Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bill Lee was born William James Edwards Lee III on July 23, 1928 in Snow Hill, Alabama the son of Alberta Grace Edwards, a concert pianist, and Arnold Wadsworth Lee, a musician. A bassist by profession, he is also a composer, arranger and conductor.
Bill scored his son’s first four movies, and was also the musical director and performer Sonny Darling in She’s Gotta Have It, the bassist in the Phyllis Hyman Quartet and the music conductor of the Natural Spiritual Orchestra for School Daze and Do The Right Thing, and appeared as Father of the Bride and also the music director for Mo’ Better Blues.
Lee was arrested in 1991 during a police drug sweep for heroin possession, fell out with his son, Spike Lee, over the arrest and subsequent interracial marriage to second wife that took place shortly after his first wife Jacquelyn, Spike’s mother, passed away from cancer. Bad blood continued as Spike made Jungle Fever that set a negative light on White/Black romantic relationships.
Along with Stuart Scharf he was the music arranger for the stage play A Hand is on the Gate. He has appeared on the Today Show, the Harry Belafonte television specials, has composed operas, stage music for the Apollo Theatre and has recorded with The Brass Company, Stanley Cowell, Richard Davis, Clifford Jordan, Harold Mabern, Pat Martino, Johnny Griffin, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Odetta, Judy Collins, Gordon Lightfoot and Peter, Paul and Mary among others. Double bassist and bass guitarist Bill Lee continues to compose, arrange and conduct.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Bruno was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 22, 1953 to a father who played guitar and a mother who was a gifted singer. He began playing guitar at the age of 7, playing eight to ten hours a day. He studied jazz improvisation with Philly bassist Al Stauffer and to develop technique, taught himself to play the rigorous and exacting classical violin etudes of Wohlfahrt and Paganini. Although he briefly considered leveraging his perfect SAT scores into medical school, a summer guitar gig in Wildwood, New Jersey changed the direction of his life. He began his professional career at the age of 19, touring with Buddy Rich.
Jimmy went on to play guitar in orchestras for Anthony Newley, Doc Severinsen, Lena Horne, and many more music icons. A move to Los Angeles, California saw him as a session musician for many years working with Tommy Tedesco. By his mid-thirties he was ready to pursue jazz and he moved back East. Back in his hometown he played small clubs and venues during the 1980s, met Concord Records founder Carl Jefferson and landed a multi-CD deal that has elicited 13 critically acclaimed sessions.
Bruno has shared the stage with Joe Beck, Bobby Watson, Jack Wilkins, Tal Farlow, Howard Alden, Christian McBride, Kurt Elling and many more. Among his many credits, Bruno is the only guitarist to have ever led Fank Sinatra’s band. He counts Johnny Smith, Hank Garland, Joe Pass, Tal Farlow, Wes Montgomery, Howard Roberts, Jim Hall and Pat Martino among his influences.
As an educator, in 2007, Jimmy and Affiliated Artists opened the Jimmy Bruno Guitar Institute (JBGI) bringing his method and approach to jazz improvisation to eager guitar students around the world. In 2011 Jimmy opened up Jimmy Bruno’s Guitar Workshop, a website that allows students to learn directly from him through video lessons. He continues to perform and record as well.
Take A Dose On The Road
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Scott Wendholt was born on July 21, 1965 in Denver, Colorado. He first picked up the trumpet in the third grade and began improvising in the fifth. Linda Walker and Ed Barnes, were two teachers he was inspired by, the latter ran a citywide elementary school group that played some Blues and a reasonable facsimile of jazz and provided at least some tools for jazz improvisation.
His major influences at the time were Al Hirt, Chuck Mangione, and Spyro Gyra until the ninth grade, when Greg Gisbert, a classmate and trumpeter, hipped him to Art Blakey’s “Straight Ahead,” featuring Wynton Marsalis and he started taking trumpet lessons in high school. Scott went on to study At Indiana University in David Baker’s Jazz Studies Program earning his bachelor degree.
A move to Cincinnati was fortuitous for the young trumpeter getting on the scene, landing him at the King’s Island amusement park with a Rock-and-Roll band. From there he went to work with the Blue Wisp Big Band, and working sideman gigs. It was a good training ground to be a leader, for learning appropriate tunes for small group gigs and learning how to hang out.
