Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James M. Knepper was born November 22, 1927 in Los Angeles, California. He began playing trombone at nine, started playing professionally at 15 and worked with the big bands Freddie Slack, Roy Porter, Charlie Spivak, Charlie Barnet, Woody Herman and Claude Thornhill during the late forties and early ‘50s.
A good friend and arranging/transcribing partner of bassist and composer Charles Mingus, Knepper was twice on the receiving end of Mingus’ legendary temper. The first incident was being a punch in the mouth while onstage at a memorial concert in Philadelphia, the second punch landed in Mingus’ apartment broke one of his teeth ruining his embouchure and resulting in the permanent loss of the top octave of his range on the trombone, thus ending their working relationship.
Throughout his career Jimmy worked with Lee Konitz, Stan Kenton, Herbie Mann, Gil Evans, Benny Goodman, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, toured Africa and the Soviet Union, and cut sessions as a leader several albums on Debut, Bethlehem, Blackhawk, Steeplechase and Criss Cross labels among others.
Knepper’s nimble technique enabled him to articulate the trombone more in the manner of a saxophone coupled with the slurs and tonal variations of his predecessors. His improvisation was filled with subtle surprises and his reputation has remained strong in the jazz world over the years. After a long battle with Parkinson’s disease, Jimmy Knepper passed away on June 14, 2003.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kenny Werner was born on November 19, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York and by four was a member of a song and dance group. He started piano lessons at seven and by the time he turned 11, he recorded a single with a fifteen-piece orchestra and appeared on television playing stride piano. He attended the Manhattan School of Music as a concert piano major and later transferred to the Berklee School of Music.
Upon graduation he travelled working in Brazil and Bermuda before returning to New York where he formed a trio with drummer Gary Berkowitz and bassist Alex Peglise. In 1977 he recorded first LP that featured of the music of Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson and George Gershwin and later that year with Charles Mingus on “Something Like A Bird”.
By the early 80s he toured extensively and recorded with Archie Shepp, recorded his own solo album of original compositions titled “Beyond the Forest of Mirkwood”, followed by a recording of the sounds heard coming from his Brooklyn-based studio – a hotbed of late-night jam sessions, titling the record after his address, 298 Bridge Street. In 1984 he joined the Mel Lewis Orchestra, began performing more in Europe and New York City as a leader and in duos with such notables as Rufus Reid, Ray Drummond, Jaki Byard also doing stints in the groups of Eddie Gomez, Tom Harrell, Joe Lovano and many others.
Since 1989 he has served as pianist, arranger and musical director for the noted film, television and Broadway star, Betty Buckley, has performed and recorded with Toots Thielemans mostly in duo settings but in trio with Oscar Castro-Neves and quartet with Airto Moreira. He has been nominated for a Grammy, has received performance grants from the NEA, a Guggenheim Fellowship Award for the 2010 release “No Beginning No End”, was commissioned to compose and conduct a memorial piece for Duke Ellington, and has been honored with the distinguished Composer award.
Kenny has a catalogue of twenty albums and another six as a sideman composer chops have had him writing compositions for the Mel Lewis Orchestra, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Cologne Radio Jazz Orchestra, the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra, the Metropole Orchestra and the Umo Jazz Orchestra and most recently has joined Quincy Jones. He is a published author of “Effortless Mastery” that features the physical, technical, psychological and spiritual aspects of being an artist and this publication has garnered him requests as a teacher and clinician from universities around the world, while maintaining an Artist-in-Residence at New York University.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cindy Blackman was born November 18, 1959 in Yellow Springs, Ohio into a musical family. Her mother and grandmother were classical musicians, an uncle was a vibraphonist and her dad was into jazz. Her first introduction to the drums happened when she was seven years old at a friend’s house she sat down at a drum set starting hitting and knew it was for her. Following this was joining the school band and convincing her parents to get a set of her own. By age 11 she was in Bristol, Connecticut, studying at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford and gaining an interest in jazz two years later after listening to Max Roach. It was at this time she got her first professional drum kit at fourteen.
One of her early influences was drummer Tony Williams who was the first drummer she ever saw perform live, later having the opportunity to participate in a William’s drum clinic. She soon moved to Boston, studying at the Berklee College of Music. She left after three semesters and moved to New York in 1982, became a street performer and got a chance to watch and learn from drummers like Billy Higgins, Elvin Jones, Roy Haynes, Philly Joe Jones and Art Blakey who became her mentor and major influence.
