Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jack Nimitz was born in Washington, DC on January 11, 1930. He first began playing clarinet at age 12, and picked up the alto saxophone at 14. He played in local DC bands and after specializing on baritone sax he found work in the territory bands of Willis Connover, Bob Astor, Johnny Bothwell and Daryl Harpa.
Through the Fifties Nimitz played with Woody Herman, Stan Kenton and Herbie Mann and was in the house band of the Savoy Theater. Moving to Los Angeles, California he worked in film music in addition to performing with Bill Berry, Benny Carter, Onzy Matthews, Gerald Wilson, Supersax, Frank Strazzen, Thelonious Monk, Terry Gibbs, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Bellson, Quincy Jones, Kenny Burrell, Horace Silver, Gene Ammons, Shelly Manne, Chuck Mangione, Charles Mingus, Gil Fuller, Oliver Nelson, Milt Jackson, Frank Capp and Joey DeFrancesco into the 1980s.
Additionally Jack recorded with the vocalists Johnny Hartman, June Christy, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, Carmen McRae, Anita O’Day and Diane Schuur. By the Nineties he was recording again with Claire Fischer, Lalo Schifrin, Stewart Liebig, Bill Perkins, Bud Shank and Gerald Wilson.
In 1995 he released his first of two albums under his own name, The Jack Nimitz Quintet, and played his final performance on May 10, 2009, in Northridge, California. Baritone saxophonist Jack Nimitz passed away at the age of 79 one month later on June 10, 2009 from complications from emphysema in Studio City, Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of jazz…
F. Bill Goodwin was born in Los Angeles, California on January 8, 1942. He is the son of announcer and actor Bill Goodwin of the Burns and Allen radio and television programs.His professional drumming career began in 1959 and has worked with Bil Evans, Dexter Gordon, Art Pepper, Jim Hall, George Shearing, Bobby Hutcherson, June Christy, Joe Williams, Tony Bennett,, Mose Allison, and the Manhattan Transfer among others.
He joined vibraphonist Gary Burton when he brought him to the East Coast in 1969. After a three year stint with Burton’s group, Bill settled in the Poconos and worked the local hotels and resorts. It was there that he and bassist Steve Gilmore met. They are both charter members of the Phil Woods Quintet, joining at the quartets inception in 1974.
In the mid-Seventies Goodwin worked with Tom Waits on his Nighthawks at the Diner album and with Steely Dan. He has been a featured performer at the W. C. Handy Music Festival as a member of the festival’s All-Stars alongside guitarist Mundell Lowe and pianists/vocalists Johnny O’Neal and Ray Reach, vibraphonist Chuck Redd and guitarist Tom Wolfe.
Drummer Bill Goodwin won a Grammy for the Phil Woods albums More Live and At the Vanguard and has produced several albums for trumpeter Tom Harrell, Keith Jarrett, Gabor Szabo, Bill Plummer and Paul Horn. He currently teaches jazz drumming at William Paterson University while continuing to perform as the drummer for the Phil WoodsQuartet/Quintet and the Little Big Band.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frank Wellington Wess was born on January 4, 1922 in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of a principal father and a schoolteacher mother. He began with classical music training and played in Oklahoma in high school. He later switched to jazz after moving to Washington, DC and by nineteen was working with big bands.
Although his career was interrupted during World War, he played with a military band in the period. After leaving the military, he joined Billy Eckstine’s orchestra, then a few years later he returned to DC and received a degree in flute at the Modern School Of Music. He played tenor saxophone and flute with Count Basie from 1953 to 1964.
Wess was considered one of the best jazz flautists of his time and from 1959 to 1964 he won the Down Beat Critic Poll for flute. He went on to be a member of Clark Terry’s big band from 1967 into the 1970s, played in the New York Jazz Quartet with Roland Hanna and did a variety of work for TV.
In 1968 Frank contributed to the landmark album The Jazz Composer’s Orchestra. Over the course of his career he played with Kenny Barron, Rufus Reid, Buck Clayton, Benny Carter, Billy Taylor, Harry Edison, Mel Torme, Ernestine Anderson, Louie Bellson, John Pizzarelli, Milt Jackson, Quincy Jones, Yusef Lateeef, Howard Alden, Dick Hyman, Jane Jarvis, Frank Vignola, Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra, Hank Jones and the list continues.
NEA Jazz Master, flautist, alto and tenor saxophonist Frank Wess passed away from a heart attack related to kidney failure on October 30, 2013.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Motohiko “Toko” Hino was born on January 3, 1946 in Tokyo, Japan. His father was a dancer and musician and taught him and his brother Terumasa to tap dancing as children. At the age of ten, he began playing drums and by age 17 was playing professionally.
In the mid-1970s, Hino was repeatedly voted by Swing Journal the best jazz drummer in Japan, though from 1978 he was based in New York City. He released an album under his own name in 1971 and two more in the early 1990s.
He played with musicians such as Joanne Brackeen, Joe Hnedrson, Takehiro Honda, Karen Mantler, Hugh Masekela, John Sofield, Jean-Luc Ponty, Sonny Rollins, Jon Faddis and Billy Harper among others.
On May 13, 1999 drummer Motohiko Hino passed away of cancer.
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Ralph Moore was born on December 24, 1956 in London, England and grew up in a crowded inner city area. He showed no particular musical interest until his mother bought him a trumpet when he was 13. He studied with Brixton local musician Alan Briggs and was soon sitting in with pub bands. Briggs had a tenor saxophone that the young musician fell in love with the look of the instrument and soon made the switch.
1972 saw Ralph moving to California to live with his American father, graduating from Santa Maria High School where he played in the jazz orchestra and collected several music awards.Three years later he enrolled at Berklee Colege of Music, studied with saxophonist Andy McGhee and another three years later received the Lenny Johnson Memorial Award for outstanding musicianship from the college.
He launched his professional career with a tour of Scandinavia, later joined Frank Quintero for recording and a tour of South America. He moved to New York City in 1981 and within two months joined the Horace Silver Quintet for an association that lasted four years and included tours of Europe and Japan.
Moore has worked with Roy Haynes, Charles Mingus Dynasty, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gilespie’s Reunion Big Band, Kevin Eubanks, Bill Mays, Valery Ponoomarev, Roy Hargrove, Jimmy Knepper, Brian Lynch, J.J. Johnson, Billy Hart, Oscar Peterson, Superblue, Cedar Walton and Ray Brown. He continues to perform, tour and record as a leader and sideman.
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