Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Leonard Geoffrey Feather was born on September 13, 1914 in London, England and learned to play the piano and clarinet without formal training and started writing about jazz and film by his late teens. At age of twenty-one, Feather made his first visit to the United States and after working in the U.K. and the U.S. as a record producer finally settled in New York City in 1939, where he lived until moving to Los Angeles, California in 1960.
His compositions have been widely recorded, including “Evil Gal Blues” and “Blowtop Blues” by Dinah Washington, and what is possibly his biggest hit, “How Blue Can You Get?” by blues artists Louis Jordan and B. B. King, and some of his own recordings as a bandleader are still available. But it was as a journalist, critic, historian, and campaigner that he made his biggest mark as one of the most widely read and most influential writer on jazz, and having written the liner notes for hundreds of jazz albums.
Leonard wrote the lyrics to the Benny Golson jazz composition “Whisper Not” which was then recorded by Ella Fitzgerald on her 1966 Verve release of the same name. He was co-editor of the Metronome Magazine and served as the chief jazz critic for the Los Angeles Times until his death on September 22, 1994 in Sherman Oaks, California at age eighty.
He leaves a legacy of a talented daughter, vocalist Lorraine Feather, a couple of dozen albums and several books such as The Encyclopedia Yearbook of Jazz in the Sixties, Inside Jazz and From Satchmo to Miles among others.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lonnie Plaxico was born on September 4, 1960 in Chicago, Illinois and started playing the bass at age twelve. He turned professional at 14 playing both double bass and bass guitar. His first recording was with his family’s band, and by the time he was twenty he had moved to New York City, where he had stints playing with Chet Baker, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, Junior Cook and Hank Jones.
In 1978 he won the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award but first came to public attention through his work with the Wynton Marsalis group in 1982. Lonnie’s first regular attachment was with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers from 1983–1986, with whom he recorded twelve albums. At the end of his work relationship with Blakey he joined Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition, and stayed with them until 1993.
Plaxico held the musical director and featured bassist position for Cassandra Wilson for fifteen years and has performed and recorded with a wide range of artists, including David Murray, Alice Coltrane, Stanley Turrentine, Andrew Hill, Abbey Lincoln, Joe Sample, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Cosby, Lonnie Liston Smith, Barbara Dennerlein, Helen Sung and Ravi Coltrane among others.
Bassist Lonnie Plaxico has thirteen albums to his credit as a leader and continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Larry Goldings was born on August 28, 1968 in Boston, Massachusetts and Larry studied classical piano until the age of twelve. While in high school he attended a program at the Eastman School of Music and during this period Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson, Dave McKenna, Red Garland and Bill Evans were prime influences. As a young teenager, Larry studied privately with Ran Blake and Keith Jarrett.
Goldings moved to New York in 1986 to attend The New School and while in college he studied piano with Jaki Byard and Fred Hersch. As a freshman he traveled to Copenhagen with Sir Roland Hanna and played piano with Sarah Vaughan, Harry Sweets Edison and Al Cohn. His later college years saw him touring worldwide with Jon Hendricks and subsequent collaboration with guitarist Jim Hall.
In 1988, Larry started developing his organ style while gigging at Augie’s (now Smoke) in New York City. His 1991 debut release was Intimacy Of The Blues and since then has performed and/or recorded with Charlie Haden, Jack Dejohnette, Carla Bley, Pat Metheny, Madeleine Peyroux, Michael Brecker, Luciana Souza, Steve Gadd, Melody Gardot, David Sanborn, Al Jarreau, Sia, John Scofield and India.Arie to name a few.
Pianist, organist, producer/arranger and composer Larry Goldings has 16 albums as a leader, eighty-four as a sideman, half dozen film and tv credits, has been nominated for a “Best Jazz Album of the Year” Grammy, has twice been a Jazz Journalist Association Winner “Best Organist/Keyboardist of the Year”, has won The New Yorker Magazine Best Jazz Albums for “Awareness” and “Big Stuff” and continues to compose, perform, tour and record.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mimi Fox was born on August 24, 1956 in New York City and started playing drums at nine and guitar when she was ten. She was inspired by the wide variety of music enjoyed by her family – show tunes, classical, Dixieland, Motown – and her own youthful inclination towards pop, folk, and R&B. By the time she was fourteen, she bought her first jazz album, John Coltrane’s classic Giant Steps, changing the course of her musical life. She began touring right out of high school and eventually settled in the San Francisco Bay area where she became a sought after player.
Mimi has released seven albums but her “Perpetually Hip” released in 2006 reached #23 on the Billboard “Top Jazz Albums” chart. This two-disc set contains standards and new tunes written by Fox, with one disc featuring solo recordings while the other is with a band composed of bassist Harvie S, drummer Billy Hart and pianist Xavier Davis.
As a composer, Mimi has received numerous grants, writing and performing original scores for orchestras, documentary films and dance projects. A dedicated educator and clinician, she is Chair of the Guitar Department, a faculty advisor and instructor at The Jazzschool for Musical Study and Performance in Berkeley, California and an Adjunct Professor at New York University. Guitarist Mimi Fox continues to compose, perform and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Byron Stripling was born August 20, 1961 in Atlanta, Georgia and was educated at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan. An accomplished actor and singer, Stripling was chosen, following a worldwide search, to star in the lead role of the Broadway bound musical, “Satchmo”. He was featured in a cameo performance in “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles”, and his critically acclaimed performance in the 42nd Street production of “From Second Avenue to Broadway”.
Stripling earned his stripes as lead trumpeter and soloist with the Count Basie Orchestra, under the direction of Thad Jones and Frank Foster. He has also played and recorded extensively with the bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, Lionel Hampton, Clark Terry, Louis Bellson, and Buck Clayton in addition to The Lincoln Center Classical Jazz Orchestra, The Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and The GRP All Star Big Band.
Byron is the Columbus Jazz Orchestra Artistic Director and as a trumpet virtuoso, has ignited audiences performing at jazz festivals throughout the world. He has soloed with Boston Pops, Cincinnati Pops, Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Utah Symphony, The American Jazz Philharmonic and at the Hollywood Bowl.
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