Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charnett Moffett was born June 10, 1967 in New York City. His first name is a combination of his father’s name, drummer Charles Moffett and that of Ornette Coleman. Taking up the bass in his childhood, he attended Fiorello H. La Guardia High School for Music and Arts in New York City, later studied at Mannes College of Music and the Juilliard School of Music.
In 1983, he played on saxophonist Branford Marsalis’ debut as a leader, Scenes in the City, and the following year he joined the Wynton Marsalis quintet, appearing on the1985 acclaimed Black Codes (From the Underground). During the Eighties, he also played on Stanley Jordan’s best-selling 1985 Blue Note debut, Magic Touch, and went on to play with Tony Williams on two Blue Note albums.
In 1987, Moffett signed with Blue Note Records and debuted as a leader that year with his first of three albums for the label, Beauty Within, which featured his father and older brothers Codaryl Moffett on drums and Mondre Moffett on trumpet, Kenny Garrett on alto saxophone, and Stanley Jordan on guitar.
This led to a career as a free-lance bassist, performing and recording with Stanley Jordan, Ornette Coleman, McCoy Tyner, Kenny Garrett, Mulgrew Miller, Courtney Pine, Arturo Sandoval, Lew Soloff and Sonny Sharrock.
Charles Moffett, who plays the bass, piccolo bass, double bass, bass guitar has played and recorded as a leader in addition to Blue Note with Manhattan, Evidence and Piadrum record labels. With eleven albums under his belt as a leader and set to release an album for Motema, the former member of the Manhattan Jazz Quintet is currently performing with Melody Gardot.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kenny Barron was born June 9, 1943 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the younger brother of the late tenor saxophonist Bill Barron. Starting on piano at 12, by 1957 he was playing in with Mel Melvin’s R& B band. By the time he turned 18, he was living in New York and playing with the likes of James Moody, Lee Morgan, Roy Haynes and Lou Donaldson. From 1962 to 1966 he was a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s quartet, followed by stints with Freddie Hubbard, Yusef Lateef, Stanley Turrentine, Milt Jackson, Buddy Rich and Ron Carter.
In the Eighties, Barron along with Buster Williams, Ben Riley and Charlie Rouse co-founded the quartet Sphere, focusing on music composed by Thelonious Monk and original compositions inspired by him. He has also co-led the Classical Jazz Quartet and led his own trios and quintets with a multitude of players.
Kenny recorded several albums with Stan Getz between 1987 and 1991 including his last duet project. He has been nominated for a Grammy nine times often for both album and solo performance, he consistently wins jazz critics and readers polls for Down Beat, Jazz Times and Jazziz magazines and is a six time recipient of Best Pianist by the Jazz Journalists Association.
Known for his lyrical, adaptive style, Barron is the pianist of choice for the most prestigious jazz musicians in the world. In 2005 he was inducted into the American Jazz Hall of Fame, won the MAC Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2010 was honored as a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master.
For over 25 years, Barron taught piano and keyboard harmony at Rutgers University in New Jersey mentoring young musicians like David Sanchez, Terence Blanchard and Regina Bell. He now teaches at the Manhattan School of Music, has recorded nearly four dozen albums as a leader and many more as a sideman with jazz greats such as Ella Fitzgerald, Booker Ervin, Roy Haynes, Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson, Elvin Jones, Yusef Lateef and James Moody. He continues to perform, record and tour with his newest quintet “Brazilia” featuring some of Brazil’s greatest musicians.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Uri Caine was born June 8, 1956 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and began playing piano at seven, studying with French jazz pianist Bernard Peiffer at 12. He later studied at the University of Pennsylvania and gained great familiarity with classical music and worked in clubs around the city.
His professional career started in 1981 and a mere four years later saw his debut with the Rochester-Gerald Veasley band recording session. During the decade he moved to New York City, appeared on a klemzer album with Mickey Katz and played with Don Byron and Dave Douglas.
Caine has recorded 16 albums and is celebrated for his eclectic and inventive interpretations of the classical repertoire. His 1997 jazz tribute to Gustav Mahler received an award from the German Mahler Society, while outraging some jury members. Caine has also reworked Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann and Mozart.
