Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Simon Spang-Hanssen was born on April 13, 1955 in Copenhagen, Denmark andstarted playing alto saxophone but later added tenor and soprano. Receiving the annual Ben Webster Prize he created his own quartet Spacetrain with Ben Besiakov, Jesper Lundgaard and Alex Riel in 1979. He played in several groups before joining the sextet of Brazilian drummer and composer Nenê, and touring Denmark and France with Hermeto Pascoal e Grupo.
A move to Paris, France saw him playing with among others Denis Badault, Andy Emler, Nguyên Lê, Quintet Moutin, Ramuntcho Matta, Edouard Ferlet and with his own projects including musicians such as Richard Bona, Billy Hart, Niels Lan Doky, J.F. Jenny-Clarke, Bojan Z., and others. Returning to Copenhagen he created the tentet Central Earth and recorded Wondering with Maaneklar for Dacapo. Concerts and recording followed with a new quartet and quintet into the new millennium. He has had several iterations
Simon started the record label Alisio and released Rainbow Spirit and Coexistence with a quintet. These were followed with several other releases including The Riddle with Ear Witness, a live-recording in Copenhagen Jazzhouse with Maneklar XL, and two nominations for Danish Jazz Awards: Composer of the Year, Album of the year.
He has played and toured with the Aliso Ensemble South America, Scandinavia, and Zanzibar with Ear Witness. He released a new recording with the Epistrophy Septet with trombonist Peter Dahlgren. Saxophonist Simon Spang-Hanssen continues to perform and tour with a variety of musicians.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marty Krystall was born on April 12, 1951 in Los Angeles, California. He beame fluent on tenor saxophone and clarinet and his sound was somewhat influenced by Ben Webster but is open to adventurous improvisations.
Marty has appeared in several of Buell Neidlinger’s groups through the years. Since the late 1970s he has worked as a Los Angeles studio musician and helped run the K2B2 record label. He has recorded with Neidlinger in Krystall Klear and the Buells, Buellgrass which was later renamed String Jazz, the group Thelonious, and a tribute album to Herbie Nichols.
He has recorded with Leon Kottke, Aretha Franklin, Peter Erskine, Hugh Schick, Yasushi Yoneki, and his marty krystall spatial quartet. Saxophonist and clarinetist Marty Krystall, who is a member of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, continues to explore the genres of jazz.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Fraser MacPherson was born on April 10, 1928 in Saint Boniface, Manitoba, Canada. He moved with his parents to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada as a child where he learned piano, clarinet, and alto and tenor saxophones. After relocating to Vancouver, British Columbia to continue a commerce degree, he played in bands led by Ray Norris, Dave Robbins, Paul Ruhland, and Doug Parke.
He led his own groups and eventually took over the leadership of the Cave supper club band.In 1958 Fraser took a year’s leave to study in New York City, adding flute to his list of instruments.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s MacPherson was a first-call studio player in Vancouver, as well as leading the house band at the Cave supper club. He also taught briefly in the Jazz and Commercial Music department at Vancouver Community College, where his students included future Powder Blues Band baritone saxophonist Gordie Bertram and New Orleans based saxophonist and jazz educator John Doheny.
Fraser’s debut album as leader of a small jazz group, Live at the Planetarium, was recorded for broadcast on the French-language CBC radio network. He leased the master tapes and released them on his own independent label, West End Records. The album was re-released by Concord Records, and he recorded several other releases for them. He also recorded for Sackville and Justin Time record labels.
In the summer of 1993, Pacific Music Industry Association (PMIA) created the Fraser MacPherson Scholarship Fund which annually awards grants of $2000 to four to eight aspiring music students.
Fraser MacPherson, who won a Juno Award for Best Jazz Album and was awarded the Order of Canada, transitioned in Vancouver at the age of 65 on September 27, 1993.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Burton L. Collins was born on March 27, 1931 in New York City but raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the 1950s he worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Urbie Green, Neal Hefti, Woody Herman, Elliot Lawrence, Johnny Richards, and Claude Thornhill.
Relocating to New York around 1960 he played in Broadway orchestras and in ensembles with Cannonball Adderley, Albert Ayler, Jimmy McGriff, Blue Mitchell, Duke Pearson, and Stanley Turrentine, among others. With Joe Shepley he formed the group Collins-Shepley Galaxy in 1970, recording two albums, including a Lennon/McCartney tribute. Later in the decade he played flugelhorn with Urbie Green again as well as with Janis Ian, Lee Konitz, David Matthews, and T. Rex’s album Electric Warrior.
Over the course of his career he recorded a hundred albums as a sideman with, among others, Manny Albam, Woody Herman, Duke Pearson, Cy Coleman, Frank Foster, Sal Salvador, Pat Moran, Astrud Gilberto, George Benson, Chris Connor, Manhattan Transfer, Tony Bennett, Luiz Bonfa, Airto Moreira, Paul Desmond, Eumir Deodato and Lalo Schifrin.
He played little after the 1970s, though he appeared on record with Loren Schoenbergin 1987. Trumpeter Burt Collins transitioned on February 23, 2007 in Philadelphia.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
David Owen Mackay was born on March 24, 1932 in Syracuse, New York. He attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut from 1950 to 1954, where he was the first blind student to graduate. He then attended Boston University from 1956 to 1958, where he studied with Margaret Charloff. He also studied with Lennie Tristano in New York City, then at the Lenox School of Jazz where he studied with Bill Evans, and lastly at The Hartford School of Music where he studied with Asher Zlotnik.
By the mid-1960s, Mackay joined the Hindustani Jazz Sextet with Don Ellis, Harihar Rao, Emil Richards, Steve Bohannon, Chuck Domanico and Ray Neapolitan. During this period he played with the Don Ellis Orchestra. The late Sixties saw him and Vicky Hamilton formed a duo and produced two recordings together with instrumentation including flute and saxes from Ira Schulman and guitar from Joe Pass.
In the mid-1970s, Dave along with Bill Henderson, and Joyce Collins formed a unique trio which toured the northwest, recorded two Grammy nominated albums for Discovery, and by 1981 they were performing on the television show Ad Lib. By the end of the decade with Lori Bell, and Ron Satterfield he formed the group Interplay, which garnered them four Grammy npominations. In the 1990s, he teamed up with Stephanie Haynes.
By the turn of the century he teamed with John Giannelli on bass and Joe Correro on drums performing Bill Evans tunes in a celebration of the Life and Music of bassist Scott LaFaro. He then hooked up with bassist Kenny Wild and singer Tierney Sutton. He would go on to perform with Serge Chaloff, Sonny Stitt, Bob Wilber, Bobby Hackett, Jim Hall, Don Ellis, Emil Richards, Shelly Manne, Chet Baker, Joe Pass, Warne Marsh, Kai Winding, Stephanie Haynes, and Tierney Sutton.
As a composer a couple of Mackay’s original compositions were later recorded by Cal Tjader, and by the Baja Marimba Band. He wrote a majority of the music with lyricist Barbara Schill for a hit stage musical comedy titled Is It Just Me, Or Is It Hot In Here?
Pianist, vocalist and composer Dave Mackay, with roots in the works of Art Tatum, Bud Powell, and Bill Evans, who favored the standards of the 1940s and 1950s and the bossa novas of Luíz Eça, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and João Gilberto, transitioned on July 29, 2020.
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