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.
Take A Dose On The Road
More Posts: piano
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.
Give The Gift Of Knowledge
More Posts: drums
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Cochrane was born September 4, 1948 in Peekskill, Westchester County, New York. A pianist by choice, in 1956 he started piano lessons at the age of eight. He continued to perform throughout his high school years in band program under the direction of Vincent Corozine. During these teen years was when he received his first exposure to jazz and the big band sound.
He would go on to enroll at Boston University studying science and math while taking an after school music program at Berklee College of Music. By his junior year in school, the jazz bug had bitten, he switched majors, graduated with a degree in psychology and became a regular on the local Boston jazz scene.
For the next four years Boston was home until he moved to New York City and began a long collaboration with trumpeter Hannibal Marvin Peterson. They toured the world and eventually recorded One With the Wind for Muse Records. He has performed and/or recorded with artists including Sonny Fortune, Jack Walrath, Eddie Gomez, Valery Ponomorev, Paul Nash, John Clark, Clark Terry, Nancy Monroe, Chip White, Michael Brecker, Chico Freeman, Galen Abdur Razzaq, The Spirit Of Life Ensemble, Bob Ferrel, The New World Quintet, Ted Curson, Oliver Lake, Oliver Lake, Sonny Fortune, Tom Harrell, Bob Malach, Dennis Irwin, James Madison and many more.
He has recorded for SteepleChase Records, as well as Soul Note and Landmark Records. Michael has received fellowships from the National Endowment For The Arts, the The Puffin Foundation and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. Pianist Michael Cochrane has studied with Jaki Byard, Eleanor Hancock and Madame Margaret Chaloff, and is currently a New York University Jazz Piano faculty member and continues to perform, record and tour.
Sponsored By
Voices From The Community
#preserving genius
More Posts: piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Emil Richards was born Emilio Joseph Radocchia on September 2, 1932 in Hartford, Connecticut. He began playing the xylophone at age six and went on to graduate from the Julius Hartt School of Music. He took private lessons from Asher George Zlotnik and performed with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and with various jazz musicians in New England.
After serving as Assistant Band Leader of the First Cavalry Army Band for two years, his career took off. He became first call percussionists for jazz, rock and other popular music as well as performing on countless movie and television soundtracks.
In 1954 Emil moved to New York City and played jazz gigs with Charles Mingus, Ed Shaughnessy and Ed Thigpen, while doing studio recordings for artists such as Perry Como, the Ray Charles Singers and Mitch Aires. In 1955 Emil joined the George Shearing Quintet and stayed with the group for over four years, playing 51 weeks a year.
1959 saw Richards settling in Los Angeles,California and working with the Paul Horn Quintet, Jimmy Witherspoon, the Shorty Rogers Big Band, Don Ellis, Lalo Schifrin, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Kenton, Shelly Manne, Alphonse Mouzon, Dakota Staton, Gábor Szabó, Lenny Bruce and Lord Buckley. He also recorded with Frank Sinatra, Nelson Riddle, Judy Garland, Sarah Vaughan and Doris Day. In 1962, in response to a request from President John F. Kennedy, he and a small jazz combo joined Sinatra on a tour around the world for the benefit of underprivileged children.
He would go on to work with Harry Partch, go on a world tour, then return to Los Angeles to perform and record with among others the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, Bing Crosby and Nat Cole, Frank Zappa’s Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra. He also worked on film scores for Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, Henry Mancini, Elmer Bernstein, Johnny Mandel, Quincy Jones, Oliver Nelson, Neal Hefti, Lalo Schifrin, Dave Grusin, Michel Legrand, Alex North and Bill Conti, to name a few.
Emil began collecting ethnic percussion instruments that became so diverse and expansive that is became known as the Emil Richards Collection. Having served several terms on the Board of Directors for the Percussive Arts Society, and donating the largest single-donor collection of instruments to the society museum, he directed the sale of part of the collection to be sold to the L.A. Percussion Rentals so that the instruments continue to be heard.
Percussionist Emil Richards remains active in Musicians’ Union Local 47 as part of their campaign to get musicians credited in the film industry.
Inspire A Young Mind
More Posts: percussion
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bennie Maupin was born August 29, 1940 in Detroit, Michigan. He started playing tenor saxophone in high school and attended the Detroit Institute for Musical Arts, while playing locally. He moved to New York in 1963, freelancing with many groups, including ones led by Marion Brown and Pharoah Sanders.
Well known for his playing as a part of Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi sextet and Headhunters band and for performing on Miles Davis’s seminal fusion record, Bitches Brew. Maupin has collaborated with Horace Silver, Roy Haynes, Woody Shaw, Lee Morgan and many others. He has also performed on several Meat Beat Manifesto albums.
Noted for having a harmonically-advanced, “out” improvisation style, while having a different sense of melodic direction than other “out” jazz musicians such as Eric Dolphy.
Maupin was also a member of Almanac, a group with bassist Cecil McBee, pianist Mike Nock and drummer Eddie Marshall. He has recorded a half dozen albums as a leader and another three dozen as a sideman with John Beasley, Marion Brown, Mike Clark, Miles Davis, Jack DeJohnette, Eddie Henderson, Andrew Hill, Darek Oles, Lonnie Smith, McCoy Tyner, Lenny White, Patrick Gleeson and Jim Lang.
Multireedist Bennie Maupin, who plays various saxophones, flute and bass clarinet, failed to catch on as a bandleader, thus maintained a low profile during the past 15 years, until emerging in 2006 with the critically acclaimed Penumbra followed two years later Early Reflections on the Cryptogramophone label, then on Vocalion with Slow Traffic To The Left, Moonscapes. He continues to perform and tour.
Sponsored By
