in 2006 was followed by “Folklore” three years later and then “Kaiso”. Trumpeter and composer Etienne Charles stands at the vanguard of a new generation of Caribbean musicians and he continues to record, perform and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charles Ables was born on July 23, 1943 in Mississippi and started out on his musical career playing the guitar. He worked with Ray Charles prior to switching to bass to become a member of the Shirley Horn Trio in the early Eighties. He would tour the world and record with her on Steeplechase and then Verve record labels over the next three decades
Ables is heard on guitar as well as bass on several of these, including You Won’t Forget Me, which featured guest contributions from both Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis, Light Out of Darkness, Horn’s tribute to Ray Charles, I Thought About You, Close Enough For Love, Here’s To Life and the Grammy-winning I Remember Miles.
As well as accompanying Shirley Horn, Charles is heard with the trio on Carmen McRae’s last album in 1990, Sarah – Dedicated to You, in which Horn is featured in her often forgotten role as a pianist. He recorded in similar circumstances with Toot Thielemans on his album For My Lady, with Joe Williams and as a leader.
Bassist and guitarist Charles Ables passed away on October 8, 2001 in Washington, D. C.