Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Colin James Bailey was born July 9, 1934 in Swindon, England and learned to play drums as a child, studying formally from age seven. Living in Australia from 1958 into the early 1960s, he played with Bryce Rohode and the Australian Jazz Quartet. While the AJQ toured the U.S., Bailey was hired by Vince Guaraldi to play alongside Jimmy Witherspoon and Ben Webster until 1963.
Settling in California, Bailey worked throughout the sixties with Claire Fischer, Victor Feldman, Joe Pass and Miles Davis; toured worldwide with Benny Goodman and George Shearing, played on a television program with Terry Gibbs and played with Chet Baker, Ray Brown, Joao Gilberto and Blossom Dearie in 1975.
In 1970, Bailey became an American citizen and spent six years as Ed Shaughnessy’s backup in the Tonight Show band, and starred in Fernwood Tonight in a drumming role in 1977-78. After a move to Texas in 1979, he became a faculty member at North Texas State University from 1981-84.
Drummer Colin Bailey’s later work includes time with Richie Cole, Jimmy Rowles, Red Mitchell, Stefan Scaggliari, Ron Affif, John Pisano, Weslia Whitfield, George H. Russell, Shelly Manne, Victor Feldman and re-teaming with Joe Pass.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lloyd “Tiny” Grimes was born on July 7, 1916 in Newport News, Virginia and began his career playing drums and one-fingered piano. In 1938 he took up the electric 4-string tenor guitar and two years later joined the Cats and a Fiddle as guitarist and singer. 1943 saw him as part of the Art Tatum Trio making a number of recordings and this early configuration recorded some of the more interesting early examples of Tiny Grimes’ guitar work.
After leaving Tatum, Grimes recorded with his own groups in New York and he recorded with a long list of leading musicians, including Billie Holiday. He made four recordings with Charlie Parker that are considered excellent examples of early bebop jazz: “Tiny’s Tempo”, “Red Cross”, “Romance Without Finance” and “I’ll Always Love You”. He was to become one of the 52nd Street regulars during this period.
Towards the end of the decade Tiny scored a hit on a jazzed up version of “Loch Lomond”. His band was billed as Tiny “Mac” Grimes and the Rocking Highlanders, appearing in kilts and included top tenor sax man Red Prysock and big-voiced baritone singer Screaming Jay Hawkins. Grimes continued to lead his own groups into the later 1970’s recording for Prestige in a series of strong blues-based performances with Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Pepper Adams, Roy Eldridge, Earl Hines and others of note.
With Paul Williams he co-headlined the first “Moondog Coronation Ball”, promoted by Alan Freed in Cleveland, Ohio on March 21, 1952, often claimed as the first rock and roll concert. It is also generally considered he played on the first rock and roll record with a group called The Crows one-hit wonder “Gee”.
Tiny Grimes, a jazz and R&B guitarist most noted for playing a four-string electric tenor guitar, passed away on March 4, 1989.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ray Biondi was born Remo Biondi on July5, 1905 in Cicero, Illinois. As a child, he started with violin and down a road that was not supposed to lead to ditties with suggestive titles. His early training was classical at the American Conservatory of Chicago. Mandolin was a natural double at age 12 and a gateway into the world of string bands. He remained focused mostly on violin but added guitar and then trumpet into his musical arsenal as he began thinking outside the classical idiom.
In 1926 Ray began playing professionally with the Blanche Jaros Orchestra, and the following year started an eight-year period of heavy freelancing in Chicago, enjoying sets with trumpeter Wingy Manone and reedman Bud Freeman and many others. He joined Earl Burtnett’s band as a violin and trumpet double, ending up on the road gigging in Kansas City, Cincinnati, New York and distant destinations.
He played violin and trumpet with clarinetist Joe Marsala, often adding guitar when Eddie Condon double-booked himself. This relationship continued until 1938, when Gene Krupa hired Biondi to work solely as a guitarist. He left Krupa a year later and went on his own in a series of small groupings. He opened a short-lived club, rejoined Krupa on the road in the early ‘50s and became a guitar and mandolin session player outside straight jazz.
By 1961 Ray began made a serious shift to teaching all of his instruments except the trumpet, while continuing to perform with groups both large and small, including the Dick Schory orchestra and stride pianist Art Hodes in the latter. Multi-string instrumentalist Ray Biondi passed away on January 28, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Trumpeter Johnny Coles was born on July 3, 1926 in Trenton, New Jersey. He spent his early career playing with R&B groups, including those of Eddie Vinson, Bull Moose Jackson, and Earl Bostic from 1948-1956). He joined James Moody for two years in 1956, then played with Gil Evans’s orchestra between 1958 and 1964 and was a part of the Miles Davis ensemble on Sketches of Spain.
Following this period, Coles worked with the Charles Mingus sextet which also included Eric Dolphy, Clifford Jordan, Jaki Byard, and Dannie Richmond. From 1968 to 1986 he played with Herbie Hancock, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Art Blakey, Dameronia, Mingus Dynasty and the Count Basie Orchestra under Thad Jones’ direction.
Coles recorded as a leader several times over the course of his career for Epic, Blue Note, Mainstream and Criss Cross record labels. As a sideman he recorded sessions with Tina Brooks, Booker Ervin, Grant Green, Horace Parlan and Duke Pearson among others.
Nicknamed “Little Johnny C”, the trumpeter passed away of cancer on December 21, 1997 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ahmad Jamal was born Freddy “Fritz” Jones on July 2, 1930, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A child prodigy, he began playing the piano at the age of three and started formal studies at 7. While attending Westinghouse High School, he completed the equivalent of college master classes under the noted African-American concert singer and teacher Mary Caldwell Dawson and pianist James Miller. Joining the musicians union at 14, he began touring with first the George Hudson Orchestra upon graduation at the age of 17. He followed that employ with The Four Strings, that drew critical acclaim for his solos.
Jamal moved to Chicago in 1950, formed his first trio, The Three Strings and was discovered and signed by record producer John Hammond while performing at New York’s The Embers Club. At Okeh Records the trio cut their first sides in 1951. Working as the house trio at the Pershing Hotel in Chicago they recorded and released the landmark classic album “But Not For Me” which stayed on the Ten Best selling charts for 108 weeks. The financial success from this one album allowed Jamal to open a restaurant and club call The Alhambra.
Miles Davis, Randy Weston, Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette and Gary Peacock cite him as a major influence in use of rhythm and space as well as his innovative use of multi-tonal melodic lines and his unique extended vamps. Over the course of his career Ahmad Jamal’s style has changed steadily from the lighter, breezy style heard on his 1950s recordings to the Caribbean styling of the 1970s and onto the large open voicing and bravura-laden playing of the Nineties.
He performed the title tune by Johnny Mandel for the soundtrack of the film “Mash”, has received the American Jazz Masters award from the National Endowment for the Arts; named a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale University; and two tracks from his hit album But Not For Me – “Music, Music, Music,” and “Poinciana” were featured in Clint Eastwood’s film The Bridges of Madison County. The French government has inducted Ahmad Jamal into the prestigious Order of the Arts and Letters, naming him “Officer de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Pianist Ahmad Jamal continues to tour with his trio, playing the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals exclusively on Steinway pianos.
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