Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Peter Curtis was born on April 24, 1970. His formal education bestowed a Bachelor of Music from Berklee College of Music, a Masters of Music from Yale University, and a Doctor of Music in Classical Guitar Performance and Literature with minor fields in Ethnomusicology and Music History from Indiana University.
He has performed or recorded with Claudia Acuna, Lynn Arriale, Seamus Blake, Don Braden, James Carter, Freddy Cole, Barbra Morrison, Eldad Tarmu and Ron Westray of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Peter has played the top jazz clubs in Los Angeles, California, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and on Black Entertainment Television.
Having been to Europe, Curtis has been on club stages in Berlin, Brussels, Budapest, Florence, the Hague, Milan, Paris, Prague and Zurich. With his group, the Peter Curtis Quartet, he recently released his debut album Swing State. His classical chops have sent the guitarist recitals throughout the U.S. and Canada and was awarded the Andres Segovia memorial scholarship from the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Guitarist and composer Peter Curtis, a tenured professor of music at Riverside Community College in Riverside, California, continues to compose, perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frank Meester was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands on April 14, 1970 and studied philosophy and general literature at the University of Amsterdam and Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands. From 2010 to 2016 he was assistant lecturer in Philosophy and Professional Practice at The Hague University of Applied Sciences .
He went on to become the youngest of the writing duo Gebroeders Meester and wrote columns in Filosofie Magazine and de Volkskrant, among others. With Stine Jensen, they also wrote two books together about parenting and toured the country in 2018 and 2019 with the theater performance Het opvoedcircus.
Meester also plays in the Hot Club de Frank, founded in 1990 when he was just 20 years old. Two years later they expanded to a quartet and played in local cafes. In 1994 personnel changes took a turn at vocal swing and became a permanent salon band at the Amstel Hotel and the Amerstadam Bamboo Bar. They dropped their debut cd in 1996, De Heren van het Circus, to critical acclaim, and expanded once again to a quintet. Their sophomore release in 1999 hit success again being broadcast across the radio waves.
Another personnel transition has the band currently consisting of Meester, solo guitarist Harold Berghuis, violinist Jelle van Tongeren and saxophonist Wim Lammen. The band creates a new sound within gypsy jazz with different rhythms, other instruments and special arrangements. They have played festivals and European tours.
Double bassist Frank Meester, who has been published thirteen times, continues to perform with his sons Midas and Gilles in The Maestros.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Richard Hyman was born in New York City on March 8, 1927 and grew up in suburban Mount Vernon, New York. His older brother, Arthur, owned a jazz record collection and introduced him to the music of Bix Beiderbecke and Art Tatum. Trained classically by his uncle, concert pianist Anton Rovinsky, who taught him touch and a certain amount of repertoire while he pursued Chopin on his own.
Enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1945, Dick was transferred to the U.S. Navy band department. After leaving the Navy he attended Columbia University where he won a piano competition with the prize being 12 free lessons with swing-era pianist Teddy Wilson. It was during this period Hyman fell in love with jazz.
During the 1950s Relax Records released his first two solo piano versions of All the Things You Are and You Couldn’t Be Cuter. Hyman recorded two honky-tonk piano albums under the pseudonym Knuckles O’Toole and recorded more as Willie the Rock Knox and Slugger Ryan.
In the 1950s and early 1960s Dick worked as a studio musician and performed with Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Guy Mitchell, LaVern Baker, Ruth Brown, Mitch Miller and many more. He played with Charlie Parker for Parker’s only film appearance and had a stint as music director for Arthur Godfrey’s television show from 1959 to 1961.
As a composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist he worked on eleven Woody Allen films as well as other films like Moonstruck and Scott Joplin. Hyman composed and performed scores for ballet and dance companies. In the 1960s, Hyman recorded several pop albums on Enoch Light’s Command Records using the Lowrey organ and then the Moog synthesizer.
Between 1970 and 2014 he recorded 112 albums as a leader, sixty-two as a sideman, and arranged four albums for Count Basie, Trigger Alpert and Flip Phillips. He has been a guest performer at jazz festivals and concert venues around the world. In 1995 pianist and composer Dick Hyman moved his wife Julia permanently to Venice, Florida.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz..
Benny de Weille was born on March 6, 1915 in Lübeck, Germany. He studied clarinet under Hans Helmke and was heavily influenced by Benny Goodman, whom he often emulated in his own ensembles.
Benny made recordings with Teddy Stauffer, Hans Rehmstedt, and Willy Berking in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1940 he led his own Bar Trio. Following World War II he worked at Radio Frankfurt and conducted the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk Orchestra.
Clarinetist and bandleader Benny de Weille, whose last recordings were in a Dixieland style in 1951, died on December 17, 1977 in Westerland, Germany.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lennie Hayton was born Leonard George Hayton on February 14, 1908 in New York City into a Jewish family. He developed a penchant for the piano when he was six years old, showing unusual interest in the early classics from the rolls of the family player piano. His parents disliked jazz, so it wasn’t until he was sixteen that he really discovered it. He left high school to become pianist with the Broadway Hotel Orchestra of Cass Hagen, a boyhood friend.
While playing at the Park Central, Hayton was heard by Paul Whiteman and immediately engaged by him in 1928 as second pianist, playing piano and celeste as well as acting as a part-time arranger. Whilst with the orchestra, he played with Frankie Trumbauer, Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols, Joe Venuti and became friendly with Bing Crosby, then a member of The Rhythm Boys. However, by 1930 due to the impact of radio on audiences, Whiteman released ten members of the band. Hayton then joined the Charles Previn Orchestra.
Rejoining Crosby he embarked on a cross-country tour, landing in Hollywood. 1932 saw Hayton leading an orchestra for his first recordings of Cabin in the Cotton, Love Me Tonight, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? and Some of These Days all became Bing hits. The following year , Hayton became the musical director for the Chesterfield radio series Music That Satisfies which again featured Crosby and ran for 13 weeks.
His involvement with Crosby continued as musical director for the singer’s 1933 film Going Hollywood at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This led to a major career for Hayton who continued to work with Crosby and became a musical director for MGM and guided it through its prime years as foremost producer of movie musicals. Up until his retirement from the post in 1953, Lennie racked up four Oscar nominations: The Harvey Girls, The Pirate, Singin’ in the Rain and Star! He won the Academy Award for music for On the Town and Hello, Dolly!.
He arranged for Frank Sinatra, composed Apple Blossoms with Joe Venuti, Frankie Trumbauer, and Eddie Lang, and his other compositions included Flying Fingers, The Stage is Set, Mood Hollywood with Jimmy Dorsey, and Midnight Mood. Hayton also co-arranged the Hoagy Carmichael composition Stardust with Artie Shaw for Bluebird Records.
His first marriage to Helen Maude Gifford ended in her death in 1943. Three years later he married Lena Horne whom he met on the MGM lot. Throughout the marriage, Hayton also acted as Horne’s music director. Facing the stresses and pressures of an interracial relationship, they had a tumultuous marriage, first based upon her desire to advance her career and cross the color-line in show business, but she had learned to love him very much.
Pianist, composer, conductor and arranger Lennie Hayton, whose trademark was a captain’s hat worn at a rakish angle, died of a heart attack while separated from Horne, in Palm Springs, California on April 24, 1971.
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