Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gary Potter was born on November 15, 1965, Liverpool, Lancashire, England. Taking up guitar in his youth, he was playing in country music bands at the age of 12. He had a spell in the USA, drawing approving attention in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Drawing inspiration from early rock ‘n’ roll before becoming interested in jazz, Gary especially admired and influenced by the playing of Django Reinhardt. He has had numerous outspoken admirers of his playing including fellow guitarists Chet Atkins and George Harrison.
By the early 1990s, Potter became best known for his jazz work and in 1994 came second in the guitar section of the British Jazz Awards. He also appeared in the television documentary, The Django Legacy, worked with guitarist Nils Solberg, bass player Andy Crowdy and violinist Christian Garrick. In addition to performing, guitarist Gary Potter composes, arranges and records, while also teaching internationally.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ari Hoenig was born on November 13, 1973 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was exposed to music very young, being his father is a conductor and classical vocalist, his mother a violinist and pianist. He began studying the violin and piano at age four, playing the drums by twelve and by fourteen was honing his skill with young jazz musicians in Philadelphia clubs.
He would go on to matriculate through the University of North Texas, become a member of the One O’Clock Lab Band, then wanting to be closer to the action in New York City, he transferred to William Patterson University in northern New Jersey. It wasn’t long before Ari began playing with fellow Philadelphia native Shirley Scott and gigging around the City.
Moving to Brooklyn found him playing with Jean Michel Pilc, Kenny Werner, Chris Potter, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Joshua Redman, Wayne Krantz, Mike Stern, Richard Bona, Pat Martino, Bojan Z, Dave Liebman, Tigran Hamasyan, Ethan Iverson, Mark Turner and Fred Hersch.
He has shared the stage with Herbie hancock, Ivan Lins, Wynton Marsalis, Toots Thielemans, Dave Holland, Joe Lovano and Gerry Mulligan. In 2005 Hoenig appeared with his group at the Dominican Republic Jazz Festival.
He released his debut album Jazzheads as a leader in 1999, followed up by Time Travels in 2000 and The Life of a Day in 2002. He has nine albums out to date and has had several articles and reviews written in about him in Drummerworld, Down Beat, All About Jazz and other publications.
As an educator he teaches privately and is on the faculty of New York University, the New School for Social Research, and has released several educational and instructional manuals and videos about drumming. Drummer, composer and educator Ari Hoenig continues to perform, record and tour, leading a quintet, nonet and trio.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Lloyd Morrison was born on November 11, 1962 in Boorowa, New South Wales, Australia. Though his father was a Methodist minister, he comes from a musical family with his mother playing alto saxophone, piano and organ, his sister is a trumpeter, and his older brother a jazz drummer. Due to his father’s ministry the family relocated to various locales in New South Wales before settling in Pittwater.
From the age of seven Morrison practiced on his brother’s cornet, attended Mona Vale Primary School and Pittwater High School, then he enrolled at Sydney Conservatorium of Music where he completed a jazz course. While there he met Don Burrows, who became his mentor.
In 1983 Morrison joined his brother John’s 13-piece group, Morrison Brothers Big Bad Band and a year later he was playing trumpet, trombone and piano, his brother on drums, Warwick Alder on trumpet, Paul Andrews on alto saxophone, Tom Baker on alto and baritone saxophones, Peter Cross on trumpet, Glenn Henrich on vibraphone, Jason Morphett on tenor saxophone, and Craig Scott on bass. The group released their debut album, A Night in Tunisia, in 1984 on the ABC Records label.
Morrison has performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Don Burrows, Ray Charles, B. B. King, Ray Brown, Wynton Marsalis, Graeme Lyall, Frank Sinatra, Cab Calloway, Jon Faddis, Woody Shaw, Whitney Houston, Arturo Sandoval, Phil Stack, George Benson, Mark Nightingale, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Gina Jeffreys and Red Rodney, just to name a few. His long association with composer and pianist Lalo Schifrin has led James to record a number of CDs for Schifrin’s Jazz Meets the Symphony series, with the London and the Czech National symphony orchestras.
Morrison sponsors yearly scholarships for young musicians, and is actively involved with several youth bands. He discovered his regular vocalist, Emma Pask, at a school concert when she was 16 and has since gone on to become an internationally renowned jazz singer. He is the chairman of Generations in Jazz, one of the largest youth jazz events in the world. He has been the hosts of the in-flight jazz radio station for Qantas Airways.
