Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Donald Byrd was born Donaldson Toussaint L’Ouverture Byrd II on December 9, 1932 in Detroit, Michigan. He studied music and trumpet at Cass Technical High School, performing with Lionel Hampton prior to graduating. Joining the Air Force he played with the band, followed by matriculation through Wayne State University and the Manhattan School of Music.

He came to prominence while at the Manhattan School when he joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers replacing Clifford Brown. By 1955 he was recording with Jackie McLean and Mal Waldron, left the Messengers a year later and performed with John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock and Thelonious Monk.

Byrd’s first full-time band was a quintet that he co-led from 1958-61 with Pepper Adams, an ensemble with hard driving performances as captured live on “At The Half Note Café”. In June 1964, Byrd jammed with jazz legend Eric Dolphy in Paris and throughout the rest of the decade and into the 70s was a leader and notable sidemen for Blue Note’s stable of jazz greats.

In the 1970s, Donald moved away from his previous hard-bop jazz base and began to record jazz-fusion, jazz-funk, soul-jazz, and rhythm and blues. Teaming up with the Mizell Brothers, he recorded Black Byrd in 1972 that subsequently became Blue Note’s highest selling album ever. Three subsequent big selling albums called “Street Lady”, Places and Spaces, and “Steppin’ Into Tomorrow” followed this. In 1973, he created the Blackbyrds, a fusion group consisting of his best students that scored several major hits including “Happy Music”, “Walking In Rhythm” and “Rock Creek Park”. Byrd is best remembered as one of the only bebop jazz musicians who successfully pioneered the funk and soul genres while simultaneously remaining a pop artist.

Dr. Donald Byrd holds three master degrees, a law degree and a doctorate and has pursued a career as an educator teaching at Rutgers University, Hampton Institute, New York University, Howard University, Queens College, Oberlin College, Cornell University and was named artist-in-residence at Delaware State University. The trumpeter passed away at the age of 80 in Teaneck, New Jersey on February 4, 2013 leaving a legacy of recordings that spanned the jazz idiom.

More Posts: trumpet

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Mads Vinding, born December 7, 1948 in Copenhagen, Denmark, took up the basses as a child. By sixteen he was playing professionally becoming the house bassist at Copenhagen’s legendary Café Montmartre.

Along with the acoustic double bass, he has also refined his playing on the electric bass making him an outstanding artist and a sought-after soloist for his musical command and his maturity. Vinding has performed all over the world, produced several records and has been honored with numerous jazz awards such as the Ben Webster Prize, Palae Jazz Prize, Readers Polls and three Grammy Awards among others.

One of the “Aces of Basses” with more than 600 recordings to his credit as a sideman, Mads has performed or recorded with the likes of Herbie Hancock, Sonny Stitt, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Dizzy Gillespie, Dollar Brand, Clark Terry, Chet Baker, Renee Rosnes, Stan Getz, Hank Jones, Gary Burton, Quincy Jones, Monty Alexander, Don Byas, Toots Thielemans, Ben Webster and Dexter Gordon, just to name a few in a long list of jazz luminaries. He continues to perform, record, tour and produce.

More Posts: bass

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Enrico Pieranunzi was born December 5, 1949 in Rome, Italy.  When he was only five and a half years old he began studying piano. At the same time his father, a guitarist, started introducing him to the wonders and challenges of jazz improvisation as well. From then on Enrico followed a double road in music developing his jazz style while studying classical piano.

At 19, Enrico began his professional career in Italy and since then he has worked with an abundance of bands, both Italian units and groups led by Americans. His wide-ranging experiences include collaborations with jazz luminaries such as Johnny Griffin, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Lee Konitz, Jim Hall, Johnny Griffin, Phil Woods, Charlie Haden, Frank Rosolino, Mads Vinding, Lee Konitz, Billy Higgins and Kenny Clarke among others.

