Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Fred Hersch was born October 21, 1955 in Cincinnati, Ohio to Jewish parents and began playing the piano at the age of four, composing music by eight. By ten he won national piano competitions.
Hersch first became interested in jazz while at Grinnell College in Iowa. He dropped out of school and started playing jazz in Cincinnati, continuing his studies at the New England Conservatory under Jaki Byard and attracting attention from the press in a college recital. Upon graduation, he became a jazz piano instructor at the college.
1977 saw Fred moving to New York City, then gigged with Art Farmer in Los Angeles, California in 1978. He would play with Farmer again three years later, played for singer Chris Connor, then with Joe Henderson. He would go on to perform with Jane Ira Bloom, Jamie Baum, Toots Thielemans, Eddie Daniels, and Janis Siegel. A fortuitous firing of his pianist by Art Pepper gave Hersch the launch of his career when he filled in for the pianist.
In 1986, he taught at Berklee College of Music, performed and recorded sixty-four albums as a leader or co-leader, seventy-nine as a sideman and wrote an autobiography, Good Things Happen Slowly: A Life In and Out of Jazz.
In 1993, Hersch came out as gay and has been treated for HIV since 1984. He fell into a coma in 2008 for two months but when he regained consciousness, he had lost all muscular function as a result of his long inactivity and could not play the piano. After rehabilitation, he was able to play again. He continues to compose, perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alfred “Tubby” Hall was born October 12, 1895 in Sellers, Louisiana and his family moved to New Orleans, Louisiana in his childhood. His younger brother Minor “Ram” Hall also became a professional drummer. He played in many marching bands in New Orleans, including with Buddie Petit. His drumming style was forceful and sober, generally maintaining constant tempo on the snare.
By 1917 Hall had moved to Chicago, Illinois where he played with Sugar Johnny Smith. After two years in the United States Army, he returned to playing in Chicago mostly with New Orleans bands, joining Carroll Dickerson’s Orchestra and recording in 1927. He later played with the groups of King Oliver, Jimmie Noone, Tiny Parham, and Johnny Dodds.
He is seen in Armstrong’s Paramount movies of the early 1930s, including the live action and Betty Boop cartoon I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You and A Rhapsody in Black and Blue in 1932. Only Armstrong and Hall got closeups in the two films, and both get their faces transposed with those of racially stereotyped jungle natives in the cartoon. Hall morphs from a jazz drummer to a cannibal stirring a cooking pot with two wooden sticks.
Drummer Tubby Hall, considered one of the three greatest jazz drummers of his generation by jazz critic Hugues Panassié, along with Zutty Singleton and Baby Dodds, transitioned in Chicago, Illinois on May 13, 1945.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ami Nakazono was born on October 6, 1986 in Kagoshima, Japan and began classical piano lessons at the age of 4. By 12 she was playing the alto saxophone and joined her school brass band. After two years, she won the “City Solo Instrumental Competition.” At the same time she was offered a full scholarship to study music at Fukuoka Daiichi High School in Fukuoka, Japan, where she studied classical music, theory, ear training, harmony, and brass band skills.
After graduation, she entered Senzoku Gakuen University, Japan’s most prestigious university, with a jazz major. During this time, Ami formed her own band and began playing gigs in and around Tokyo, Japan. Again two years later in 2007 she accepted a scholarship from Berklee College of Music, moved to Boston, Massachusetts and continued to perform and study under Walter Beasley, Dino Govoni, Bill Pierce, Shannon LeClaire and Jeff Harrington, and flute with Mia Olson. In 2008 with mentor and inspiration George W. Russell Jr., the two worked on several collaborations during this period at Berklee.
Nakazono began performing internationally with the acclaimed band, Violette, headed by French jazz singer~songwriter Violette De Bartillat. In 2010 she recorded for two critically praised albums, Joie de Vivre with Violette and Shine with George W Russell Jr.
Saxophonist Ami Nakazono is currently an active member of Boston’s entertainment group Raw Ambition and continues to perform at prestigious venues and festivals across the United States.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bob Reynolds was born in Morristown, New Jersey on September 29, 1977. His family moved to Jacksonville, Florida where he started playing saxophone at age 13. Attending high school at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts he became part of the well-known jazz band. After graduating, he attended Berklee College of Music where he studied with George Garzone and Hal Crook.
He played with John Mayer’s band for five years, then worked with Brian Blade, Aaron Goldberg, Gregory Hutchinson, and Tom Harrell. A solo recording artist since the turn of the century, his 2006 album Can’t Wait for Perfect was voted Best Debut in the Village Voice jazz poll.
As a member of the popular genre-bending instrumental group Snarky Puppy since 2014, he has won Grammy Awards with the band for the albums Culcha Vulcha and Live at the Royal Albert Hall.
Tenor saxophonist Bob Reynolds has received four ASCAP Young Jazz Composer awards, and Berklee’s Billboard Magazine Endowed Scholarship, and continues to performa and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bent Jædig, born September 28, 1935 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He first studied clarinet before playing saxophone. In the 1950s, he settled in Germany and led a band with trombonist Rudi Fuesers, later joining another band with trombonist Peter Herbolzheimer in Munich, Germany.
By the 1960s, he returned to Denmark and worked with trumpeter Allan Botschinsky and pianist Bent Axen, with whom he recorded for Denmark’s Debut label. Bent would go on to play with the Dollar Brand Quintet which included Don Cherry. As a side-man he was constantly in demand and worked with Tete Montoliu, Jimmy Woode, Philly Joe Jones/Dizzy Reece, and Louis Hjulmand.
Jædig recorded his first album as a leader in 1967 titled, Danish Jazzman, with Axen, Botschinsky, Dusko Goykovich, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and Alex Riel. He would later form a trio, played in a duo and recorded live shows in 2002 which were compiled for a release from Timeless Records.
In the Seventies and 1980s he worked with Wild Bill Davison, Art Farmer, Stan Getz, the Thad Jones Big Band, Duke Jordan, Horace Parlan, Sahib Shihab, and Ernie Wilkins Almost Big Band. He was also a member of the Erling Kroner Tentet, played in the Danish Radio Big Band, and recorded on the Miles Davis album Aura. In 1987, Jædig was a member of Pierre Dørge’s New Jungle Orchestra.
At the end of the 1990s he was performing in a quintet. Tenor saxophonist and flutist Bent Jædig transitioned on June 9, 2004. Saxophonist Charles Davis recorded the album Charles Davis Plays the Music of Bent Jædig in 2006.
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