Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bobbi Humphrey was born Barbara Ann Humphrey on April 25, 1950 in Marlin, Texas but was raised in Dallas. She studied classical and jazz styles before graduating from Lincoln High School in 1968 and then continued her studies at Texas Southern University and Southern Methodist University. When Dizzy Gillespie saw her play at a talent contest at Southern Methodist, he inspired her to pursue a musical career in new York City.
Humphrey followed his advice, getting her first big break performing at the Apollo Theatre on Amateur Night. She eventually began playing regularly throughout the city. By 1972, she was recording for the Blue Note Jazz label, one of the first female instrumentalists to do so. Since her debut for the label she has performed with Duke Ellington, Lee Morgan, George Benson and Stevie Wonder amongst a host of other musicians.
In 1976, she was named Best Female Instrumentalist by Billboard. In 1994 Humphrey launched her label, Paradise Sounds Records, releasing Passion Flute, which continues to be one of her best-selling recordings. She has played the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, Montreux Jazz Festival and the Russian River Jazz Festival in Northern California, as well as other venues around the world.
Flautist and vocalist Bobbi Humphrey has a dozen albums in her catalogue, having taken a break from recording from 1979-1989 and has not recorded an album since her best selling Passion Flute in 1994. She continues to perform fusion, jazz funk and soul jazz music styles, compose, produce and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy McGriff was born James Harrell McGriff on April 3, 1936 in Germantown, Pennsylvania and started playing piano at the age of five. By his teens he learned to play vibes, alto saxophone, drums and upright bass. His first group was as bassist in a piano trio. When he joined the United States Army he served as an MP during the Korean War, later became a police officer in Philadelphia for two years.
Music kept drawing McGriff’s attention away from the police force. His childhood friend, Jimmy Smith began earning a substantial reputation and he became entranced by the organ sound while Richard Groove Holmes played at his sister’s wedding. Holmes went on to become his teacher and friend.
Buying his first Hammond B-3 organ in 1956, spent six months learning the instrument, and then studied at New York’s Juilliard School. Influenced by Count Basie, Howard “The Demon” Whaley, Austin Mitchell and Milt Buckner with whom he studied privately and as well with Jimmy Smith and Sonny Gatewood.
Forming a combo Jimmy played around Philadelphia often featuring tenor saxophonist Charles Earland, who soon switched to the instrument. During this time, McGriff also accompanied such artists as Don Gardner, Arthur Prysock, Candido and Carmen McRae, who came through town for local club dates.
In 1961, McGriff’s trio recorded an instrumental version of Ray Charles’ hit “I Got A Woman” for Jell Records, and after the record received substantial local airplay, Sue Records picked it up and recorded a full album of McGriff’s trio, released in 1962. The album established his credentials as a fiery blues-based organist, well versed in gospel, soul and “fatback groove”.
McGriff would recorded a series of popular albums by the mid Sixties ending with what still stands as one of his finest examples of blues-based jazz, Blues for Mister Jimmy. Over the next decade he went on to continue recording for Solid State, opened his own supper club “The Golden Slipper” in Newark, New Jersey and performed regularly performed with the Buddy Rich Band.
Though he retired from the music industry in 1972 to start a horse farm in Connecticut his records were being issued at three to four a year by Sonny Lester’s Groove Merchant label. By 1973, Jimmy was touring relentlessly and actively recording again and though disco was gaining a hold it did little to stop the organist. He produced some of his best music during this period: Stump Juice, Red Beans and Outside Looking In.
The 1980s saw McGriff working with Rusty Bryant, Al Grey, Red Holloway, David “Fathead” Newman, Frank Wess and Eric Alexander, and started a longtime partnership with Hank Crawford. Into the new millennium he experimented with the Hammond XB-3 and organ synthesizer with Midi enhancements. Along with his soul jazz sound, forming the Dream Team group he recorded and released his last album, McGriff Avenue in 2001.
On May 24, 2008 at the age of 72, hard bop and soul jazz organist and bandleader Jimmy McGriff, who left a catalogue of 57 albums to posterity, passed away in Voorhees Township, New Jersey from complications due to multiple sclerosis.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ralph MacDonald was born on March 15, 1944 in Harlem, New York under the close mentorship of his Trinbagonian father, Patrick MacDonald, a calypsonian and bandleader known on stage as “Macbeth the Great”. He began showing his musical talent, particularly the steelpan and at 17 started playing pan for the Harry Belafonte show.
