Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Winard Harper was born Hiram Winard Harper on June 4, 1962 in Baltimore, Maryland and started beating on cans at age three and his natural affinity was encouraged by his father. By age five he was making guest nightclub appearances with his older brother Danny’s band. It was his hearing of the Clifford Brown/Max Roach recording that sealed his inspiration to play jazz.
Harper’s first major gig was in 1982 with Dexter Gordon, followed by Johnny Griffin and then spent four years with Betty Carter. It was with the later that he learned much about the music business, preparing him to be a bandleader and giving him the inside track on bookings. This experience gave him the foundation to launch The Harper Brothers along with his brother Philip, and a few of the hottest young talents of the Nineties – Justin Robinson, Javon Jackson, Walter Blanding, Kioshi Kitagawa, Stephen Scott, Kevin Hayes, Michael Bowie and Nedra Wheeler.
The Harper Brothers recorded four albums prior to the dissolution of the band and Winard went on to record seven albums to date as a leader. He has played the sideman to Avery Sharpe, Ray Bryant, Abdullah Ibrahim, Pharoah Sanders, Clifford Jordan, Steve Turre, Joe Lovano, Frank Wess, Jimmy Heath and Wycliffe Gordon. Since the turn of the century the drummer, composer and bandleader continues to perform, tour and record with his own sextet.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen was born May 27, 1946 in Osted, near Roskilde on the Danish island of Zealand. As a child he played piano and started learning the double bass during his teenage years. By age 14 while still studying he began his professional jazz career in Denmark with his first band, Jazzkvintet 60. At 17, he had already turned down an offer to join the Count Basie Orchestra, being too young to legally live and work in the U.S.
The 1960s saw Pedersen playing with several visiting or residing musicians in Denmark such as Bud Powell, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Roland Kirk, Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, Bill Evans, and Ben Webster to name a few. He became the bassist of choice whenever a big-name musician was touring Copenhagen.
Pedersen worked in duo and trio arrangements with pianist Kenny Drew, recording over 50 albums together, worked with Oscar Peterson, Stephane Grappelli and Joe Pass and recorded extensively as a leader. His best-known songs are “My Little Anna”, “Jaywalkin” and “The Puzzle”. He was awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize, the “Best Bass Player Of The Year” by the Downbeat Critics’ Poll, co-led a duo with Mulgrew Miller that toured Europe, Japan, Australia, and Korea and later enlarged into a trio with drummer, Alvin Queen. Bassist Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen, known as The Great Dane With The Never Ending Name, died of heart failure on April 19, 2005 at the age of 58 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Roland was born May 17, 1920 in New York City and began as a clarinetist, attending the Institute of Musical Art (The Juilliard School) from 1937 to 1939. He started playing the xylophone in 1940 and then the vibraphone in the middle of the decade, playing in the New York jazz clubs. Influenced by the nascent bebop movement, Roland put together his own ensembles late in the decade.
By the 1950s he was playing with Oscar Pettiford, George Shearing, Howard McGhee, Mat Mathews, Aaron Sachs, and with Artie Shaw and his Gramercy Five alongside Hank Jones, Tal Farlow, and Tommy Potter. Mat Mathews and Aaron Sachs. Roland recorded occasionally as a leader releasing albums for Rainbow, Savoy, Seeco and Bethlehem records.
In the early sixties Joe moved to Miami Florida and became an influential part of a thriving South Florida jazz scene. While working the Coconut Grove he was credited for having trained many young musicians from the University of Miami. Vibraphonist Joe Roland would work steadfastly throughout his life until his death of natural causes at the age of 89 in Jupiter, Florida on October 12, 2009.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Bert was born May 16, 1922 in Yonkers, New York and learned to lay the trombone as a child. Among his early teachers were Benny Morton and Trummy Young and by age 18 he was a member of the Sam Donahue Orchestra.
Bert would leave Donahue and join up with Red Norvo in 1941, cutting his first recorded solo on Jersey Bounce. Through the Forties he played with the bands of Charlie Barnet, Woody Herman, Herbie Fields, Benny Goodman and Stan Kenton, rejoining Norvo for the legendary Town Hall concert. By the Fifties he was performing briefly again with Stan Kenton before becoming a leader and recording for Discovery, Savoy, Jazztone and Trans-world record labels.
He has performed and recorded with Charles Mingus, various Miles Davis/Gil Evans projects, Thelonious Monks big bands, and was a part of the Dick Cavett TV big band in the Sixties. He has toured Europe with the Mel Lewis/Thad Jones Orchestra, recorded for several obscure labels, worked extensively as a sideman with Michel Legrand, Nat Pierce, Stan Getz, Gene Harris, Ken Peplowski, Loren Schoenberg and others. When performing, trombonist Eddie Bert continuously played to sold-out shows.
Eddie received a Musician of the Year award from Metronome magazine, a Grammy for Musician of the Year, Jazz at the Kennedy Center honors and is inducted into the Rugers University Jazz Hall of Fame.
Trombonist Eddie Bert, whose photography can be seen on Jazz Giants, To Bird With Love (Chan Parker and F. Pandras) and The Band That Never Was (Spotlight Records album cover and liner notes), passed away on September 27, 2012 at age 90 in Danbury, Connecticut.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Gordon was born Joseph Henry Gordon on May 15, 1928 in Boston, Massachusetts and took up trumpet in his youth. His first professional gigs were in Boston in 1947 and he would later play with Georgie Auld, Charlie Mariano, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Parker, Art Blakey and Don Redman into the mid Fifties.
In 1956 he toured the Middle East with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band soloing on “A Night In Tunisia”. Following this Gordon played with Horace Silver and then moved to Los Angeles. During his California stay over the next five years he recorded with Barney Kessel, Benny Carter, Harold Land, Shelly Manne, Donald Byrd, Dexter Gordon and Thelonious Monk.
Trumpeter Joe Gordon would record two studio sessions and one live album as a leader prior to his death in a house fire on November 4, 1963 in Santa Monica, California.
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