In 2001 he teamed up with drummer Zach Danziger to conceive an original project fusing live jungle and drum ‘n’ bass beats with fusion jazz called “Uri Caine Bedrock 3” and he worked with Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson of The Roots, Christian McBride, Pat Martino and Jon Swana.
Jazz pianist and composer Uri Caine has been named Composer-in-Residence of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, has received a nomination for a Grammy, been named U.S. Artists Fellow, has recorded twenty-eight albums as a leader and continues to perform and tour.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Monty Alexander was born Montgomery Bernard Alexander on June 6, 1944 in Kingston, Jamaica. Discovering the piano at the age of 4, Alexander began taking classical music lessons at 6 and became interested in jazz at the age of 14. He started playing in clubs, and on recording sessions by Clue J & His Blues Blasters, deputizing for Aubrey Adams. Two years later, he directed his dance orchestra Monty and the Cyclones and played in the local clubs. Performances at the Carib Theater in Jamaica by Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole left a strong impression on the young pianist.
In 1961 Alexander and his family moved to Miami, Florida, he went to New York in 1962 and started to play at the jazz club Jilly’s. In addition to performing with Frank Sinatra there, he also met and became friends with bassist Ray Brown and vibist Milt Jackson. In 1964, he went to California and recorded his first album “Alexander the Great” for Pacific Jazz at the age of 20.
He has recorded with Milt Jackson, Ernest Ranglin and Ed Thigpen, toured with Ernestine Anderson, steel pan player Othello Molineaux, Mary Stallings, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Golson, and Frank Morgan among others. In some of successive trios he has collaborated with Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, Mads Vinding, and Niels-Henning Orsted Pederson.
Alexander married the late great jazz guitarist Emily Remler in 1981, a union that would last only three years. In the 90s, Alexander formed a reggae band featuring all Jamaican musicians, releasing several reggae albums, including “Yard Movement” and “Stir It Up”, a collection of Bob Marley songs. Monty Alexander, pianist and melodica player, influenced by Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Wynton Kelly and Ahmad Jamal and the strong Caribbean influence and swinging feeling is consistently representative in his 67 albums as a leader and his numerous sideman collaborations as he continues to record, perform and tour.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jerry Gonzalez was born in the Bronx, New York City on June 5, 1949. Of Latin heritage, he grew up with jazz and Afro-Cuban music that left a deep impact on his musical appreciation. Listening to his father’s jazz collection he was influenced by Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong along with gleaning inspiration from Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri and Mongo Santamaria.
Studying music in junior high school, Gonzalez took up the trumpet and later the congas, continuing he formal training at New York College of Music and New York University. He began his professional career in 1963 playing with Lewellyn Mathews in New York State World’s Fair. In 1970 playing with Dizzy Gillespie, under whose tutelage he fused African based rhythms onto jazz elements seamlessly without detracting from either.
After playing with Manny Oquendo and Eddie Palmieri, Jerry created the Fort Apache Band with Andy Gonzalez (his brother), Larry Willis and Steve Berrios. A later reconfiguration and naming, Jerry Gonzalez & the Fort Apache Band became much more successful performing at European jazz festivals and subsequent recordings. Three albums later, “Rumba Para Monk” released in 1989, topped a readers’ poll in Down Beat magazine and was named the “Jazz Album Of The Year” in France by the Academie du Jazz. In 1998 they won both the industry and journalist polls in the New York Jazz Awards Latin Jazz category.
Gonzalez has played and/or collaborated with Tito Puente, McCoy Tyner, Jaco Pastorious, Chet Baker, Woody Shaw, Tony Williams, Larry Young, Freddie Hubbard, Chico O’Farill, Papo Vasquez, Ray Barretto, The Beach Boys, Chico Freeman and Paquito D’Rivera among others but his most noteworthy contribution is to Afro-Cuban jazz and a resurgence in Latin jazz in the 80s and 90s. With seventeen albums as a leader under his belt and a host of recording sessions as a sideman, since 2000, trumpeter Jerry Gonzalez has lived and played in and around jazz clubs in Madrid.