Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Milton Mesirow, better known as Mezz Mezzrow was born November 9, 1899 in Chicago, Illinois. The clarinetist and saxophonist has never been ranked as one of the best jazz musicians, organizing and taking part in some magnificent recording sessions involving the best black musicians of the 1930s/40s, including Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson, Frankie Newton, Tommy Ladnier and most importantly Sidney Bechet. His 1938 sessions for the French jazz critic Hugues Panassie, which he is well-known for organizing and financing, involved Bechet and Ladnier and helped spark the “New Orleans revival”.
Mezzrow became better known for his drug-dealing of marijuana than his music. His nicknames “Mezz” and “Muggles” that became slang for marijuana were used in song, the former in the Stuff Smith tune “If You’re A Viper” and the later was the title of a 1928 Louis Armstrong recording and for a brief time was his manager.
In the mid-1940s Mezzrow started his own record label, King Jazz Records, featuring himself in groups that usually included Sidney Bechet and, often, trumpeter Oran “Hot Lips” Page. Mezzrow also can be found and heard playing on six recordings by Fats Waller and his appearance at the 1948 Nice Jazz Festival was a surprise hit.
Following that appearance he made his home in Paris, France and organized many bands that included French musicians like Claude Luter, as well as visiting American artists like Peanuts Holland, Jimmy Archey, Kansas Fields, Lionel Hampton and Buck Clayton, with whom in 1953 he made what is probably his best ever recording: a version of the Louis Armstrong classic “West End Blues”.
Mezz Mezzrow, clarinetist, saxophonist, author and colorful character died on August 5, 1972 in Paris, France.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
David S. Ware was born on November 7, 1949 in Plainfield, New Jersey and began playing at age ten due to his father’s admiration for the saxophone and his large record collection. While in high school he played in the bands and ventured into New York as a teenager to listen to jazz. He had informal practice sessions with Sonny Rollins as a youth in the ’60s; then as part of the fertile NYC Loft Jazz era of the ’70s.
During this decade, he joined the Cecil Taylor Unit and Andrew Cyrille’s Maono. He also worked together with drummers Beaver Harris and Milford Graves. In the early ’80s he toured Europe with both Andrew Cyrille and his own trio. In mid-decade, Ware purposefully engaged himself in a period of extensive woodshedding – in order to further develop both his personal sound and his visionary group concept.
The ’90s saw the full-on actualization of this group, and the recognition of David S. Ware as a true saxophone colossus. A series of groundbreaking albums by the David S. Ware Quartet were released on the Silkheart, DIW, Homestead, AUM Fidelity, and Columbia Jazz labels. Perhaps the most highly acclaimed group of the last decade, David’s efforts were rewarded by being one of the very few jazz musicians whose work was appreciated by an audience outside the narrow confines of the jazz world. In an unprecedented coup, the ‘Cryptology’ album garnered the lead review slot in Rolling Stone Magazine.
Over the course of his career, tenor saxophonist David Ware has recorded for Columbia, Black Saint, DIW, Silkheart, Homestead, AUM Fidelity and Thirsty Ear record labels. He has performed with a host of musicians and was responsible for bringing the young pianist Matthew Shipp to the attention of the jazz environment. David S. Ware, who has played the most prestigious clubs and festivals around the globe passed away on October 18, 2012 ar age 62 in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Arturo Sandoval was born in Artemisa, Cuba on November 6, 1949 and began to play music at age 12 in the village band. After playing many instruments, he fell in love with the trumpet. In 1964, he began three years of serious classical trumpet studies at the Cuban National School of Arts. By the age of 16 he had earned a place in Cuba’s all-star national band and was totally immersed in jazz influenced by Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown and with Dizzy Gillespie as his idol and later mentor and colleague.
In 1971 he was drafted into the military. Luckily, Sandoval was still able to play with the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna. In Cuba, Sandoval co-founded the band Irakere with Chucho Valdes and Paquito D’Rivera. They quickly became a worldwide sensation. Their appearance at the 1978 Newport Jazz Festival introduced them to American audiences and garnered them a recording contract with Columbia Records.
Arturo defected to the United States while touring in Spain with Dizzy in 1990, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1999 and has enjoyed a successful career. He has played with Woody Herman, Herbie Hancock, Woody Shaw, Stan Getz, Celine Dion, Tito Puente, Patti LaBelle, Frank Sinatra, Paul Anka, Gordon Goodwin and numerous others.
His life was the subject of the 2000 TV film For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story, starring Andy Garcia. He currently continues to perform, tour and record around the globe.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Hailing from the West Coast, California native, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt was born on November 4, 1976. His primary interest was strictly classical music until he started high school when he began playing in the jazz band. After matriculating Berklee College of Music he set his sights on New York and before long got noticed by many top jazz musicians and got his first professional gig playing with the Mingus Big Band, allowing him to grow and nurture long lasting associations.
Pelt has had the good fortune to play with such jazz luminaries, such as Jimmy Heath, Frank Wess, Charlie Persip, Keter Betts, Frank Foster, John Hicks, Ravi Coltrane, Winard Harper, Vincent Herring, Ralph Peterson, Lonnie Plaxico, Nancy Wilson, Bobby Short, Cedar Walton and many too numerous to list. Coupled with those collaborations he has been a featured trumpeter in the Roy Hargrove Big Band, The Village Vanguard Orchestra and the Duke Ellington Big Band. Currently, he is member of the Lewis Nash Septet, the Frank Foster Loud Minority, and The Cannonball Adderley Legacy Band featuring Louis Hayes.
Jeremy maintains a consistent forward momentum while transmitting a modern-day sense of urgency with his songs. Pelt’s major focus is on writing music for each of his three bands: “Creation”– a sextet, “Noise” – a semi-electric band and “The Jeremy Pelt Quartet”.
He has been voted “Rising Star on the Trumpet” by Downbeat Magazine and the Jazz Journalist Association two years in a row. Jeremy Pelt has toured throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, Virgin Islands and Brazil, and continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Warne Marion Marsh was born October 26, 1927 in Los Angeles, California into an affluent family, his father was a cinematographer, mother a violinist and his aunt May Marsh an actress.
Tutored by Lennie Tristano and, along with Lee Konitz became one of the pre-eminent saxophonists of the Tristano-inspired “Cool School”. Of all of Tristano’s students, Marsh came closest to typifying Tristano’s ideals of improvised lines, in some respects, even transcending the master himself. He often recorded in the company of other Cool School musicians, and remained one of the most faithful to the Tristano philosophy of improvisation. His distinctively pure tone without the inflections popular among many other tenor saxophonists at that time such as honks, growls, etc. set him apart from other Lester Young and Ben Webster-influenced saxophonists.
Warne’s rhythmically subtle lines are immediately recognizable and have been called by Anthony Braxton as “the greatest vertical improviser.” In the 1970s he gained renewed exposure as a member of Supersax, a large ensemble that played orchestral arrangements of Charlie Parker solos. Marsh also recorded one of his most celebrated albums, “All Music”, with the Supersax rhythm section during this period.
Marsh died onstage at the Los Angeles club Donte’s on December 18, 1987, in the middle of playing the tune “Out of Nowhere”. Though he remains something of a cult figure among jazz fans and musicians, his influence has grown since his death. Younger players such as Mark Turner have borrowed from his music as a way of counterbalancing the pervasive influence of John Coltrane.
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