Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eric Kloss was born April 3, 1949 in Greenville, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh, and attended the Western Pennsylvania School for the Blind, which was run by his father. When he was 10, he started on saxophone, and two years later he was playing in night clubs with professional musicians such as Bobby Negri, Charles Bell, and Sonny Stitt. At 16, he recorded his debut album, Introducing Eric Kloss on the Prestige label in 1965, with Don Patterson and Pat Martino.
On his third album, Grits & Gravy, he recorded with musicians over twice his age: Jaki Byard, Richard Davis, and Alan Dawson. He continued recording and performing while a student at Duquesne University. A fan of Elvis Presley and The Ventures, he was attracted to the growth of jazz fusion in the 1960s and ’70s, and eventually played with fusion musicians Chick Corea, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette. He also collaborated with Richie Cole and Gil Goldstein, and did sessions with Cedar Walton, Jimmy Owens, Kenny Barron, Jack DeJohnette, Booker Ervin, Barry Miles, and Terry Silverlight.
By the 1980s, Kloss was teaching at Rutgers University, then Duquesne and Carnegie Mellon. He and his wife, a vocalist, collaborated in a group called Quiet Fire. Saxophonist Eric Kloss has performed and recorded rarely since the Eighties due to health problems.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Salvatore Nistico was born on April 2, 1940 in Syracuse, New York. He started playing alto saxophone, switching to tenor in 1956, and briefly played baritone saxophone. From 1959 to 1961, he played with the Jazz Brothers band, with Chuck Mangione and Gap Mangione.
Nistico played in the 1962–65 Woody Herman group, considered one of his best bands, with Bill Chase, Jake Hanna, Nat Pierce, and Phil Wilson. In 1965, he joined Count Basie but returned on many occasions to play with Herman. Around that time he was also a member of Dusko Goykovich’s sextet with other musicians associated with the Herd, such as Carl Fontana, Nat Pierce, and Michael Moore.
He also played with Nat Adderley, Don Ellis, Buddy Rich, and Stan Tracey. Moving to Europe in his latter years he worked with mostly European musicians as Joe Haider, Isla Eckinger, Billy Brooks, Fritz Pauer. He went on to record with the Larry Porter/ Allan Praskin Band and Three Generations Of Tenor Saxophone with Johnny Griffin, Roman Schwaller, Paul Grabowsky, Roberto DiGioia, Thomas Stabenow, Joris Dudli and Mario Gonzi. The first live performance from 1985 was released under the band’s name on JHM Records Switzerland.
Nistico’s solo work is a contrast to his big band work, with his solo work more oriented towards bebop, as heard on the Heavyweights recording on Riverside Records. Tenor saxophonist Sal Nistico, who was associated for many years with Woody Herman’s Herd, passed away on March 3, 1991, in Berne, Switzerland.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Garnett Brown, born January 31, 1936 in Memphis, Tennessee and graduated from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and later studied film scoring and electronic music at University of California Los Angeles. Winning the DownBeat Reader’s poll for trombonists, he appeared on the classic 1976 recording Bobby Bland and B.B. King Together Again…Live.
As a sideman he recorded with Chico Hamilton, Charles Lloyd, Roland Kirk, Art Blakey, Booker Ervin, Lou Donaldson, Teddy Edwards, Frank Foster, Duke Pearson, George Benson, Charles Tolliver, Johnny Hodges, Houston Person, Louis Armstrong, Gene Ammons, Modern Jazz Quartet, Gil Evans, Jackie and Roy, Airto Moreira, Hubert Laws, Dakota Staton, Reuben Wilson, Charles Earland, Don Sebesky, Lou Donaldson, Charles McPherson, Joe Chambers, Yusef Lateef, Jack McDuff, Rusty Bryant, Les McCann, Billy Cobham, Arif Mardin, Herbie Hancock, Charles Tolliver, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Eddie Harris, Horace Silver, Ahmad Jamal, and Gerald Wilson Orchestra of the 80’s among others.
He has worked as a composer in film and television due to his training in the field. In 1989 he was the conductor and orchestrator for Harlem Nights. Trombonist Garnett Brown, having been diagnosed with dementia, he is now retired and living in West Hollywood, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Otis Wyble was born on January 25, 1922 in Port Arthur, Texas and in his early years worked for a radio station in Houston. He and guitarist Cameron Hill played Western swing, an outgrowth of jazz, in a band led by Burt “Foreman” Phillips. The sound of two guitars attracted Bob Wills, another fan of Western swing, and he hired both men for his band, the Texas Playboys.
His career interrupted by World War II, he served in the Army from 1942 to 1946, but returned to music after he came home. Jimmy continued to play in Western swing bands, but his interest in jazz surfaced on his 1953 debut album, The Jimmy Wyble Quintet. He would soon work with Barney Kessel and Benny Goodman, and then played with Red Norvo for eight years, including on a tour of Australia accompanying Frank Sinatra.
During the 1960s Wyble took a job as a studio musician in Los Angeles, California working as a guitarist for movies and television, playing on movie soundtracks, including The Wild Bunch, Ocean’s Eleven, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex and Kings Go Forth, and played on TV shows such as The Flip Wilson Show and Kraft Music Hall.