Since 1975 Pieranunzi has led his own groups, mostly trios, with which he has played clubs and festivals all over Europe and released his first album that year. He has performed as unaccompanied pianist and still does to this very day. As an educator he has taught both in the jazz and classical fields and is currently full professor of piano at the “Conservatorio di Musica” in Frosinone.

Pianist Enrico Pieranunzi is a very original musician and a talented composer, able to travel the high road with his own ideas and remarkable musical sensitivity. Voted “Musician of the Year” in the “Musica Jazz” critic’s poll in 1989, twice the recipient of the Djangodor Award “Best Jazz Musician” in 1992 & ’97 and the 2003 Django d’Or in Italy. In 2006 he started the Trans Alpine Jazz Project and since the beginning of his career has amassed a catalogue of fifty-one recordings as a leader. He continues to perform, tour and record.

More Posts: piano

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Lester Koenig founded the jazz label, Contemporary Records, in Los Angeles in 1951. It was known for seminal recordings embodying the West Coast sound, but also released recordings by jazz artists known throughout the world. Under his leadership, Contemporary recorded such artists as Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Art Farmer, Benny Golson, the Curtis Counce Group featuring Harold Land, Jack Sheldon, Carl Perkins and Frank Butler; also Ben Webster, Miles Davis, Benny Carter, Chet Baker, Art Pepper, Phineas Newborn, Woody Shaw, Shelly Manne, Hampton Hawes, Barney Kessell and Leroy Vinnegar.

Les maintained extremely high audio standards. In 1956 he hired Roy DuNann from Capitol Records, who, out of the label’s shipping room turned studio, turned out some of the best sounding records of the 50s and 60s using German and Austrian condenser microphones that produced very high output of these microphones, especially close-in on jazz musicians’ dynamic playing. DuNann would achieve his signature sound for the label, a crisp, clear and balanced without distortion or unpleasant “peak presence” by keeping his microphone setups very simple, generally one per musician, and he avoided the use of pre-amplifiers.

In the mid 1960s the company fell into relative limbo, but limited new recordings were made in the late 1970s including a series of albums by Art Pepper recorded at the Village Vanguard in New York. After Koenig’s death in 1977, his son, John ran the label for seven years and continued the legacy producing albums by George Cables, Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson and Chico Hamilton to name a few.

Fantasy Records purchased the Contemporary label and catalogue in 1984 but not before ushering in a number of major figures in the music business such as Nesuhi Ertegun, who went on to exec at Atlantic Records, and writers Nat Hentoff and Leonard Feather among others.

More Posts: producer

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Wynton Kelly was born December 2, 1931 in Jamaica but grew up in Brooklyn, New York from age four when his parents emigrated to the United States. He started playing piano professionally as a teenager in R&B groups led by Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, then went on to work with Lee Abrams, Cecil Payne, Dinah Washington and Dizzy Gillespie.

Kelly recorded fourteen titles for Blue Note with a trio in 1951, worked with Dinah Washington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Lester Young during 1951-1952 followed by serving in the military. After his discharge he again worked with Washington, Charles Mingus and the Dizzy Gillespie big band but he would be most famous for his stint in the late 50s with the Miles Davis Quintet from 1959 – 63 and was part of the seminal “Kind Of Blue” replacing Bill Evans on “Freddie Freeloader”, along with notable albums “At The Blackhawk” and “Someday My Prince Will Come”. He would later replace Tommy Flanagan on the “Naima” on Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”.

Wynton left Davis in 1963 and took the rest of the rhythm section bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb with him to form his trio. He recorded as a leader for Blue Note, Riverside, Vee-Jay, Verve and Milestone.

 Pianist Wynton Kelly passed away on April 12, 1971 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada of an epileptic seizure. At 39, he was one of the most prolific sideman pianists of his era, performing on scores of jazz albums and a superb accompanist and distinctive soloist who would decades later influence a new generation of jazz pianists.

More Posts: piano