Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gordon James Beck was born on September 16, 1935 in Brixton, London, England where he attended Pinner County Grammar School. He studied piano in his youth, but decided to pursue a career as an engineering technical draughtsman and moved to Canada in 1957 for this reason.
Largely self-taught, he returned to music after returning home from Canada in 1958, where he had been exposed to the works of George Shearing and Dave Brubeck. He became a professional musician in 1960 and played with saxophonist Don Byas in Monte Carlo. Beck joined the Tubby Hayes group in 1962, then led his own bands from 1965, including Gyroscope, from 1968, a trio with bassist Jeff Clyne and drummer Tony Oxley.
1967 saw the Gordon Beck Quartet record the album Experiments with Pops released on Major Minor MMLP 21 in 1968. That same year they recorded with Joy Marshall and released as When Sunny Gets Blue decades later.
Beck first played with vocalist Helen Merrill in 1969 and continued the relationship into the 1990s when she toured Europe. From 1969 to 1972 he toured with saxophonist Phil Woods’s European Rhythm Machine.
In the Sixties and Seventies he was a house pianist at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. Beck played experimental funk with George Gruntz from1973-75), and free jazz with improv drummer John Stevens and was a member of Nucleus between 1973 and 1974.
From middle age, Beck played predominantly in mainland Europe, recorded albums with Allan Holdsworth, Henri Texier, Didier Lockwood and others. He often played solo from the 1980s and started teaching music at the same poin and toured Japan with Holdsworth in 1985.
Pianist Gordon Beck stopped performing around 2005 because of poor health and died in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England on November 6, 2011.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Albert Aloysius Casey was born September 15, 1915 in Louisville, Kentucky. He was a child prodigy who first played violin, then switched to ukulele. He began playing guitar in 1930 and attended DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City where he studied guitar. He met Fats Waller in 1933 and the following year, at eighteen, he became a member of Waller’s band.
Making several recordings with the band, he is known for having played the solo in Buck Jumpin’. After Waller’s death in 1943, he led his own trio and for two consecutive years in the 1940s, he was voted best guitarist in Esquire magazine.
From 1957, he was a member of a rhythm and blues band led by King Curtis. Four years later he dropped out of music, though he returned in the 1970s to record with Helen Humes and Jay McShann. Another absence followed until 1981, when he returned to music to play with the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band.
During his career, Casey worked with Louis Armstrong, Chu Berry, Coleman Hawkins, Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday, Billy Kyle, Frankie Newton, Clarence Profit, Art Tatum, and Teddy Wilson.
Guitarist Albert Casey died of colon cancer on September 11, 2005, four days shy of his 80th birthday.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Craig S. Harris was born September 10, 1953 in Hempstead, New York. He graduated from the music program at State University of New York at Old Westbury and was influenced by its founder and director Makanda Ken McIntyre. He moved to New York City in 1978 established him with trombonists Ray Anderson, Joseph Bowie, and George E. Lewis.
He first played alongside another of his teachers at SUNY, baritone saxophonist Pat Patrick, in the Sun Ra Arkestra for two years. Harris then embarked on a world tour in 1979 with South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, formerly known as Dollar Brand. While on tour in Australia, he discovered the indigenous Australian wind instrument the didgeridoo, and added it to the collection of instruments he plays.
Craig subsequently performed with progressive musicians David Murray, Beaver Harris, Don Pullen, Sam Rivers, Lester Bowie, Cecil Taylor, Muhal Richard Abrams, Charlie Haden and many others, He also played in Lena Horne’s Broadway orchestra for a year. Along with Mark Isham composed the soundtrack for the 2021 film Judas and the Black Messiah.
He led his own ensembles, performed internationally and has recorded several albums. As leader, Harris. For the latter, he recorded with two groups. The Tailgater’s Tales was a quintet with clarinetist Don Byron, trumpeter Eddie Allen, Anthony Cox on double bass, and Pheeroan akLaff on drums. Harris’s large ensemble Cold Sweat was a tribute to the music of James Brown.
Trombonist Craig Harris, who has recorded since 1983 for India Navigation, Soul Note and JMT, continues to pursue his career.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jeff Lofton was born on September 5, 1966 in Badhershfiele, Germany while his father was in the military. Returning to the States briefly in Virginia before moving back to their hometown of Columbia, South Carolina. Getting his first trumpet at eleven he began playing in the middle school band. In high school he was in the concert and jazz bands.
Graduating from the University of South Carolina his interest led to the avant-grade prior to moving to Dallas, Texas and then going on to performing in Austin, Texas. He has performed theater shows, released several recordings and formed an electric fusion group.
Trumpeter Jeff Lofton has been honored with a day in Austin and continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nico Assumpção was born Antônio Álvaro Assumpção Neto on August 13, 1954 in São Paulo, Brazil. His father was a professional bass player, but he debuted in music by playing the acoustic guitar at the age of 10. He took classes with Paulinho Nogueira but changed to bass six years later to fill in the void in a schoolmate’s band.
At 16, he came to the United States to study harmony and orchestration at the University of California. Returning to Brazil he went to study at CLAM, with Brazilian bassists Luis Chaves and Amilton Godoy. In 1976 he again left Brazil and landed in New York City to study and perform on a deeper level. He played with among others Wayne Shorter, Pat Metheny, Sadao Watanabe, Larry Coryell, Fred Hersh, Larry Willis, Joe Diorio, John Hicks, Steve Slagle, Victor Lewis, Dom Salvador and Charlie Rouse.
While in the States he mastered various bass playing techniques, and became one of the pioneers of fretless and 6-string bass in Brazil when he came back in 1981. That same year he released the first bassist solo album in the country, titled Nico Assumpção. The following year he moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where he lived for the rest of his life.
He was one of the most popular bassists in Brazil having played and/or recorded with Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, João Bosco, Maria Bethânia, Edu Lobo, César Camargo Mariano, Toninho Horta, Luiz Avellar, Wauke Wakabaiashi, Marco Pereira, Ricardo Silveira, Nelson Faria, Gal Costa, Hélio Delmiro, Maria Bethânia, Márcio Montarroyos, Raphael Rabello, Léo Gandelman and Victor Biglione, among others.
Bassist Nico Assumpção died from cancer on January 20, 2001 in Rio de Janeiro at age 47.
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