Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Atzko Kohashi was born on September 21st in Japan and studied classical piano from an early age. Her sights were not set on jazz until her early teens. A self-taught jazz pianist, while studying law at Kelo University in Tokyo, she was a member of the big band, Kelo Light Music Society. Post graduation she began playing in local jazz clubs in quintets until she formed her own trio.
In 1994 Kohashi moved to New York City and studied under Steve Kuhn, who had a big influence on her playing. In 2001 she moved back to Tokyo, played the clubs and composed music for C.G. animation for children and radio dramas. During this period she arranged jazz for the piano-violin duo Rosco.
2005 saw Atzko moving to Amsterdam, Netherlands and releasing her first album as a leader Amstel Delight followed by her 2009 sophomore album Amstel Moments with bassist Frans van der Hoeven. She recorded her third album live titled Turnaround with bassist Yosuke Inoue. In 2012 she went back into the studio with Dutch drummer Sebastiaan Kaptein. Her next duo recording was in 2013 with bassist van der Hoeven, making their critically acclaimed second duo album, Waltz For Debby and garnering success on the concert trail.
Along with van der Hoeven and Kaptein, she has released her latest 2016 record Lujon on the Japanese label Cloud. Pianist Atzko Kohashi, also writes and interviews for a monthly column ‘Amsterdam Report’ on a web magazine for Japanese jazz lovers, continues to compose, arrange, perform and record and is scheduling a Japan tour in November.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Elvira “Vi” Redd was born September 20, 1928 in Los Angeles, California to New Orleans drummers and Clef Club co-founder Alton Redd. She was deeply influenced during her formative years by her father, who was one of the leading figures on the Central Avenue jazz scene, as well as her other important musical mentor, her paternal great aunt Alma Hightower.
After working for the Board of Education from 1957 to 1960, Redd returned to jazz. She played in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1962, toured with Earl Hines in 1964 and led a group in San Francisco, California in the mid-1960s with her husband, drummer Richie Goldberg. During this time Vi also worked with Max Roach.
She toured as far as Japan, London, that included an unprecedented 10 weeks at Ronnie Scott’s, Sweden, Spain and Paris. In 1969, she settled back in Los Angeles where she played locally while also working as an educator. She recorded albums as a leader for United Artists and Atco and her 1963 album Lady Soul features Bill Perkins, Jennell Hawkins, Barney Kessel, Leroy Vinnegar, Leroy Harrison,Dick Hyman, Paul Griffin, Bucky Pizzarelli, Ben Tucker and Dave Bailey, with liner notes by Leonard Feather. She also performed with Count Basie, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Linda Hopkins, Marian McPartland, Dizzy Gillespie, Gene Ammons and Dexter Gordon.
A graduate of California State University, Los Angeles, she earned a teaching certificate from University of Southern California. She taught and lectured for many years from the ’70s onward upon returning to Los Angeles. She served on the music advisory panel of the National Endowment for the Arts in the late 1970s. In 1989 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Jazz Society. In 2001 she received the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Award from the Kennedy Center.
Bebop, hard bop and post bop alto saxophonist, vocalist and educator Vi Redd remained active, performing and recording until 2010. Retiring from music she passed away on February 6, 2022 at 93 years old.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lisle Arthur Atkinson was born on September 16, 1940 in New York City and his mother played piano, his father played bass. He began his music lessons on the violin and later switched to bass, attended the High School of Music and Art and the Manhattan School of Music .
Lisle began his career working with Freddy Cole, from 1959 to 1961. From 1962 to 1966 he accompanied Nina Simone and contributed to several of their albums with such Broadway Blues Ballads . The late Sixties saw him performing alongside Norman Simmons and Al Harewood backing Betty Carter and joined with her in 1970 at the Village Vanguard. He has performed and recorded with Michael Fleming, Milt Hinton, Richard Davis, Ron Carter, Sam Jones and with Bill Lee’s New York Bass Violin Choir.
In the early 1970s he worked with Stanley Turrentine, Wynton Kelly, Billy Taylor, Kenny Burrell, Dakota Staton, Frank Foster, Horace Parlan, Grady Tate, Howard McGhee, Johnny Hartman and Joe Williams.
In 1976 he played with Walt Dickerson and Andrew Cyrille. In the early 1980s he worked with Charles Sullivan, Nancy Wilson, Eddie Harris and played 1985 in the formation of Neo Brass Ensemble. In the second half of the 80s he played with Benny Carter in which Grover Mitchell Big Band, with Lee Konitz and in the quintet of Ernie Wilkins and Joe Newman . In 1995 he worked in a trio with Cyrille and James Newton on Good to Go with a Tribute to Bu.
