Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Earl Theodore Dunbar was born on January 17, 1937 in Port Arthur, Texas. He became interested in jazz at the age of seven and in the 1950s he joined several groups while studying pharmacy at Texas Southern University and during that period he became influenced by Wes Montgomery.

He trained as a pharmacist at Texas Southern University, but by the 1970s only did pharmacy work part-time. Dunbar was also a trained numerologist and had studied other aspects of mysticism. At one point he received accolades from Ebony and Down Beat.

In 1966 Ted moved to New York City and gained more experience. In 1972 he became one of the first jazz professors at Rutgers University and taught Kevin Eubanks, Vernon Reid and Peter Bernstein, as well as many others. He published four volumes on jazz.

He recorded five albums as a leader and another fifteen albums with Gene Ammons, Kenny Barron, Richard Davis, Gil Evans, Curtis Fuller, Albert Heath, Willie Jackson, Charles McPherson, David “Fathead” Newman, Don Patterson, Bernard Purdie, Sam Rivers, Johnny “Hammond” Smith, McCoy Tyner and Tony Williams among others. Guitarist and educator Ted Dunbar passed away on May 29, 1998 of a stroke in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Phillip Guilbeau was born on January 16, 1926 in Lafayette, Louisiana. Like many of his fellow musicians he took up the trumpet and during World War II served in the Navy, Honorably discharged in 1945 he moved to Detroit, Michigan and successfully became a session player. Throughout his career he recorded on hundreds of albums including sessions with Count Basie, Big Joe Turner, David “Fathead” Newman, Otis Redding, Frank Sinatra, Quincy Jones, soloist on Hank Crawford’s recording of What A Difference A Day Makes from his Soul Clinic album and with Ray Charles, he was the soloist on the landmark 1961 album Genius + Soul =  Jazz.

By the Seventies Phil moved to Washington, DC and recognizing the evolution of the music, moved into the new sound called funk. He became the trumpeter and manager of the group The Young Senators, the top-rated R&B group in the area after the release of their hit, that Guilbeau penned, The Jungle. With the success of this single they were asked to tour as the backing group of Eddie Kendricks, and recorded his seminal album My People… Hold On with them. The album included what is widely considered the first ever Disco song, Girl You Need A Change Of Mind.

As a manager, Gilbeau would go on to discover another group called Black Heat, get them to Atlantic Records and record three albums before they disbanded. After a lifetime career of playing jazz, funk and rhythm & blues music that spanned five decades, trumpeter and composer Phil Guilbeau passed away on September 5, 2005 in Florida.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Calvin Massey was born on January 11, 1928 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and studied trumpet under Freddie Webster. Following his education on the trumpet he  and played in the big bands of Jay McShann, Jimmy Heath, and Billie Holiday.

In the late 1950s he led an ensemble with Jimmy Garrison, McCoy Tyner, and Tootie Heath, while John Coltrane and Donald Byrd occasionally played with them. Towards the end of the decade he gradually receded from active performance and concentrated on composition. Some of Cal’s compositions that were recorded are Bakai by Coltrane, Assunta, Father and Son by Freddie Hubbard, Message from Trane by Jackie McLean, These Are Soulful Days by Lee Morgan, Fiesta by Philly Joe Jones and Cry of My People by Archie Shepp. Horace Tapscott and McCoy Tyner also recorded his work.

He played and toured with Shepp from 1969 until 1972. An outspoken activist, Massey’s political standpoint was radical and his work was strongly connected with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and ’70s. The Black Panthers were an inspiration for The Black Liberation Movement Suite which he created with Romulus Franceschini. The Suite was performed three times at Black Panther benefit concerts. Massey’s ideology resulted in him getting blacklisted or whitelisted according to Fred Ho from major recording companies and only one album was recorded under his name.

He also performed in The Romas Orchestra with Romulus Franceschini, and had The Music of Cal Massey: A Tribute, recorded by Fred Ho, Quincy Saul and the Green Monster Band. Cal’s only album recorded as a leader two days after his birthday in 1961, Blues to Coltrane, on Candid label, was not released until fifteen years later in 1987. He composed all the songs and the personnel with him on this session were Julius Watkins on French horn, pianist Patti Brown, bassist Jimmy Garrison, Hugh Brodie on tenor saxophone, and G. T. Hogan on drums.

