Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Howard Roberts was born on October 2, 1929 in Phoenix, Arizona and began playing guitar at age 8. By age15 he was playing professionally locally. 1950 saw him moving to Los Angeles, California where he began jamming with Sonny Stitt, Dexter Gordon and Buddy DeFranco and working with musicians, arrangers and songwriters including Neal Hefti, Henry Mancini, Bobby Troup, Chico Hamilton, George Van Eps and Barney Kessel. 1952 was the year Roberts played on his first record date, Jam Session No. 10 with Gerry Mulligan and Jimmy Rowles. Around 1956, Bobby Troup signed him to Verve Records and he decided to concentrate on recording, both as a solo artist and session musician.
Roberts played rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass and mandolin in the studio, for television and movie projects on such projects as The Twilight Zone, The Munsters, I Dream of Jeannie. He would work on Julie London’s Blue Moon recording, with Peggy Lee, George Auld, Shelley Fabares, Chet Atkins, Dean Martin, The Monkees, Roy Clark and many others. As a member of The Wrecking Crew,and part of Phil Spector‘s Wall of Sound, in 2007 he was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee.
In 1961, Howard designed a signature guitar with a round sound hole and single pickup that was originally produced by Gibson’s Epiphone division. Two years later he recorded his first two albums of nine with Capitol, before signing with ABC/Impulse Records. From the late 1960s, Roberts began to focus on teaching, traveling around the country giving guitar seminars, and writing several instructional books.
For some years he also wrote an acclaimed column “Jazz Improvisation” for Guitar Player magazine and founded the Guitar Institute of Technology and Playback Publishing. Guitarist Howard Roberts died of prostate cancer in Seattle, Washington on June 28, 1992, leaving a jazz catalogue of more than two-dozen albums as a leader and sideman.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dave Holland was born on October 1, 1946 in Wolverhampton, England and taught himself how to play stringed instruments, beginning at four on the ukulele, graduating to guitar and later bass guitar. Quitting school at age 15 to pursue a profession in a top 40 band, but gravitated to jazz buying albums of Ray Brown, Leroy Vinnegar, Charles Mingus and Jimmy Garrison and trading his electric bass in for an acoustic.
After moving to London in 1964, Holland began playing acoustic bass in small venues and studied with James Edward Merrett, learning to sight read, and enrolling in a three-year scholarship program at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
At 20, Holland was keeping a busy schedule in school, studios and Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club playing behind American musicians like Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Joe Henderson and British musicians such as John McLaughlin, Evan Parker and began a working collaboration with Kenny Wheeler that has continued to today.
In 1968 he joined Miles Davis’ group, recorded on Files de Kilimanjaro, In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew and Live at the Fillmore East, March 7, 1970: It’s About Time. Leaving Miles he joined the group Circle with Chick Corea that started a 34-year association with ECM record label. During the Seventies and 80s he worked as a leader and a sideman with Anthony Braxton, Stan Getz, John Abercrombie, Jack DeJohnette, Bonnie Raitt, Steve Coleman, Kevin Eubanks, Billy Higgins, Roy Haynes, Hank Jones, Billy Higgins, Pat Metheny and Marvin “Smitty” Smith.
Dave would go on to tour with Herbie Hancock, renew his affiliation with Joe Henderson and Betty Carter, formed his third quartet introducing Steve Nelson to the world, record dozens of albums as a leader and sideman, form his current quintet, win his first Grammy for big band album “What Goes Around”, win numerous other recognitions and he continues to compose, record, perform and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nicholas Payton was born on September 26, 1973 in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of bassist and sousaphonist Walter Payton. He took up the trumpet at age four and by nine was playing in the Young Tuxedo Brass Band. Upon leaving school, he enrolled first at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and then at the University of New Orleans under the tutelage of Ellis Marsalis.
Payton toured with Marcus Roberts and Elvin Jones in the early 90s, signed a recording contract with Verve Records, and released his first album, From This Moment in 1994. In 1996 he performed on the soundtrack of the movie Kansas City.
After seven albums on Verve, Nicholas signed with Warner Bros. and would perform and record with Wynton Marsalis, Dr. Michael White, Nancy Wilson, Christian McBride, Joshua Redman, Roy Hargrove Clark Terry, Allen Toussaint, and Joe Henderson among others. He is a founding member of the SFJAZZ Collective and in 2008, he joined The Blue Note 7 in 2008, releasing an album the following year that produced a U.S. promotional tour.
Trumpeter Nicholas Payton also plays piano and is a prolific blogger and has written a notable blog titled “On the Difference Between Prejudice and Racism…” in which Payton theorizes that blacks cannot be racist because a prerequisite to racism is power.
He has recorded more than a dozen albums as a leader and sideman, received a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Solo for his playing on the album Doc Cheatham & Nicholas Payton and continues to compose, record and perform.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Craig Handy was born Craig Mitchell Handy on September 25, 1962 in Oakland, California and played guitar, trombone and piano before falling in love with the tenor saxophone. He was a part of the Berkeley High School Jazz Program, earned a Charlie Parker Scholarship award and attended North Texas State University from 1981 to 1984, where he was a member of their prestigious One O’Clock Lab Band.
By 1986 at age 23 he moved to New York City and once there he built up a cache of credits performing and recording with Herbie Hancock, Head Hunters, Art Blakey, Wynton Marsalis, Roy Haynes, Abdullah Ibrahim, Elvin Jones, Joe Henderson, Betty Carter, John Hicks, George Adams, Ray Drummond, Conrad Herwig, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Charles Tolliver, The Cookers, and David Weiss among many others.
He was a member and Musical Director of the Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty, and Mingus Orchestra, post-bop tenor saxophonist Craig Handy has recorded as a leader, as a member of the group Chartbusters, portrayed the role of Coleman Hawkins in the 1996 film Kansas City and is credited for performing the Season Six theme of the Cosby Show. He continues to compose, perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jay Hoggard was born September 24, 1954 in Washington, D.C. but grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. His mother taught him how to play piano at a young age and picked up the saxophone long before age 15 when he started playing the vibraphone. He played with Anthony Davis and Leo Smith in the early 1970s around New England.
After moving to New York City in 1988 Jay worked again with Davis and with Chico Freeman, Sam Rivers, Cecil Taylor, James Newton, and Kenny Burrell. He would go on to collaborate and perform over the next few decades with Lionel Hampton, Milt Jackson, Tito Puente, Bobby Hutcherson, Billy Taylor, James Newton, Hilton Ruiz and Oliver Lake.
An international performer Hoggard has played on stages and jazz festivals in Africa, South America, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean and throughout the United States as well as appearing on television. Since 1978 he has recorded more than a dozen and a half sessions as a leader and many dates as a sideman. Vibraphonist Jay Hoggard currently teaches at his alma mater Wesleyan University.
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