Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Aaron Bell was born Samuel Aaron Bell on April 24, 1921 in Muskogee, Oklahoma. As a child, he played piano and went on to learn brass instruments in high school. He attended Xavier University where he began playing bass, graduating in 1942 and joining the Navy until 1946.

After his discharge he became a member of Andy Kirk’s band and the next year enrolled at New York University to complete his Master’s degree. Aaron then joined Lucky Millinder’s band followed by gigging with Teddy Wilson.

During the 1950s, Bell appeared on Billie Holiday’s album Lady Sings The Blues and recorded with Lester Young, Stan Kenton, Johnny Hodges, Cab Calloway, Carmen McRae and Dick Hyman. Leaving Haymes in 1960 he took a chair opposite drummer Sam Woodyard in the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

He left Ellington in 1962 to spend time with Dizzy Gillespie before taking pit musician jobs on Broadway. He also recorded with Johnny Griffin, Sonny Stitt and Randy Weson as well as recording as a leader. Bell and Ellington collaborated once more in 1967, on a tribute to Billy Strayhorn. He held a residence at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City from 1969 to 1972.

Aaron was also an educator and began teaching at Essex College in Newark, New Jersey in 1970, remaining there until 1990. During this period he also toured with Norris Tumey, Harold Ashby and Cat Anderson. In the 1980s he returned to piano playing, and retired from active performance in 1989. Double bassist Aaron Bell passed away on July 28, 2003.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Don Menza was born on April 22, 1936 and raised in Buffalo, New York where he began playing tenor saxophone when he was 13. He studied with musician and teacher John Sedola.

After serving in the U. S. Army, Menza went to work in 1960 with the Maynard Jackson Orchestra for two years as both a soloist and an arranger. A short tenure with Stan Kenton and a year leading a quintet in Buffalo preceded a four-year period living in Germany (1964–68).

Later, he returned to the United States and joined Buddy Rich’s 1968 big band in the jazz tenor chair, recording the famous solo cadenza on Channel One Suite live at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. His utilization circular breathing during that performance has become known as a classic among music educators and musicians alike.

In the late 1960s, Don settled in California and performed with Elvin Jones and Louie Bellson. He also recorded with Keely Smith, Natalie Cole, Nancy Sinatra, Cold Blood, Pat Boone and Leonard Cohen.

Menza’s compositions, specifically Groovin’ Hard and Time Check have become standard repertoire in jazz studies programs at colleges and universities worldwide. He continues to be a prolific sideman and has recorded as a leader In addition to numerous recordings as a sideman Menza has recorded as a leader for Saba, Discwasher, Realtime, Palo Alto and Verve, working with John Klemmer, Carmen McRae, Lalo Schifrin, Bobby Shew, Lanny Morgan, Les Demerle, Frank Strazzeri, Don Rader, SWR Big Band and his own big band.

In 2005 Don Menza was inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame. He continues to perform, record and tour.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Dick Pearce was born April 19, 1951 in Forest Gate, London, England. Dick began playing cornet at the age of 12 in the Boys’ Brigade and joined Ewell village’s local brass band a year later. At 15 he became interested in jazz and attended a Sunday morning rehearsal band run by the dance bandleader Ken Macintosh. Soon after, he joined Bill Ashton’s National Youth Jazz Orchestra where he met many like-minded young musicians.

At 17 he spent three and a half extremely disillusioned years in the army (The Household Cavalry) supposedly as a bandsman. He’d played Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto for his audition and expected to receive musical tuition after signing on the dotted line, but for most of his service he found himself sitting on a horse playing bugle calls. Discharged from the army in April 1972, he began playing with some of the ‘freer’ bands of that time – led by Graham Collier, Dudu Pukwana, Pat Evans and Keith Tippet.

In the mid to late 70s he was drawn towards the harmonically structured improvisation of post-Bebop playing with jazz groups led by the likes of Don Rendell, Michael Garrick and Mike Westbrook, while also playing with his own generation of young jazz musicians.

In 1980 Dick joined The Ronnie Scott Quintet, with whom he travelled all over the world for the following 14 years. The band included pianist John Critchinson, double bassist Ron Mathewson, drummer Martin Drew and Ronnie Scott on tenor sax. In 1990 the quintet became a sextet with the addition of Mornington Lockett on tenor sax.

In more recent years trumpeter Dick Pearce has been playing with Alan Barnes, Don Weller’s Tribute to Cannonball Adderley Band. The Don Weller Big Band. The Tim Richards Great Spirit, the John Williams New Perspectives. Stan and Clarke Tracey’s Ellingtonia, Pete Downes Trio with Dick Pearce and John Critchinson’s tribute to Ronnie Scott band.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Harold “Hal” Galper was born April 18, 1938 in Salem, Massachusetts. He studied classical piano as a boy, but switched to jazz while studying at Berklee College of Music from 1955 to 1958. He hung out at Herb Pomeroy’s club, the Stable, hearing local Boston musicians such as Jaki Byard, Alan Dawson and Sam Rivers.

He started sitting in and became the house pianist at the Stable and later on, at Connelly’s and Lenny’s on the Turnpike. Eventually, Galper went on to work in Pomeroy’s band.

As his career progressed he worked with Chet Baker, Stan Getz and Nat Adderley and accompanied vocalists Joe Williams, Anita O’Day and Chris Connor. Between 1973-1975, Galper played in the Cannonball Adderley Quintet replacing George Duke.

Performing in New York and Chicago jazz clubs in the late 1970s, around this time, Hal recorded several times with guitarist John Scofield on the Enja label. The decade of the Eighties saw him as a member of the Phil Woods Quintet but left to pursue touring and recording with his own trio with drummer Steve Ellington and bassist Jeff Johnson.

As an educator Galper is internationally known, having theoretical and practical articles appear in six editions of Down Beat magazine. His scholarly article on the psychology of stage fright, originally published in the Jazz Educators Journal, has subsequently been reprinted in four other publications.

Pianist, composer, arranger, bandleader, educator and writer Hal Galper is currently on the faculty of Purchase College and the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

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Walter Roland Dickerson was born on April 16, 1928 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Morgan State University in 1953 and after two years in the Army he settled in California. There the vibraphonist started to gain attention by leading a group with pianist Andrew Hill and drummer Andrew Cyrille.

During the Sixties in New York City was where he gained some further attention. He recorded four albums for Prestige Records and in 1962 Down Beat named him the Best New Artist.

Dickerson recorded his debut album This Is Walt Dickerson in 1961 on the New Jazz label and would go on to record six more before the end of the decade for New Jazz, Audio Fidelity and MGM record labels. He worked with Elmo Hope, arranging his 1963 album Sounds From Rikers Island.

From 1965 to 1975 he took a break from jazz, but later he worked again with Andrew Hill and Sun Ra. Beginning in 1975 after his return to performing he recorded Tell Us Only The Beautiful Things and Walt Dickerson 1976 on the Whynot label. He then began recording ten albums for the Danish Steeplechase label and one for Soul Note in 1978.

Vibraphonist Walt Dickerson, who was most notably associated with the post-bop idiom, passed away on May 15, 2008 from a cardiac arrest in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.

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