Trumpeter and composer Cal Massey passed away from a heart attack at the age of 43 in New York City, New York on October 25, 1972.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Don Sickler was born on January 6, 1944 in Spokane, Washington and with his mother’s guidance, an accomplished teacher, started learning accordion and piano at the age of four. At five he wrote his first composition that his parents published in their Sickler Accordion Course books. Taking up the trumpet at age ten, two years later he formed his first jazz combo and by 1957 was leading a nonet, playing for school and college dances. He went on to matriculate through Gonzaga University and the Manhattan School of Music in 1970 with a Master’s Degree in Trumpet Performance.

In New York he played commercially, subbed in Broadway show bands, played in rehearsal bands and jazz lofts though he turned towards music publishing. Don began working at E.B. Marks Music as music editor to managing editor, then moved to production manager of United Artists Publishing’s print division. Though they controlled the music catalogues of Blue NOte and Pacific Records that shaped much of his early life, he became disillusioned by the lack of corporate priority given to jazz. So he left and established his own publishing companies: Second Floor Music and 28th Street Music, which have published the works of over 350 jazz composers including Hank Mobley, Kenny Dorham, Bobby Timmons, Gigi Gryce, James Williams, Bobby Watson and a list too long to name.

After a seven-year hiatus Sickler resumed his playing career by collaborating with Philly Joe Jones that lasted for five years. This association afforded him opportunities to play with Art Blakey, Billy Higgins, Roy Haynes, Ben Riley and Charli Persip and other great players on every instrument. By 1982 he and Philly Joe created Dameronia, an all-star tribute band to Tadd Dameron, releasing two critically acclaimed albums and he transcribed all arrangements.

He would go on to release albums as a leader with Jimmy Heath, Cedar Walton, Ron Carter, Billy Higgins, Roy Hargrove, Mulgrew Miller, Bobby Watson, Ralph Moore, Wallace Roney, Clark Terry, Grover Washington, Joe Henderson,  and Renee Rosnes. As a sideman he has worked with Herbie Hancock, Frank Wess, Wayne Shorter, Christian McBride, Larry Coryell Freddie Redd and Superblue.

Trumpeter, arranger, producer, publisher, music director and educator Don Sickler has won five Grammy Awards beginning with Joe Henderson’s Lush Life in 1992 and has been nominated several times that include J. J. Johnson’s The Brass Orchestra. His tribute album Monk on Monk was DownBeat Magazine’s 1998 Album of the Year. He is currently the musical director for the annual Thelonious Monk International Jazz Instrumental Competition for the Thelonious Monk Institute, conducts workshops, master classes and teaches trumpet, jazz arranging and composition at Columbia University.

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Jack” Brokensha was born John Joseph Brokensha on January 5, 1926 in Nailsworth, South Australia. He studied percussion under his father, and played xylophone in vaudeville shows and on radio. He played with the Australian Symphony Orchestra during the war years from 1942–44, and then joined a band in the Air Force from 1944 to 1946.

Forming his own group, Jack began performing in Melbourne in 1947, moving around Australia and playing in Sydney from 1949 to mid–50, Brisbane later in 1950 and Adelaide in 1951. By 1953 he had moved to Windsor, Ontario, Canada with Australian pianist Bryce Rohde and together they formed the Australian Jazz Quartet/Quintet.  They enlisted fellow Australian bassoonist/saxophonist Errol Buddle and American saxophonist/flutist/bassist Dick Healey to complete the ensemble that toured together until 1958 and often grew to quintet /sextet to record.

Leaving Canada for Detroit, Michigan, Brokensha was hired by Berry Gordy of Motown Records as a percussionist, becoming one of the few white members of Motown’s Hitsville U.S.A. recording studio’s house band, The Funk Brothers. He was given the nickname “White Jack”, to distinguish him from Jack Ashford, an African American percussionist nicknamed “Black Jack”.

During the 1970s he ran “Brokensha’s”, a steakhouse high up in a Downtown Building whilst working at Motown. Though relatively small, the  club had good food and Jack’s great music, with occasional appearance by his friend and pianist Detroit resident, pianist Bess Bonnier. Following tours of Australia with Sammy Davis, Jr. and Stan Freberg, he founded his own music production company and did a session with Art Mardigan in 1963. Jack then became more active in radio as a disc jockey and writing music for television. He recorded as a leader again in 1980 and continued to lead his own group well into the 1990s. The Australian Jazz Quartet also reunited for tours and recording in 1994, leaving a small collection of some thirteen albums as a leader and member of the quartet.

Vibraphonist Jack Brokensha moved to Sarasota, Florida, where he passed away due to complications from congestive heart failure, at age 84 on October 28, 2010.

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