He became an educator after taking classical guitar lessons from Laurindo Almeida, teaching guitar to Larry Koonse, Howard Roberts, Howard Alden and Steve Lukather among others. The 1970s saw Jimmy developing a two-line contrapuntal approach to guitar and composed numerous etudes in this style, publishing Classical/Country, The Art of Two-Line Improvisation, and Concepts for the Classical and Jazz Guitar.
During the 1980s, he left the music business, returning to performance in 2005. Larry Koonse, his former student, issued the album What’s in the Box with compositions by Wyble based on his book of etudes.
Guitarist, composer, and educator Jimmy Wyble continued to perform, record and teach until his death on January 16, 2010.
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Requisites
Midnight Sugar ~ Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio | By Eddie Carter
This morning’s choice from the library is one of my absolute favorites because each time I hear it, I’m transported back to one of my happiest memories as a young adult. If any of you lived in Cleveland, Ohio during the seventies and eighties, Audio Craft at 3915 Carnegie Avenue was the place to go if you wanted to purchase a quality entry-level, mid-level, or high-end audio system. My uncle Bob Franks was the manager there for many years and I got to help him on Monday and Thursday evenings, and each Saturday. He was instrumental in teaching me about excellent audio equipment, helping me put together my first system, and introducing me to The Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio.
Midnight Sugar (Three Blind Mice TBM-23) is the group’s 1974 debut for the Japanese jazz label and has long been a favorite to demonstrate high-end audio equipment at audio shows and audio salons worldwide. It’s also become a collector’s item, a mint original LP or the 1977, 1979, and 1982 Stereo reissues can cost a few hundred dollars. Joining the pianist are two giants in their own right, Isoo Fukui on bass and Tetsujiro Obara on drums. My copy used for this report is the 1977 Japanese Stereo reissue (Three Blind Mice TBM-2523) and LP collectors take note. Only the 1977, 1979 (TBM(P)-2523) and 1982 (Trio Records – Three Blind Mice PAP-2006) reissues list the group’s name as Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio. All other LP reissues and the original release show the pianist’s last name first.
Midnight Sugar is a slow tempo blues beginning Side One with a brief bowed bass introduction by Isoo before Yamamoto takes over on the melody. Tsuyoshi is the only soloist and is at his best on a lengthy interpretation that’s sublimely soulful and one of the highlights on the album, thanks to the rhythmic harmony provided by his colleagues. I’m A Fool To Want You was written in 1951 by Frank Sinatra, Jack Wolf, and Joel Herron. Sinatra recorded the song for Columbia Records, making it a hit. It opens with a graceful introduction and wistful delivery of the melody. The pace moves to midtempo for Yamamoto’s solo performance and he responds with a mesmerizing display and emotional depth preceding the closing chorus ending with fingertip delicacy.
The Nearness of You starts Side Two and was written in 1937 by Hoagy Carmichael and Ned Washington. It became a hit for Ray Eberle who recorded it with The Glenn Miller Orchestra in 1940. The trio dresses up this timeless evergreen with a blissful theme treatment and a sentimental swing on the song’s only interpretation by Yamamoto drawing the listener into this beautiful standard at a leisurely pace. It Could Happen To You is by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke, this popular song was written in 1943 and was first recorded by vocalist Jo Stafford with the Paul Weston Orchestra. Its first film appearance was in the 1944 musical comedy And The Angels Sing. The trio’s interaction is stunning on the dreamy melody. Tsuyoshi’s reading is skillfully constructed with tender lyricism on one of the most beautiful ballads ever written.
The album closes with Yamamoto’s Sweet Georgia Blues, an uptempo original sharing some similarities with the 1925 jazz and pop classic, Sweet Georgia Brown by Ben Bernie, Ken Casey, and Maceo Pinkard. It opens with a vivacious theme by the trio, then a brief comment preceding Obara giving a short workout of explosive fireworks. Tsuyoshi wraps up the album with a few final remarks of fun leading to the lively closing chorus.
Three Blind Mice began in 1970 with the premise of showcasing emerging jazz artists. The label produced one-hundred thirty albums over thirty years and was known for their outstanding sound. TBM also was instrumental in the development of Japanese jazz. Many of the stars from Japan now known around the world recorded their debut albums on the label. The album was produced by Takeshi Fujii who ran TBM for many years and recorded by Yoshihiko Kannari, the distinguished Japanese engineer who worked for TBM at the time, and now runs his own organization, Studio Lion since 2000.
The sound on Midnight Sugar is spectacular and a perfect choice to demonstrate any mid-level or high-end audio system. Your sweet spot is right in the studio with the musicians because of the incredible lifelike detail coming from the piano, bass, and drums. Tsuyoshi Yamamoto has an incredible discography of music, is still performing today and all of his albums on Three Blind Mice are worth occupying a spot in your library. If you’re looking for a jazz trio album for the library or are a fan of piano jazz specifically, I happily submit for your approval, Midnight Sugar by Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio. An album that’s quite a value for the music, sound quality, and a title that’ll provide its owner many hours of listening pleasure.
~ I’m A Fool To Want You (Columbia 39425); It Could Happen To You (Capitol Records 158)
~ The Nearness of You (Bluebird B-10745) – Source: Discogs.com
~ It Could Happen To You, The Nearness of You – Source: JazzStandards.com
~ I’m A Fool To Want You, Sweet Georgia Brown, Three Blind Mice – Source: Wikipedia.org
© 2021 by Edward Thomas Carter
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