Blackman initially encountered resistance to a woman playing drums in the jazz world, both racial and gender prejudice along with her musical opinion and hairstyle. But persistence paid off in 1984 when she was showcased on Ted Curson’s “Jazz Stares of the Future”, then in 1987 her first compositions appeared on Wallace Roney’s Verses album, then Muse offered her a contract and in ’88 lead her debut session “Arcane” with Joe Henderson, Wallace Roney, Tony Williams, Clarence Seay, Kenny Garrett and Larry Willis.
Cindy has immersed herself in both jazz and rock leaving the former for a period recording and touring with Lenny Kravitz but returned to her love of jazz. She has recorded several straight-ahead jazz sessions since her 1994 release of “Telepathy” and continues to evolve the music playing with a who’s who list of luminary jazz musicians. In her own words, “To me, jazz is the highest form of music that you can play because of the creative requirements”.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jerome Richardson was born November 15, 1920 in Oakland, California and started on alto saxophone at the age of eight. In his teens Benny Carter, Johnny Hodges and Willie Smith were his idols. He became a professional musician at the age of fourteen, and had a brief stint with Lionel Hampton, and worked with Bay Area bands until 1941, during which time he also studied music at San Francisco State College. The flute was added to his working compliment in 1940. Both this and his alto sax were used to advantage in a Navy band, under the direction of Marshall Royal, at St. Mary’s Pre-Flight from 1942 to 1945. He joined the Lionel Hampton band again in 1949, with whom he recorded what is widely regarded as the first modern jazz solo played on flute on “Kingfish”, and was also a member of the Earl Hines big band.
Settling in New York in 1954 he began a very active session career, but continued to make his mark in a purely jazz context. He worked with bands led by Lucky Millinder and Cootie Williams, led his own quartet at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem in 1955 and was part of Oscar Pettiford’s group that summer.
Over the next decade Jerome continued to lead his quartet, work the Roxy pit orchestra, regularly worked with Quincy Jones, toured Europe with Harold Arlen’s blues opera, was a founder member of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, organizing and performing many Thad Jones tribute concerts. He played with a number of other notable big bands during his long career, including bands led by Jimmy Lunceford, Gerald Wilson, Gil Evans and Charles Mingus.
His standing as a superbly accomplished soloist on a range of reed and wind instruments was complemented by an equally strong reputation as an accompanist of singers, including the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, Nancy Wilson, Billy Eckstine, and Lena Horne. Richardson performed with practically every significant post-war jazz artist, including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Lionel Hampton, Herbie Hancock, Milt Jackson, Oliver Nelson, Art Farmer, Clifford Jordan, Slide Hampton, Horace Silver, Gerry Mulligan, Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery, Cal Tjader, and Antonio Carlos Jobim, as well as a whole range of blues, soul and pop artists.
Jerome Richardson played tenor, alto, baritone saxophone, clarinet, piccolo, and flute passed away in Englewood, New Jersey on June 23, 2000 recorded sparingly as a leader but was one of the most sought after session musicians for more than half a century was probably the most recorded saxophonist of his generation.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Andrew Cables was born November 14, 1944 in New York City and was classically trained as a youth. He discovered jazz while attending the New York High School for Performing Arts, smitten by the freedom of expression. But unlike most musicians who are influenced by a single pianist, George listened to the whole bands of Miles and Trane and how they held together.
By 1964 he was playing in a band called The Jazz Samaritans that included Billy Cobham, Lenny White and Clint Houston. Playing gigs around New York at the Top of the Gate, Slugs, and other clubs attracted attention to Cables’ versatility and before long he had recorded with tenor saxophonist Paul Jeffrey, played with Max Roach and earned a brief 1969 tenure at the piano bench with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and later with Sarah Vaughan, Tony Williams, Roy Haynes and Dizzy Gillespie.
A 1969 tour with tenor titan Sonny Rollins took Cables to the West Coast and by 1971 he became a significant figure in the jazz scenes of Los Angeles, where he first resided, and San Francisco, where he also lived. Collaborations and recordings with tenor saxophonists Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson, trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw, and vibist Bobby Hutcherson made Cables’ wide-ranging keyboard skills, often on electric piano, amply evident. Demand for his sensitive accompaniment increased and by the end of the 1970s, Cables was garnering a reputation as everyone’s favorite sideman.
Perhaps the most pivotal turn came when Dexter Gordon invited Cables into his quartet in 1977. The two years he spent with the tenor giant ignited Cables’ passion for the acoustic piano and immersed him in the bebop vocabulary. But the longest standing relationship Cables developed in the late seventies was with alto saxophonist Art Pepper, becoming his favorite pianist.
George Cables has emerged as a major voice in modern jazz and currently performs and records as a soloist, with trio and larger ensembles, and as a clinician in college jazz programs in addition to composing and arranging for his own albums and others.
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