Morrison designed trumpets and trombones, built his own recording studio, recorded top Australian jazz musicians including Dan Clohesy, Jake Barden, Don Burrows, Liam Burrows, John Morrison, The Swing City Big Band, The Generations In Jazz Academy Big Band, Graeme Lyall and more. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, was nominated for Best Jazz Album, in 1992 for Manner Dangerous, 1993 for Two the Max, a collaboration with Ray Brown, and was inducted into the Graeme Bell Hall of Fame.
He has received an honorary Doctor of Music from the Edith Cowan University and from the University by Griffith University, Morrison is also an Adjunct Professor of the University of South Australia and a Vice Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow. He continues to perform, record and tour.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mark Turner was born November 10, 1965 in Fairborn, Ohio, and raised in the small Southern California town of Palos Verdes Estates. His original intent was to become a commercial artist but in elementary school he played the clarinet, followed by the alto and tenor saxophones in high school. He attended California State University, Long Beach in the 1980s playing in the jazz ensembles, and then transferred to and graduating from Berklee College of Music in 1990.
Moving to New York city, Turner worked at Tower Records for an extended period before working full-time as a jazz musician. His debut release Yam Yam on the Criss Cross label hit the airwaves in 1995 and since he has released seven more for Criss Cross, Waner, Fresh Sound and ECM record labels. He is a member of the trio Fly, with bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Jeff Ballard and have released three albums.
Late 2008 Mark was off the jazz scene when a power saw injury injured two fingers on one of his hands sidelined him. Fortunately by late February the next year he was performing again with the Edward Simon Quartet at the Village Vanguard. In 2014 he released his first album as a leader in thirteen years featuring the talents of trumpeter Avishai Cohen, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Marcus Gilmore.
He has worked with Gilad Hekselman’s Quartet, drummer Billy Hart‘s Quartet, recorded extensively with guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, saxophonist David Binney, and pianist Aaron Goldberg, as well as Ryan Kisor, Jonny King, Jimmy Smith, Jon Gordon, George Colligan, Seamus Blake, Lee Konitz, Joshua Redman, Matthias Lupri, Jaleel Shaw, Omer Avital, SF Jazz Collective, Yelena Eckemoff, George Mraz, Joe Locke and Tom Harrell among others. Considered one of the most influential tenor saxophonists of his generation, Mark Turner continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Donald Byron was born November 8, 1958 in The Bronx in New York City. His mother was a pianist and his father played bass in calypso bands. As well as listening to jazz recordings by Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and others, he was exposed to other styles through trips to the ballet and symphony concerts.
He studied clarinet with Joe Allard and studied music at the New England Conservatory in Boston with George Russell. While in Boston, Byron performed and recorded with the Klezmer Conservatory Band, founded by NEC faculty member Hankus Netsky.
A gifted performer on clarinet, bass clarinet and saxophone, but on many of his albums he subordinates his own playing to the exploration of a particular style. Don is representative of a new generation of conservatory-trained jazz musicians who explore and record in a rich array of styles. His debut album in 1992, Tuskegee Experiments, bring classical avant garde and jazz improvisation together, while his albums like Ivey Divey are a more straight-ahead exploration of the traditional jazz, for which he has been nominated for a Grammy Award for his bass clarinet solo on I Want To Be Happy.
A practicing jazz historian and educator Byron recreates in spirit forgotten moments in the history of popular music with albums like Plays the Music of Mickey Katz and Bug Music. He has held professorships at Metropolitan State University of Denver, The University at Albany and MIT teaching composition, improvisation, music history, clarinet, and saxophone.
In 2001, Byron performed for the Red Hot Organization’s compilation album Red Hot + Indigo tribute to Duke Ellington, was named a 2007 USA Prudential Fellow and won a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has won the Rome Prize Fellowship and his Seven Etudes for solo piano made him a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Musical Composition.
Byron is a member of the Black Rock Coalition, has recorded with Allen Toussaint, Marc Ribot, Vernon Reid, Bill Frisell, Joe Henry, Hamiet Bluiett, Craig Harris, Mandy Patinkin, Ralph Peterson, Reggie Workman, David Murray, Steve Coleman, Bobby Previs, Anthony Braxton, Marilyn Crispell, Cassandra Wilson, Uri Caine and many others.
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Don Byron, who plays primarily clarinet, bass clarinet and saxophones, continues to perform, tour, record and educate, while venturing outside his jazz roots and into klezmer music, German lieder, cartoon jazz, hard rock/metal and rap.
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