Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frank Benjamin Foster III was born September 23, 1928 in Cincinnati, Ohio and began his musical career when he took up the clarinet at 11. Two years later he was playing the alto saxophone, quickly advanced and played with local bands by 14. He began composing and arranging at 15, leading his own 12-piece band while still in high school. He received his continued musical education at Wilberforce University but left with Snooky Young, moved to Detroit, playing the local jazz scene with Wardell Gray.
From 51-53 he served in Korea followed by joining Count Basie’s Big Band, contributed both arrangements and original compositions to Count Basie’s band including the standard, “Shiny Stockings” and other popular songs such as “Down for the Count,” “Blues Backstage,” “Back to the Apple,” “Discommotion,” and “Blues in Hoss Flat” as well as arrangements for the entire “Easin’ It” album.
From 1970 to 1972 he played with Elvin Jones, and in 1972 and 1975 with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis big band. Frank went on to form and lead several groups, most notably Living Color and The Loud Minority while also co-leading a quintet with Frank Wess in 1983, and toured Europe with Jimmy Smith’s quintet in 1985.
By June 1986 Foster succeeded Thad Jones as leader of the Count Basie Orchestra and during his tenure Dr. Foster received two Grammy Awards for his big band arrangement of the Diane Schuur composition “Deedles’ Blues” and for his arrangement of the renowned guitarist/vocalist George Benson’s composition “Basie’s Bag”.
Over his career he was never far from education spending time teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music, New York City Public School System in Harlem, and State University of New York, Buffalo. Suffering a stroke in 2001, Frank Foster discontinued his playing but continued to lead The Loud Minority on limited engagements but soon passed the helm to trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater.
The tenor and soprano saxophonist and flautist amassed throughout his career twenty-six albums as a leader, thirty-four as a sideman and arranged five albums for Sarah Vaughan, Diane Schuur, Frank Sinatra, George Benson and Count Basie. Saxophonist Frank Foster continued to compose and arrange until his passage on July 26, 2011 at the age of 82.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Henry Butler was born September 21, 1949 in New Orleans, Louisiana and was blinded by glaucoma in infancy.His musical training began at the Louisiana State School for the Blind where he learned to play valve trombone, baritone horn and drums before focusing his talents on singing and piano. Mentored at Southern University by clarinetist and educator Alvin Batiste. He later earned a masters degree in music at Michigan State University in 1974, and received the MSU Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009.
He is known for his technique and his ability to play in many styles of music. He has been said to revel in fluency and facility, splashing chords all over the keyboard and streaking through solos with machine-gun articulation.Henry has recorded for Impulse, Windham Hill and Basin Street Records putting together a catalogue of eight albums to date.
With his home and vintage Mason & Hamlin piano destroyed by Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters, Butler left New Orleans and briefly relocated to Boulder, and then Denver, Colorado before a final relocation to New York in 2009.
Butler’s pursuit of photography as a hobby since 1984, has culminated in his methods and photos being featured in an HBO2 documentary, Dark Light: The Art of Blind Photographers, airing in 2010 and has had his Butler’s photographs shown in galleries in New Orleans. The talented pianist and vocalist continues to perform, record and represent his generation of New Orleans pianists.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chico Hamilton was born Foreststorn Hamilton on September 20, 1921 in Los Angeles, California and was on a drumming fast track musical education in a band with his schoolmates Charles Mingus, Illinois Jacquet, Ernie Royal, Dexter Gordon, Buddy Collette and Jack Kelso. Subsequent engagements with Lionel Hampton, Slim & Slam, T-Bone Walker, Lester Young, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnet, Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Billie Holiday, Gerry Mulligan and six years with Lena Horne established this young West Coast prodigy as a jazz drummer on the rise, before striking out on his own as a bandleader in 1955.
He recorded his first LP as leader in 1955 on Pacific Jazz with George Duvivier and Howard Roberts and in the same year formed an unusual quintet in L.A. featuring cello, flute, guitar, bass and drums that has been described as one of the last important West Coast jazz bands. The original personnel: Buddy Collette, Jim Hall, Fred Katz and Jim Aton. Hamilton continued to tour using different personnel, from 1957 to 1960, Paul Horn and John Pisano that are featured in the film “Sweet Smell Of Success in 1957 and Jazz On A Summer’s Day with Nate Gershman and Eric Dolphy in 1960. Dolphy was enlisted to record on Hamilton’s first three albums, however by 1961 the group was revamped with Charles Lloyd, Gabor Szabo, George Bohannon and Albert Stinson.
