Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Claire Daly was born on February 26, 1959. At the age of 12 she began playing the saxophone and was soon turned onto jazz by way of a live performance by the Buddy Rich Big Band. She went on to attend Berklee College Of Music and upon graduation she became a full-time professional musician.
In the late 70s and early 80s Claire played with various groups in the jazz and rock arenas, and her powerful tenor saxophone suited the latter perfectly. However, playing more jazz than rock, Daly switched to the baritone saxophone and has worked in New York City since the mid-80s.
>A seven-year association with the all-female big band, Diva, was followed with her working with People Like Us. Daly’s versatility moves between jazz, R&B and Latin, releasing two CDs as a leader for Koch Records and three on her own label DalyBread.
Her influences include Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Sonny Rollins and, on baritone, Serge Chaloff, Ronnie Cuber and Leo Parker. She has performed with Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Joe Williams, and Rosemary Clooney among many others, and her first CD Swing Low resides in the William Jefferson Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Claire Daly, a gifted improviser whose rich tone and emotional depth has earned her a place as a respected member of the baritone saxophone family, continues to lead her own jazz groups and to pass the gift of music on to the next generation.
Diagnosed with head and neck cancer in 2023, baritone saxophonist and composer Claire Daly died at the residence of a friend in Longmont, Colorado, on October 22, 2024, at the age of 66.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Freddy Robinson was born Fred Leroy Robinson on February 24, 1939 in Memphis, Tennessee but was raised in Arkansas and by 1956 was in Chicago. That year he first recorded backing harmonica player Birmingham Jones. In 1958, he began touring with Little Walter and after seeing a jazz band performance was inspired to formally learn music at the Chicago School of Music.
Freddy soon was working and recording with Howlin’ Wolf, and by the mid-1960s was playing with Jerry Butler and Syl Johnson before joining Ray Charles in Los Angeles. While there, he recorded the instrumental “Black Fox”, which became a minor pop hit. In the early 1970s, he worked with English blues bandleader John Mayall, playing on the album Jazz Blues fusion and recording with trumpeter Blue Mitchell.
As a leader Robinson would record two albums, At The Drive In and Off The Cuff, supported by Joe Sample and Wilton Felder of the Crusaders. Throughout his career he worked with Earl Gaines, Jimmy Rogers, Monk Higgins, Stanley Turrentine and Bobby Bland. In 1975 he converted to Islam changing his name to Abu Talib and recorded solo, re-emerging in 1994 with an album of his own compositions, The Real Thing at Last.
Abu Talib, jazz and blues guitarist, singer and harmonica player, died of cancer in Lancaster, California on October 8, 2009.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Hall Franklin Overton was born February 23, 1920 in Bangor, Michigan but grew up in Grand Rapids. As a youngster he found that his few piano lessons were not enough to discover that elusive “something” he was seeking in music. His high school music teacher urged him to study theory and composition at The Chicago Musical College, prior to military service. It was during this overseas duty that he learned to play jazz.
Following his discharge Hall attended the Julliard School of Music, graduated with a Masters and joined the faculty. As an educator he would eventually teach at Yale School of Music and The New School of Social Research. He would receive awards from both The Koussevitzky Foundation and The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
In 1954, his New York City loft at 821 Sixth Avenue, aka the Jazz Loft, provided the perfect setting for the musicians to practice. While composing his classical compositions, he was also deeply immersed in jazz, recording with Stan Getz, Duke Jordan, Jimmy Raney, and Teddy Charles. Thelonious Monk selected him to score his piano works for full orchestra and on February 28, 1959, Thelonious Monk Orchestra At Town Hall was recorded live. Monk later released another live album of Hall’s compositions on Big Band and Quartet in Concert.
Hall’s opera, Huckleberry Finn, commissioned by the Barney Jaffin Foundation, was presented by The Juilliard Opera Company just months before his death on November 24, 1972 from cirrhosis of the liver. Pianist, composer and educator Hall Overton was just 52.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rex Stewart was born on February 22, 1907 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and learned to play the cornet. He developed a half-valving technique that created quartertones that Duke Ellington would later showcase along with his muted sound and forceful style.
After stints with Elmer Snowden, Fletcher Henderson, Horace Henderson, the McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and Luis Russell, he joined the Ellington band in 1934, replacing Freddie Jenkins.
Stewart co-wrote “Boy Meets Horn” and “Morning Glory” while with Ellington, and frequently supervised outside recording sessions by members of the Ellington band. After eleven years Stewart left to lead his own little swing bands, that were a perfect setting for his solo playing.
He also toured Europe and Australia with Jazz At The Philharmonic from 1947 to 1951. From the early 1950s on he worked in radio and television and published highly regarded jazz criticism. The book Jazz Masters of the Thirties is a selection of his criticism.
Cornetist Rex Stewart passed away on September 7, 1967.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Higgins was born Edward Haydn Higgins on February 21, 1932 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and began study of piano with his mother. His professional career began in Chicago while attending Northwestern University. He played the most prestigious clubs in Chicago for more than two decades in the 50s and 60s with his longest tenure at the London House, playing opposite Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Errol Garner, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, and George Shearing among others.
As a leader he amassed a number of recordings during the Chicago years but as a sideman he added many more albums working with Wayne Shorter, Coleman Hawkins, Bobby Lewis, Freddie Hubbard, Jack Teagarden and Al Grey to name just a few.
Equally adept in every jazz circle Eddie was able to work in Dixieland, modal, bebop and swing as well as being a persuasive, elegant and sophisticated pianist whether he was soloing or accompanying a singer.
Higgins eventually moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, played in local clubs, performed the jazz festival circuit, toured Europe and Japan, and continued to record up until his death on August 31, 2009 at 77.
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