Requisites
Forest Flower & Soundtrack: This 1967 release was recorded when Charles Lloyd brought his band to Monterey for an unprecedented performance. A set of far-reaching, sophisticated progressive jazz that was rich and accessible was what a floored audience heard that day. The hippie and college-aged audience were witness to superb interplay, melodic gifts that skirted the edges of what was going on at the time, pushed the boundaries and the talents of this young band. This is decidedly one requisite for the budding initiate of jazz.
Personnel: Charles Lloyd – saxophone, Keith Jarrett – piano, Jack DeJohnette – drums, Cecil McBee – bass
Record Date: September 8, 1966
Songs: Forest Flower – Sunrise, Forest Flower – Sunset, Sorcery, Song Of Her, East Of The Sun, Sombrero Sam, Voice In The Night, Pre-Dawn, Forest Flower ‘69
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mary Louise Knutson was born on April 19, 1966. The Minneapolis based jazz pianist and composer released her debut CD “Call Me When You Get There” in 2001 charted in the Top 50 in the U.S. and Canada that brought her national recognition. Knutson’s 2011 sophomore project on her Meridian Label, “In The Bubble”, charted in the Top 10 on JazzWeek and stayed for an unprecedented 19 weeks straight.
Mary received Lawrence University’s distinguished Nathan M. Pusey Alumni Achievement Award, was a Top 5 finalist in the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams “Women In Jazz” Pianist Competition, has been nominated for Jazz Artist of the Year and Pianist of the Year by the Minneapolis Music Awards, and has won two composition awards from Billboard Magazine.
As an educator she has sat on the faculty of Carleton College instructing jazz piano and improvisation, and currently teaches privately and conducts a variety of master classes such as Intro to Composition, Freedom From the Written Page: Beginning Improv for Pianists, and Making Sense of Jazz, among others.
Knutson has performed and toured with jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby McFerrin, Dianne Reeves, Kevin Mahogany, Nicholas Payton, Ernie Watts, Slide Hampton, Greg Abate, Bobby Shew and Von Freeman to name a few and has crossed over into other genres to play with Smokey Robinson, Trisha Yearwood, Donny Osmond, Phyllis Diller, Rob Schneider and more. The pianist regularly performs with her group, with area vocalists Connie Evingson and Debbie Duncan; and with the JazzMN Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra and the Chuck Lazarus Quartet.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kathy Brown was born April 18th in Mandeville, Jamaica and began playing the family piano at age 5. Initially self-taught in reading and playing by ear, she studied classical piano up to the sixth grade at the Royal School of Music in England. She took music as an elective in high school, college, while attaining her medical degree at the University of the West Indies and took classes in jazz piano after graduation.
Leading her bands Dr. Kathy Brown & Friends or Kathy Brown Band, she plays throughout Jamaica and has graced the stages of the Port Royal Music Festival, Ocho Rios Jazz Festival, Air Jamaica Jazz & Blues Festival, the Island Soul Festival in Toronto, Canada as well as performing in Suriname, Antigua and at the World Choir Games in Austria.
The pianist, composer, bandleader and recording artist, whose influences were Herbie Hancock, Joe Sample, Chick Corea, Chucho Valdes, Monty Alexander, Kenny Barron, and Michel Camilo, released her debut CD, Mission: A Musical Journey, which was nominated for Best Instrumental Album at the inaugural Jamaica Music Awards. Aside from performing as a jazz pianist and furthering her medical career, Dr. Kathy Brown is a vocalist and a member of the University Singers. When she puts on her educator hat she can be seen working with the East Queen Street Baptist and Nexus Performing Arts choirs.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Warren Chiasson was born on April 17, 1934 in Cheticamp, Nova Scotia and began his music training on the violin and by age 13 was playing sessions with noted fiddlers at dances, stage and radio shows. In high school he played the trombone and became inspired by George Shearing, which led him to study modern jazz.
But it was seeing Lionel Hampton play while in college that sealed his career path. He bought a small xylophone, left school, joined the Royal Canadian Artillery Band as a trombonist, practiced 8 hours a day, got a chance audition in New York for George Shearing and a week later was touring the world playing opposite Dave Brubeck and the Modern Jazz Quartet.
A pioneer of the four-mallet vibraphone technique, Warren has formed his own group and collaborated, played and recorded with such artists as Paul Bley, Chet Baker, Roland Hanna, Tal Farlow, Jimmy Garrison, Charlie Haden, Lee Konitz, Joe Farrell, Hank Crawford, Les McCann, Helen Ward, Wilbur Ware and Joe Chambers.
He played vibes in New York through the 1960s and spent four years playing percussion for the Broadway musical Hair. In 1972 he reunited with Shearing again, released a record under his own name and in the mid-1970s he toured with Roberta Flack.
Chiasson played on B.B. King’s Grammy winning album Blues ‘n Jazz, and played the 50th anniversary of From Spirituals to Swing at Carnegie Hall, filling in for Lionel Hampton, who was unable to perform. At 83 vibraphonist Warren Chiasson continues to record and perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herbie Mann was born Herbert Jay Solomon on April 16, 1930 in Brooklyn, New York and while attending Lincoln High School in Brighton Beach, failed a music class. Be that as it may his first professional gig was in the Catskills at age 15. During the 1950s was primarily a bop flutist, playing in combos with artists such as Phil Woods, with occasional forays into bass clarinet, tenor sax and solo flute.
An early pioneer in the fusing of jazz and world music, he has incorporated elements of African, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, Reggae, Middle-Eastern and Eastern European styles into his music. During the Sixties he was jazz’s preeminent flutist with his emphasized groove approach coming to the fore on his albums Memphis Underground and Push Push due to the rhythm section locked in one perception. It was mid-60’s period that he hired a young Chick Corea to play in some of his bands.
Mann’s shift to a more smooth jazz during the Sixties brought criticism from purist but allowed him to remain relevant as interest in jazz waned. He worked with Cissy Houston, Duane Allman, Larry Coryell, Donald “Duck” Dunn and Chuck Rainey, along with Al Jackson and Bernard Purdie out of Muscle Shoals in Alabama. His #1 dance hit Hijack stayed on the charts for three consecutive weeks in 1975.
In this period Mann had a number of songs cross over to the pop charts, a rarity for a jazz musician. He has provided music for the animated short film Afterlife, founded his own label, Embryo Records, that produced jazz albums, such as Ron Carter’s Uptown Conversation, Miroslav Vitous’ first solo album, Infinite Search; and Phil Woods and his European Rhythm Machine at the Frankfurt Jazz Festival. In 1996, Mann collaborated with Stereolab on the song “One Note Samba/Surfboard” for the AIDS-Benefit album Red Hot + Rio. Herbie Mann’s last appearance was on May 3, 2003 at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival at age 73, passing away that same year on July 1, 2003 after a long battle with prostate cancer.
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