Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Ponder was born May 10, 1946 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and picked up his brother’s guitar at age 11. Teaching himself by ear and practicing an average six hours a day, he began learning the music of Bo Diddley. Learning quickly he played his first professional gig at age 11 and was performing in Pittsburgh clubs by age 13. He won citywide talent shows and while in junior high, sang in a “Doo-Wop” group and later played guitar in an R&B bands.
At age 16 Ponder set his sights on being a jazz guitarist. He began playing jazz in Pittsburgh with Sam Pearson’s avant-garde group Sam P. and the Players. He also performed with the Bobby Jones Trio and the Jimmy McGriff Trio. After graduating from South Hills High School he joined the Charles Earland Trio and going on the road for three years to begin his long jazz career.
In the 70s Jimmy moved first to Philadelphia and then New York, recording extensively as a leader recording twenty-one albums and over 80 sessions as a sideman playing with the likes of Lou Donaldson, Shirley Scott, Houston Person, Donald Byrd, John Patton, Stanley Turrentine, Etta Jones, Sonny Stitt and Jimmy McGriff.
In 1978 while recording for Muse Records, Jimmy’s “All Things Beautiful” hit #38 on the Billboard Jazz Albums and his 2000 Ain’t Misbehavin’ went to #16. He also recorded with Cadet, ABC, Highnote, Milestone and LRC Records. He considers Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrell his major influences incorporating Montgomery’s approach of playing octaves with the thumb into his unique bluesy sound has influenced other guitarists. His playing is described as aggressive rhythm-and-blues figurations with swift and lucid chromatic bop lines.
Guitarist Jimmy Ponder returned to Pittsburgh in 1990 where he led a trio with drummer Roger Humphries. He became at artist-in-residence at Duquesne University and continues to record and work in jazz venues around the country until his death on September 16, 2013 in his hometown of Pittsburgh.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Formanek was born on May 7, 1958 in San Francisco, California. The bassist and composer has had a long association with the jazz scene in New York City.
By the 1980s, Formanek was working as a sideman with Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Dave Liebman, Fred Hersch and Attila Zoller. His debut recording released as a leader at the onset of the nineties Wide Open Spaces, featured a few of the young lions at the time, saxophonist Greg Osby, violinist Mark Feldman, guitarist Wayne Krantz and drummer Jeff Hirshfield.
A series of albums followed through the decade as Formanek changed different configurations from trio to septet. Towards the end of the decade he was touring with Gerry Hemingway and recording duo and solo albums. He has worked with Dave Douglas, Marty Ehrlich, Kuumba Frank Lacy, Marvin Smith, Salvatore Bonafede, Peter Erskine, Jane Ira Bloom, Uri Caine, Lee Konitz, Kevin Mahogany and the Mingus Big Band, just to name a few.
Michael Formanek is currently the Director of the Peabody Jazz Orchestra and jazz bass instructor at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Stanley Cowell was born on May 5, 1941 in Toledo, Ohio. As a child he studied piano and pipe organ. By age 15, he was a featured soloist with the Toledo Youth Orchestra, a church organist, choir director and a budding jazz pianist. He went on to get his bachelors from Oberlin, Masters from the University of Michigan and graduate studies at USC.
The Sixties saw Cowell moving to New York City and working with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Marion Brown, Max Roach, Bobby Hutcherson, Miles Davis, Clifford Jordan, Harold Land, Abbey Lincoln, Stan Getz and as a member of the Detroit Artist’s Workshop Jazz Ensemble.
By the 70s Stanley was a member of Music Inc. with Charles Tolliver with whom he found the Strata East record label, worked with the Heath Brothers, Donald Byrd, Roy Haynes, Oliver Nelson, Sonny Rollins, Richard Davis, Art Pepper and the list continues. He was the musical director for George Wein’s New York Jazz Repertory Company at Carnegie Hall along with Gil Evans, Dr. Billy Taylor and Sy Oliver.
He recorded successfully as a leader for Arista-Freedom, ECM, Strata East, Galaxy, Concord and Steeplechase among others. Since the eighties Stanley Cowell has been a busy jazz educator and a part of the quartet led by J.J. Johnson.
Pianist Stanley Cowell remained an excellent mainstream jazz pianist with an ability to adapt to a variety of acoustic jazz settings until he passed away at Bayhealth Hospital in Dover, Delaware, from hypovolemic shock. He was 79 years old
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Cleveland was born May 3, 1926 in Wartrace, Tennessee but didn’t start playing the trombone until he was sixteen. His first important gig didn’t happen until 1950 with Lionel Hampton and a subsequent European tour.
Leaving Hampton in 1953, Cleveland went to moved to New York and became a successful freelance musician recoding with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Evans, Oliver Nelson, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sarah Vaughan, Gigi Gryce, Oscar Pettiford, Lucky Thompson, James Moody and Gerry Mulligan.
As a leader Jimmy recorded a series of albums for EmArcy/Mercury records in the ‘50s and later in the decade toured Europe once again this time with Quincy Jones and in 1967 recorded with Thelonious Monk. He moved to Los Angeles to work with the Merv Griffin show and continued recording with Quincy.
Although he moved into a season of obscurity once he moved to the West coast, he continued to play till shortly before his death on August 23, 2008 in Lynwood, California at age 82. Jimmy Cleveland remains one of the most technically skilled of the bop-based jazz trombonists.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Richard Arnold “Groove” Holmes was born in Camden, New Jersey on May 2, 1931. A self-taught organist, he began his early career working along the East coast. It wasn’t until a recording session with Les McCann and Ben Webster in 1961 that widespread interest was piqued in his work.
Touring and recording throughout the 60s he achieved important recognition and acceptance amongst mainstream and post-bop jazz audiences. His landmark recording of “Misty” brought him critical acclaim and is considered by some a precursor of acid jazz.
He developed a solid relationship with Gene Ammons and their playing exemplified the soul-heavy organ-tenor playing that proliferated the decade. He played with big bands including one led by Gerald Wilson and recorded with Dakota Staton, Houston Person and Jimmy Witherspoon among others.
His sound was immediately recognizable in the upper register, but even more so because of his virtuosity in creating, undoubtedly, the most rapid, punctuating, and pulsating bass lines of all the jazz organists. He stands alongside the elite of jazz organists Jimmy Smith, Brother Jack McDuff and Jimmy McGriff for his contributions to the instrument and music.
Performing to the end of life, his last concerts in a wheelchair, organist Richard “Groove” Holmes, revered in soul-jazz circles died of a heart attack on June 29, 1991 in St. Louis, Missouri after a long struggle with prostate cancer.
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