Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mimi Jones was born Miriam Sullivan in New York City on March 25th and grew up in the Bronx. Influenced by everyone from Sinatra to the Beatles to Earth Wind & Fire, The Doors, Miles Davis, Gene Ammons, Gloria Lynne and John Coltrane, her compositional style is reflective.
By the age of twelve she was studying guitar with her first teacher, Jim Bartow, taking classes in dance, chorus, drums, music theory, piano and composition at the Harlem School of the Arts which all helped her secure a spot at Fiorello La Guardia High School of Music and Performing Arts. Realizing there was no guitar program Jones switched to cello and eventually was given the bass spot in the jazz band. It was during this time she discovered her musical voice.
Mimi began her relationship with the bass by receiving classical lessons, attended the Jazz Mobile Workshop, and studied with bassist Lisle Atkinson who gave her first bass, a Juzak. She went on to receive a full scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music Conservatory where she studied with saxophonist Charles Davis, Barry Harris, Ron Carter, Milt Hinton, Dr. Billy Taylor, Yusef Lateef, Max Roach, and Latin bass techniques with Guillermo Edgehill while matriculating to degree in music.
As a leader her debut “A New Day” is filled with seamless original compositions and as a sideman she has performed and toured with such luminaries as Lionel Hampton, Roy Hargrove, Sean Jones, Kenny Barron, Kevin Mahogany, Onaje Alan Gumbs and Ravi Coltrane among others. The multi-talented bassist, vocalist and composer continues to bring her elegant sound is an eclectic mix of genres based on a strong jazz foundation to the world stage.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joachim Kühn was born March 15, 1944 in Leipzig, Germany. He was a musical prodigy and made his debut as a concert pianist, having studied classical piano and composition. Influenced by his elder brother, clarinetist Rolf Kühn, he simultaneously got interested in jazz and in 1961 he became a professional jazz musician.
He put together a trio in 1964 and presented the first free jazz in East Germany. In 1966 he left the country and settled in Hamburg and together with his brother played the Newport Jazz Festival and recorded with Jimmy Garrison on the Impulse Record label.
Kühn moved to Paris in 1968 and has since worked with Don Cherry, Karl Berger, Slide Hampton, Phil Woods and Jean-Luc Ponty among others. As a member of Association P.C. he turned to electronic keyboards and during the second half of the 70’s he lived in California and joined the West Coast fusion scene. This period saw him recording with Alphonse Mouzon, Billy Cobham, Michael Brecker and Eddie Gomez.
Returning to Europe and settled near Paris again, he has played in an acoustic trio with Jean-Francois Jenny-Clark and Daniel Humair since 1985. In the summer of 1996, he joined Ornette Coleman for two concerts at the Verona and Leipzig festivals, which opened the way for his Diminished Augmented System. He continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Terence Oliver Blanchard was born March 13, 1962 in New Orleans, Louisiana and began playing piano at the age of five and then the trumpet at age eight. He played trumpet recreationally alongside childhood friend Wynton Marsalis in summer music camps but showed no real proficiency on the instrument. While in high school, he began studying at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and then studied at Rutgers, toured with Lionel Hampton, joined Art Blakey and became the Messenger’s music director.
While playing with Blakey, Blanchard rose to prominence as a key figure in the 1980s Jazz Resurgence as a co-leader of a quintet with saxophonist Donald Harrison and pianist Mulgrew Miller, The Harrison/Blanchard group recorded five albums from 1984-1988 until Blanchard left to pursue a solo career in 1990 and recorded his self-titled debut for Columbia Records.
He scored and performed on every Spike Lee movie soundtracks, including his 4-hour HBO Hurricane Katrina documentary “When The Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts” and the soundtrack for “Red Tails”. Composing for other directors, with over forty scores to his credit Blanchard is the most prolific jazz musician to ever compose for movies.
Terence has recorded eighteen albums, been nominated for twelve times and won five Grammy Awards, has won Soul Train Music Award, an Emmy and Golden Globe among others. On the short list his collaborations include Herbie Hancock, Diana Krall, Gary Bartz, Jane Monheit, Dianne Reeves, Christian McBride, Lewis Nash and McCoy Tyner.
Composer, educator and trumpeter Terence Blanchard is the artistic director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at the University of Southern California. All the while, he has remained true to his jazz roots as a trumpeter and bandleader on the performance circuit.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Leon Lee Dorsey was born on March 12, 1958 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The post bop genre bassist began as a child and matriculated through Oberlin College receiving two Bachelor of Music Degrees and the University of Wisconsin and the Manhattan School of Music receiving Maters degrees from both.
Dorsey’s chops for composing and arranging are witnessed on his 1995 debut album on the Landmark label titled The Watcher with Don Braden, Vincent Herring, Lafayette Harris Jr., Cecil Brooks III and Jimmy Madison followed by his 1999 release of Song of Songs that maintains a supreme sense of melody throughout the session.
He has performed and recorded with Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey, John Lewis, Cassandra Wilson, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis, Kenny Clarke, Jon Hendricks, Gloria Lynn, Harry “Sweets” Edison, has played with symphonies, orchestras and big bands of Duke Ellington, Benny Carter and Charlie Persip, with opera diva Marilyn Horne and with Frank Sinatra at Carnegie Hall.
Bassist Leon Dorsey completed his doctorate in Classical Double Bass under Ron Carter and is currently Assistant Professor of Jazz Performance at the University of Pittsburgh.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Billy Childs was born William Edward Childs on March 8, 1957 in Los Angeles, California and began piano lessons when he was six. By age 16 he started attending the Community School of the Performing Arts, a prestigious music program sponsored by the University of Southern California, in which he ultimately attended in 1975.
Playing professionally as a teenager, he made his recording debut in 1977 with the J. J. Johnson Quintet’s Yokohama Concert during a tour of Japan. He would gain significant attention during his six-year stint playing with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard’s group from 1978 to ’84.
His early playing influences were Herbie Hancock, Keith Emerson and Chick Corea and in his composing came by Paul Hindemith, Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky. Adept in both the jazz and classical idioms, Childs develop his own voice with an original conception near the start of his career. His solo recording career began in 1988 with the release of Take for Example, This… the first of four critically Windham Hill Jazz label. He would go on to record two albums for Stretch/GRP and Shanachie.
In 2000 Childs arranged, orchestrated and conducted for Dianne Reeves’ project The Calling: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan that won a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal. He has also arranged for Sting, Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Botti, Gladys Knight, Michael Bublé, David Foster, Phil Ramone and Claudia Acuna.
Billy’s 2005 “Lyric, Jazz-Chamber Music, Vol. 1”, a jazz chamber music ensemble recording, influenced by the Laura Nyro-Alice Coltrane collaboration, garnered three Grammy nominations. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and Chamber music grant, and has been commissioned for more than a dozen jazz and classical compositions and arrangements.
Pianist Billy Childs has been nominated for seven Grammys, of which he has won six. He has fifteen albums to his leader roster with his latest album, The Winds Of Change, was released in 2024. He continues to make music on stage and in the studio.
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