Since 1971, Atkinson taught in the Jazz Mobile project. He also participated in recordings of Richard Wyands, George Coleman , Helen Humes and Hal Singer. In 1979 he recorded as a leader on Storyville Records album Bass Contrabass with Wyands and Al Harewood. Bassist Lisle Atkinson continued to perform and record until he passed away on March 25, 2019, at the age of 78.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Oliver Jones was born Oliver Theophilus Jones on September 11, 1934 in Little Burgundy, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He began his career as a pianist at the age of five, studying with Mme Bonner in Little Burgundy’s Union United Church, made famous by Trevor W. Payne’s Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir. He continued developing his talent through studies with Oscar Peterson’s sister Daisy Peterson Sweeney starting at eight years old. In addition to church, as a child he performed at the Cafe St. Michel, other clubs and theaters in the Montreal area.
He started his early touring in Vermont and Quebec with a band called Bandwagon, and in 1953–63 played mainly in the Montreal area, with tours in Quebec. From 1964 to 1980 Jones was music director for the Jamaican calypso singer Kenny Hamilton, based out of Puerto Rico. By late 1980 he teamed up with Montreal’s Charlie Biddle, working in and around local clubs and became the resident pianist at Charlie’s jazz club Biddles from 1981 to 1986. He recorded his debut album, Live at Biddles in 1983, and was the first record on the Justin Time record label.
By the mid-1980s he was travelling throughout Canada, appearing at festivals, concerts and clubs, either as a solo artist or with the trio of Skip Bey, Bernard Primeau and Archie Alleyne. His travels also took him to Europe during this period, then on to a tour of Nigeria that became the subject of a 1990 National Film Board of Canada documentary, Oliver Jones in Africa.
Oliver is also an educator having taught music at Laurentian University, McGill University and mentored jazz artist Dione Taylor through the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards Mentorship Program. He was named an Officer of the Order of Canada and has been bestowed the National Order of Québec, with the rank of Chevalier (Knight). He has won a Juno, four Felix awards, voted keyboardist of the year, received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award and became the second recipient of the Oscar Peterson Award after Oscar himself.
Pianist, composer and bandleader Oliver Jones has recorded twenty-four albums as a leader, worked with Ranee Lee, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, Clark Terry and Oscar Peterson, among others, and continues to perform and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marcus Lamar Miller was born on September 9, 1970 in Chesapeake, Virginia and began his musical journey at the age of three playing drums in his mothers church. During his elementary school years, 3rd-5th grade, he studied classical harp with the principal harpist for the Norfolk Symphony. Between the years 1983-88 he recorded on three albums with several mass choirs of the United Holy Church of America Inc. His high school and college years were spent backing rock, reggae, funk, Appalachian folk and jazz bands.
He went onto attend Washington & Lee University studying four-years of African, European, and Latin American histories. Setting his sights west to continue studies in music, Marcus landed in Berkeley, California in 1993 and began working with numerous local bands in the San Francisco bay area.
Miller landed a CNN spotlight of up and coming jazz musicians before touring and performing 1995 and 1996 with Ben Harper throughout Europe, Japan, and North America. He then moved to Anaheim after the tour, began a stint with Disney, started studying African traditional drumming with percussionists Leon Mobley and Angel Figueroa, and was a founding member of Leon Mobley & Da Lion.
Marcus has since gone on to perform with such artists as Ashanti, Sheila E, Andre Cymone, Barbara McNair, the Watts Prophets, Bennie Maupin, Vinx, Jimmy Sommers,Tony Furtado, and Ozomatli. He has collaborated with such choreographer/dancers as Lula Washington, Cleo Parker Robinson, Winifred Harris, Bonnie Homesy, Toni Pierce, Marguerite Donlon, and wife Tamica Washington-Miller.
Educating children is one of his biggest passions and teaches regularly at the New Roads School and holds private lessons. He founded YDLA, a performance group called the Young Drummers of Los Angeles, and works with various organizations throughout California facilitating drum workshops for the youth. His Freedom Jazz Movement serves as his main vehicle of musical expression, fusing traditional African rhythms with a East Coast swing. Drummer, composer, bandleader and educator Marcus L. Miller continues to perform, record and educate.
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