Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Issi Rozen was born on April 20, 1967 in Haifa, Israel, his family moved to Tel Aviv during his childhood. His earliest musical memories were lullabies his mother sang. He began playing guitar at age 10, and as a teenager was practicing several hours a day. In 1991, after completing his service in the Israeli Defense Forces, he moved to Boston to study at Berklee College of Music.
After finishing his studies at Berklee, Rozen settled in the Boston suburb of Brookline, released his debut album Red Sea in 1998for Brownstone Records. A year later he released Homeland Blues and in 2003, he released Dark Beauty.
Issi is clearly influenced by jazz guitarists Pat Metheny and Jim Hall but utilizes musical components from his native Israel leaning towards traditional Hebrew song sung primarily by Mizrah Jews while juxtaposing the bebop of the Charlie Parker tune Segment and his original compositions. This hybrid of different genres has given guitarist Issi Rozen critical acclaim as he continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mary Louise Knutson was born on April 19, 1966. The Minneapolis based jazz pianist and composer released her debut CD “Call Me When You Get There” in 2001 charted in the Top 50 in the U.S. and Canada that brought her national recognition. Knutson’s 2011 sophomore project on her Meridian Label, “In The Bubble”, charted in the Top 10 on JazzWeek and stayed for an unprecedented 19 weeks straight.
Mary received Lawrence University’s distinguished Nathan M. Pusey Alumni Achievement Award, was a Top 5 finalist in the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams “Women In Jazz” Pianist Competition, has been nominated for Jazz Artist of the Year and Pianist of the Year by the Minneapolis Music Awards, and has won two composition awards from Billboard Magazine.
As an educator she has sat on the faculty of Carleton College instructing jazz piano and improvisation, and currently teaches privately and conducts a variety of master classes such as Intro to Composition, Freedom From the Written Page: Beginning Improv for Pianists, and Making Sense of Jazz, among others.
Knutson has performed and toured with jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby McFerrin, Dianne Reeves, Kevin Mahogany, Nicholas Payton, Ernie Watts, Slide Hampton, Greg Abate, Bobby Shew and Von Freeman to name a few and has crossed over into other genres to play with Smokey Robinson, Trisha Yearwood, Donny Osmond, Phyllis Diller, Rob Schneider and more. The pianist regularly performs with her group, with area vocalists Connie Evingson and Debbie Duncan; and with the JazzMN Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra and the Chuck Lazarus Quartet.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kathy Brown was born April 18th in Mandeville, Jamaica and began playing the family piano at age 5. Initially self-taught in reading and playing by ear, she studied classical piano up to the sixth grade at the Royal School of Music in England. She took music as an elective in high school, college, while attaining her medical degree at the University of the West Indies and took classes in jazz piano after graduation.
Leading her bands Dr. Kathy Brown & Friends or Kathy Brown Band, she plays throughout Jamaica and has graced the stages of the Port Royal Music Festival, Ocho Rios Jazz Festival, Air Jamaica Jazz & Blues Festival, the Island Soul Festival in Toronto, Canada as well as performing in Suriname, Antigua and at the World Choir Games in Austria.
The pianist, composer, bandleader and recording artist, whose influences were Herbie Hancock, Joe Sample, Chick Corea, Chucho Valdes, Monty Alexander, Kenny Barron, and Michel Camilo, released her debut CD, Mission: A Musical Journey, which was nominated for Best Instrumental Album at the inaugural Jamaica Music Awards. Aside from performing as a jazz pianist and furthering her medical career, Dr. Kathy Brown is a vocalist and a member of the University Singers. When she puts on her educator hat she can be seen working with the East Queen Street Baptist and Nexus Performing Arts choirs.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Warren Chiasson was born on April 17, 1934 in Cheticamp, Nova Scotia and began his music training on the violin and by age 13 was playing sessions with noted fiddlers at dances, stage and radio shows. In high school he played the trombone and became inspired by George Shearing, which led him to study modern jazz.
But it was seeing Lionel Hampton play while in college that sealed his career path. He bought a small xylophone, left school, joined the Royal Canadian Artillery Band as a trombonist, practiced 8 hours a day, got a chance audition in New York for George Shearing and a week later was touring the world playing opposite Dave Brubeck and the Modern Jazz Quartet.
A pioneer of the four-mallet vibraphone technique, Warren has formed his own group and collaborated, played and recorded with such artists as Paul Bley, Chet Baker, Roland Hanna, Tal Farlow, Jimmy Garrison, Charlie Haden, Lee Konitz, Joe Farrell, Hank Crawford, Les McCann, Helen Ward, Wilbur Ware and Joe Chambers.
He played vibes in New York through the 1960s and spent four years playing percussion for the Broadway musical Hair. In 1972 he reunited with Shearing again, released a record under his own name and in the mid-1970s he toured with Roberta Flack.
Chiasson played on B.B. King’s Grammy winning album Blues ‘n Jazz, and played the 50th anniversary of From Spirituals to Swing at Carnegie Hall, filling in for Lionel Hampton, who was unable to perform. At 83 vibraphonist Warren Chiasson continues to record and perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Steve Davis was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on April 14, 1967 but was raised in Binghamton, New York. He grew up with jazz music being played in the household listening to his father’s record collection and his grandparents played. With mentors Doug Beardsley and Al Hamme, he was fortunate to play with his peers Kris Jensen, Tony Kadleck, Tom Dempsey, Dena DeRose and John Hollenbeck among many others.
He went on to study jazz under Dr. Jackie McLean at The Hartt School of the University of Hartford in Connecticut. While in school, Davis also gained valuable experience sitting-in and gigging with Hotep Galeta, Nat Reeves, Don DePalma, Larry DiNatale and others at The 880 Club. A recommendation to Art Blakey saw Steve joining the Jazz Messengers at Sweet Basil in New York City in 1989. Following Blakey’s death, he joined the Hartt faculty in 1991 where he continues to teach today, and taught at The Artist’s Collective in Hartford.
He gained further international recognition playing with McLean’s sextet for five years and for four in Chick Corea’s Origin. Trombonist Steve Davis has played and recorded with Freddie Hubbard and The New Jazz Composers Octet, Benny Golson’s New Jazztet, Hank Jones, Cecil Payne, Horace Silver, Cedar Walton, Harold Mabern, Larry Willis, Eddie Henderson, Roy Hargrove, Avishai Cohen, Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and Michael Weiss.
Davis has been a member of the cooperative sextet One for All since its inception in 1996, alongside Eric Alexander, Jim Rotondi, David Hazeltine, John Webber and Joe Farnsworth. He also currently plays with Larry Willis’s Quintet, The Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Star Big Band/Septet, leads The Steve Davis Quintet and remains a fixture on the New York and Hartford jazz scenes.
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