In 1991 Scott put together a quartet to play at Augie’s, a Harlem bar near Columbia University and the group lasted three and a half years. Then 1992, saw Vincent Herring hiring him for his first real legitimate sideman gig. Then a year later in 1993 Scott recorded his debut album The Scheme of Things on the Criss Cross Jazz label. He would go on to work inside the big band culture in New York City with the likes of Toshiko Akiyoshi, Bob Mintzer, the Maria Schneider Orchestra, the Carnegie Hall Big Band and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
Wendholt has worked with Gisbert, Javon Jackson, John Gunther, Ralph Bowen, Chris Botti, Don Braden, Rim Ries, Roberta Piket, Bobby McFerrin, Dwayne Burno, Mike Abbott, Al DiMeola, Lounge Lizards, Sophie B. Hawkins, Peter Abbott, Brad Leali, John Fedchock, Woody Herman, Ira Coleman, Billy Drummond, Eric Alexander, Anthony Wonsey, Bob Mintzer, Bill Cunliffe, Phil DeGreg, Vincent Herring, Jim McNeely, Mingus Big Band, Buddy Rich and the list goes on and on.
Not one to reside in a single musical genre, the Mile High City trumpeter and flugelhorn player Scott Wendholt continues to perform, record and compose.
Give The Gift Of Knowledge
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Daily Dose Of jazz…
Bola Sete was born Djalma de Andrade on July 16, 1923 in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. His name translates to Seven Ball and in Brazilian billiards the seven ball is the black ball on the table. He got this nickname when he was the only black member of a small jazz group. He studied guitar at the Conservatory of Rio and started performing with his own sextet and local samba groups while he was still a student. His early influences were guitarists Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Barney Kessell and Oscar Moore, as well as the big band sounds of Dizzy Gillespie, Tommy Dorsey and Woody Herman that toured South America.
His career began in 1952 playing various clubs and hotels around Italy for four years. Then returning to Brazil while touring South America he was spotted by the manager of the Sheraton hotels who brought him to the States to play in New York’s Park Sheraton and San Francisco’s Sheraton Palace. Dizzy Gillespie was staying there at the time and listening to Bola Sete playing every day. When Gillespie decided to bring his pianist Lalo Schifrin to the hotel, he discovered that Lalo and Bola had already met and played together in Argentina. This meeting was the beginning of Bola’s success in the US. In the fall of 1962, Gillespie took the guitarist to the 9th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival. Enjoying huge success he toured for a while with Gillespie then returned to San Francisco and joined the Vince Guaraldi Trio.
Bola was already well known in the US, and his partnership with Guaraldi yielded several well-received recordings. After staying for a couple of years Bola formed his own trio with his fellow Brazilians, bassist Sebastian Neto and drummer Paulinho da Costa. In the 1970s, he became friends with guitarist John Fahey, who had been an admirer of Sete’s. In 1975, Fahey used his Takoma label to release Ocean, which is now seen as one of Sete’s greatest accomplishments.
During the eighties, Sete suffered from lung cancer and though he attempted to counter with yoga and meditation, on February 14, 1987 guitarist Bola Sete passed away at Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, California from complications caused by pneumonia and cancer.
Inspire A Young Mind
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tim Warfield, Jr. was born in York, Pennsylvania, began studying the alto saxophone at age nine. He switched to tenor saxophone during his first year at William Penn Sr. High School and participated in various musical ensembles. He won many jazz soloist awards including coming in second out of forty competitors at the Montreal Festival of Music in Canada. After high school, Warfield attended Howard University in Washington, D.C. After two years of matriculation he left to lead and co-lead several groups in the Central Pennsylvania, Baltimore and Washington area.
In 1990 he was chosen to be a member of trumpeter Marlon Jordan in his quintet. The following year he was selected to record Tough Young Tenors on the Island/Antilles label, joined George Wein’s Jazz Futures, Also in 1991, Warfield placed third at the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. From 1994 to 1999, he was a member of bassist Christian McBride’s group, and then began a six-year collaboration with Nicholas Payton.
Warfield has recorded eight albums on the Criss Cross label as a beginning with his debut release of A Cool Blue, selected as one of the top ten recordings of the year in a 1995New York Times critic’s poll. as was his 1998 recording Gentle Warrior (featuring Cyrus Chestnut, Tarus Mateen, Clarence Penn, Terell Stafford, and Nicholas Payton.
Tenor saxophonist Tim Warfield is currently serving as a board member and Chair of the Music Committee for the Central Pennsylvania Friends of Jazz as well as an artist-in-residence at Messiah College. He continues to record, tour and perform in the hard bop, Neo-Bop,, post bop and straight-ahead jazz genres.
Inspire A Young Mind
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