Over the course of his career Chico changed personnel keeping his sound fresh and innovative. Subsequently he recorded for Columbia, Reprise and Impulse, scored for television, commercials and radio. He has worked with countless musicians and vocalists, received the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music Programs Beacons in Jazz Award and was awarded the WLIU-FM Radio Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been given a NEA Jazz Master Fellowship, was confirmed by Congress with the President’s nomination to the Presidents Council on the Arts, received a Living Legend Jazz Award as part of The Kennedy Center Jazz in Our Time Festival, as well as receiving a Doctor of Fine Arts from the New School where he currently teaches. Drummer Chico Hamilton continued to perform and record until his passing on November 25, 2013.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eric J. Gale was born in Brooklyn, New York on September 20, 1938 and began playing the double bass when he was 12 years old, also playing tenor saxophone, trombone and tuba before settling on the guitar. The basis of his style was formed on the 50s and 60s R&B circuit.
He majored in chemistry at Niagara University but was determined to pursue a musical career, and began contributing to accompaniments for such stars as Maxine Brown, Jackie Wilson, The Flamingoes, The Drifters and Jesse Belvin in the 50s.
Eric began to attract rather quickly the attention of King Curtis and Jimmy Smith, who began recommending him for studio work. His reputation as a first call studio musician in the Sixties became widely recognized and he eventually appeared on an estimated 500 albums.
By the 70s he had teamed up with the AM/CTI label eventually working with Creed Taylor exclusively on CTI and its subsidiary label KUDU as a session musician. He finally got his break as a leader in 1973 with his well received “Forecast” LP that showcased his skill as a front man. He was a co-founder of the mid-70s funk band “Stuff” which garnered wide acclaim.
Among the list of Who’s Who musicians and vocalists he recorded with over the course of his career were David “Fathead Newman, Mongo Santamaria, Bob James, Paul Simon, Lena Horne, Johnny Hodges, Quincy Jones, Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Peter Tosh, Grover Washington Jr., Herbie Mann, Esther Phillips, Joe Cocker, Carly Simon, Van Morrison, Billy Joel and Aretha Franklin, along with a stint in her stage band.
Shortly after recording on Al Jarreau’s Tenderness album, guitarist Eric Gale died of lung cancer on May 25, 1994, at the age of 55 in Baja, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Emily Remler was born September 18, 1957 in New York City and began playing the guitar when she was ten. Initially inspired by hard rock and other pop styles, she experienced a musical epiphany during her studies, from 1974 to 1976 while at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. She began listening to Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis and John Coltrane taking up jazz with a ferocious intensity, practicing almost constantly, and never looked back.
After Berklee, she hit the New Orleans blues and jazz clubs working with FourPlay, and Little Queenie and the Percolators before beginning her recording career in 1981. Championed by guitar great Herb Ellis, he referred to her as “the new superstar of guitar”.
Emily recorded on the Concord label, quickly developing a distinctive style with her diverse influences through versions of standard tunes and genres. Her first album as a leader “Firefly” won immediate acclaim and her bop guitar on her follow up “Take Two” was equally well received. Her next two albums, “Transitions” and “Catwalk” traced the emergence of a more individual voice, with many striking original tunes, while her love of Wes Montgomery shone through on the stylish “East to Wes”.
In addition to her recording career as a leader and composer, Emily played in blues groups, on Broadway and with artists as diverse as Larry Coryell, Astrud Gilberto and Rosemary Clooney, produced two popular guitar instruction videos, won the “Guitarist Of The Year” award in Down Beat Jazz Magazine’s international poll, in 1988 she was “Artist in Residence” at Duquesne University and in 1989 received Berklee’s “Distinguished Alumni” award.
Guitarist, leader and composer Emily Remler died of heart failure at the age of 32 at the Connells Point home of musician Ed Gaston, while on tour in Australia on May 4, 1990.
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