Remaining with the Belafonte band for a decade, he struck out on his own in 1967, together with Bill Eaton and William Salter, he formed Anisitia Music, based in Stamford, Connecticut.
MacDonald’s composition Where Is The Love written with Salter was recorded in 1971 by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway, won a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and received a gold record status. One of his best-known compositions, Just The Two Of Us” was recorded by Bill Withers with saxophone by Grover Washington, Jr reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has been sampled by many.
Ralph worked with Quincy Jones, Ron Carter, Milt Jackson, Paul Desmond, Max Roach, Don Sebesky, Shirley Scott, Arif Mardin, Hubert Laws, Bob James, David Sanborn, George Benson, Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway, Patti Austin, Bernard Purdie and Grover Washington as well as Burt Bacharach, Carle King, Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, Average White Band, Art Garfunkel, Ashford & Simpson and numerous others.
He travelled regularly back to Trinidad and Tobago, where he renewed his work in the steelpan, “beating iron” in “The Engine Room”, a steel band’s rhythm section is often called. At 12:50 AM on Sunday, December 18, 2011, songwriter, arranger, record producer, percussionist Ralph MacDonald passed away of lung cancer.
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T. S. Monk was born Thelonious Sphere Monk, III on December 27, 1949 in New York City. He began his music career as a child when Max Roach gave him his first drum set before he turned 10. After graduating from school he joined his father’s trio touring with him until 1975. Leaving jazz for R&B, he toured with Natural Essence and then formed his own band with his sister.
By the 80s he was recording his debut album House of Music that charted several hits on Billboard, followed by the release of two more albums during the decade.
Shortly after his father died in 1982, in honor his father’s legacy and support the efforts of education, T. S. turned his attention toward forming the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. As chairman, Monk has been at the forefront of helping to create a number of programs that range from sponsoring music education for students in the form of full scholarships to funding and supporting after-school athletic programs across the nation.
In the 1990s, Monk began his solo career taking a jazz-oriented direction and presented “A Celebration Of America’s Music” on ABC TV in 1996 and 1998 hosted by Bill Cosby and bringing together such artists as Natalie Cole, Jon Secada, Tony Bennett, k. d. lang, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny and Nnenna Freelon
T. S. has received the New York Jazz Awards First Annual “Recording of the Year” award and ‘Downbeat’s’ prestigious 63rd annual Album of the year Reader’s Choice Award for “Monk On Monk”. He continues in the tradition of creating great music as he performs, records and tours.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jackie Davis was born on December 13, 1920 in Jacksonville, Florida. He first learned to play by spending hours poking at his grandmother’s piano. By the age of eight, he was playing with a local dance band. By the age of eleven, he’d earned enough from playing to buy his own piano, and music enabled him to pay his way through Florida A&M College, graduating in 1943.
After serving time in the Army, he worked as a pianist, usually as an accompanist for singers such as Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, and Billy Daniels. Although he was attracted to the organ, he was intimidated at the prospect of playing jazz on it, particularly when his idol at the time was the lightning-fast Art Tatum. However, the Hammond Organ Company began selling electric organs in the late 40s, and in 1951 he bought his first organ. He appeared at Club Harlem in Philadelphia, and a two-week gig turned into nearly five months. Jackie became the first musician to popularize jazz on the Hammond organ, years before Jimmy Smith’s name became synonymous with organ jazz.
Davis signed with RCA to record a couple of 45s but no album so he went to Trend Records in Los Angeles and released a 10” album. He joined Louis Jordan’s outfit and learned stage presentation and in 1956 signed with Capitol Records, became their leading performer on the organ at a time when relatively few mainstream labels were willing to put a black musician on the cover of an album and released a total of nine albums. He went on to sign with Warner but that proved to be the end of his recording career.
Over the next thirty years of his career he performed in clubs from Vegas to Atlantic City, jazz festivals and restaurants, produced Ella Fitzgerald records, and was hired by Norman Granz for her Lady Time session, and was a regular fixture at a Hilton Head, South Carolina club. He worked with the likes of Paul Quinichette, Junior Mance, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Clark Terry, Ray Brown, Keter Betts, Max Roach and many others.
In 1992 Hurricane Andrew wiped out his home in Florida causing a financial and physical strain on his health and he suffered a series of strokes. He attempted to perform but his health didn’t hold up and on November 15, 1999 pianist and organist Jackie Davis passed away in his hometown of Jacksonville.
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