Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lynn Baker was born on November 9, 1955 and spent the early years of his life in Salem, Oregon. At seven he started piano lessons and by fifth grade was in band class playing clarinet. While in sixth grade he received his first tenor saxophone and enrolled in summer band program at Morningside Elementary. By seventh grade he was first chair in the junior and high school bands.
During his training he learned many Dixieland tunes that started him on the road to jazz. He would go on to play with McNary High School band and swing choir, and after graduation enrolled at Oregon College of Education (OCE) with the intent of playing and teaching music. He would later transfer to the University of Oregon, return to OCE and eventually enter Mt. Hood Community College’s music program.
After graduation he joined a top 40 band, bought an old Rickenbacker bass and learned some rudimentary bass lines. Post band and teaching privately Baker moved to Los Angeles, California but ended up in Washington teaching in Upward Bound. A Move to Eugene, Oregon put him in the Experimental Jazz Ensemble. He then joined a rock/Latin band and then found his niche as a college educator.
Throughout most of Lynn’s professional career he would teach saxophone, start and direct college bands, form big bands, become director of Jazz Studies, build music programs, playing with several jazz orchestras, an improvising trio culminating in his forming the Lynn Baker Quartet and Quintet. He has performed on several jazz, big band and classical recordings, but finally released his debut album as a leader titled “Azure Intention in 2010. He continues to compose, perform, tour and educate.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Diego Urcola was born on November 5, 1965 in Buenos Aires, Argentina and began his musical studies at age 9 in the Music Department of the Colegio Ward where his father Ruben served as director. He continued his studies and in 1988 he received the title of Profesor Nacional de Música from the Conservatorio Nacional de Musica.
Subsequently, having received a scholarship to study abroad, the trumpeter and flugelhorn player moved to Boston where he attended Berklee College of Music. In 1990 Diego graduated with an emphasis in Jazz Performance, and less than a year later moved to New York and established himself on the jazz scene.
Urcola toured with Slide Hampton, has been a member of the Paquito D’Rivera Quintet since 1991, toured with the United Nations Orchestra, has worked with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, plays steadily with the Caribbean Jazz Project since 2004, and performs regularly with the legendary saxophonist Jimmy Heath and the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All Star Big Band.
Urcola has played with Joe Henderson, Steve Turre, Milt Jackson, Avishai Cohen, Edward Simon, Antonio Sanchez, Dave Samuels, Jimmy Heath, Conrad Herwig and the Calle 54 Band among others. He leads and records with his own group, has captured second place honors at the 1997 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Trumpet Competition, received a Latin Grammy as part of D’ Rivera’s band, and since has been nominated three times for a Grammy Award. The jazz trumpeter continues to perform, compose and record integrating the flavor of tango with jazz.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Matthias Lupri was born Matthias Albrecht Lupri on October 29, 1964 in Germany but grew up in Manhattan, Kansas and Alberta, Canada. Initially he played the drums, playing in blues, rock and country music bands as a teenager. In his early 20’s he studied music at Mount Royal College, where he heard Gary Burton’s recordings and became interested in jazz vibraphone music.
Lupri practiced the instrument for the next five years while on the road with rock bands as a drummer, and then enrolled at Berklee College of Music to study with Burton himself.
After graduating Matthias easily slid into the jazz circles in the U.S. and around the world. He has performed and recorded with Greg Osby, Chris Potter, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, Greg Hutchinson, Reuben Rogers, Rick Margitza and George Garzone among others and has been sought after on the national and international jazz festival circuit.
Vibraphonist Matthias Lupri’s has released six recordings as a leader that have charted in radio’s Top 40 Gavin, CMJ and Chart Magazine Canada, has been heard on the television show “Alias”, and was named as a rising artist on vibraphone twice in the Down Beat critics poll. He continues to perform, collaborate, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Anthony Cox was born October 24, 1954 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He matriculated through the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire studying and honing his craft of playing bass. After graduating from college he spent time in New York before returning to the Twin Cities.
Cox plays mainly in the post-bop, avant-garde and traditional styles, though versatile enough to work in any style effectively. His bass sound is full of beauty and warmth and his ability to accompany and still add very creative ideas into whatever music he is playing is remarkable.
Equally proficient on the upright acoustic bass, electric guitar and the Spanish style acoustic bass guitar, Anthony is also an adept composer open to all kinds of music from around the world and can be heard as a leader or as a sideman on over a hundred recording sessions with such artists as Geri Allen, Dewey Redman, Dave Douglas, John Scofield, Pat Metheny, Billy Higgins, Uri Caine, Gary Thomas, Marty Ehrlich, Ed Blackwell, Joe Lovano and Dave King.
Bassist Anthony Cox currently resides and performs in his hometown and is attracting a young audience with his full, warm sound and creative ideas.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ernie Watts was born Ernest James Watts on October 23, 1945 in Norfolk, Virginia. He began playing saxophone at thirteen, attended West Chester University and later matriculated through Berklee College of Music on a Downbeat scholarship. He toured with Buddy Rich in the mid-1960s, occupying one of the alto saxophone chairs along with Lou Marini.
Watts visited Africa on a US State Department tour with Oliver Nelson’s group, played tenor saxophone with the Tonight Show Band under Doc Severinsen for twenty years and was a featured soloist on many of Marvin Gaye’s original Motown albums during the 1970s. A first-call musician he has sat in on many other pop and R&B sessions during 25 years in the studios in Los Angeles.
By the mid-1980s Ernie decided to rededicate himself to jazz, recording and touring with German guitarist and composer Torsten de Winkel, drummer Steve Smith and keyboardist Tom Coster. He would join bassist Charlie Haden’s Quartet West, play saxophone on the Grease soundtrack, clarinet on The Color Purple and sax on the opening theme song of the popular 80s sitcom Night Court.
Watts has won two Grammy Awards as an instrumentalist, toured with the Rolling Stones, appeared in the 1982 film Let’s Spend The Night Together, was featured on Kurt Elling’s 2010 Grammy-winning album Dedicated To You, formed his own label Flying Dutchman Records, and tours Europe with his quartet.
With flute added to his instrument list, saxophonist Ernie Watts has released eighteen albums as a leader and nearly three dozen as a sideman working with Billy and Bobby Alessi, Paul Anka, Wilie Bobo, Brass Fever, Kenny Burrell, Donald Byrd, Stanley Clarke, Billy Cobham, Randy Crawford, Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby Hutcherson, Milt Jackson, Carol King, John Mayall, Blue Mitchell, New Stories, Lalo Schifrin and Gabor Szabo among others. He continues to perform record and tour.
