Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Carolyn Lee Jones was born on October 30, 1950 in Nebraska to parents who were musicians. Always wanting to be a singer, her musical journey began as a child while growing up in Nebraska. During her formative years she sang in her school choirs and studied voice. After graduation, the lure of the big city drew her to Dallas, Texas where she was a retailer for luxury stores. While traveling as a buyer she sought music opportunities.
By 2008 Carolyn had changed direction and pursued music full time as a vocalist and bandleader. That year she recorded her debut release Bon Appetit! In New York City, in which she sings a duet with guest Bob Dorough.
Over the next thirteen years she recorded four more albums, while performing publicly and privately with her group, Fresh Vintage Jazz Ensemble & The Satin Dolls Band. Vocalist Carolyn Lee Jones continues to perform and tour.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roxana Amed was born October 5, 1963 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The singer-songwriter blends South American folk traditions with art rock and modern jazz. Considered as one of the most important voices in South American music.
Once in the United States, she collaborated with musicians based in New York City as Guillermo Klein, Emilio Solla, Leo Genovese, Sofia Rei, and pianist/composer Frank Carlberg. She has performed at The Jazz Gallery, Dizzy’s Club at Lincoln Center, Jazz Standard, The Stone, Rockwood Music Hall, Smalls, and Mezzrow.
In 2017 was commissioned, with Brazilian pianist André Mehmari, to pay tribute to the legendary Astor Piazzolla at the Buenos Aires International Jazz Festival. An album of the performance is set to be released in 2021.
Amed is a post-graduate in Contemporary Literature in Spanish Language, as well as a vocal instructor and clinician. For ten years she has led a vocal workshop for hundreds of jazz vocalists at the Buenos Aires International Jazz Festival.
She worked on a special project for the CMA grant, which resulted in Becoming Human, her eleventh album. It illustrates the human journey and her own experience as an artist. Vocalist, composer, producer Roxana Amed is a full-time Voice Professor at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Franks was born September 18, 1944 in La Jolla, California and grew up with two younger sisters. Neither parent was a musician but they loved swing music, and his early influences included Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Johnny Mercer. At age 14 he bought his first guitar, a Japanese Marco Polo for $29.95 with six private lessons included. Those lessons were the only music education that he received.
While at University High School in San Diego,California he discovered the poetry of Theodore Roethke with his off-rhymes and hidden meter. He began singing folk-rock, accompanying himself on guitar. Studying English at UCLA, Michael discovered Dave Brubeck, Patti Page, Stan Getz, João Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Miles Davis. Never studying music in college or later, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from UCLA in comparative literature in 1966 and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Oregon two years later. He returned to UCLA to teach after a stint in a PhD program in Montreal.
During this time Franks started writing songs, starting with the 1968 antiwar musical Anthems in E-flat and went on to compose music for films. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee recorded three of his songs, on their album Sonny & Brownie. Franks played guitar, banjo and mandolin on the album and joined them in touring. In 1973, he recorded an eponymous debut album, later reissued as Previously Unavailable.
In 1976 he released his second album The Art of Tea featuring the Crusaders and which saw Franks begin a long relationship with Warner Bros. Records. Subsequent albums came in 1977 and 1978 and through the 1980s. His move to New York City featured more of an East Coast sound on his albums and performance. Since then, Franks has recorded more than 15 albums.
He has recorded with a variety of well-known artists, such as Peggy Lee, Dan Hicks, Patti Austin, Art Garfunkel, Brenda Russell, Claus Ogerman, Joe Sample, and David Sanborn. His songs have been recorded by Shirley Bassey, Kurt Elling, Diana Krall, The Manhattan Transfer, Leo Sidran, Veronica Nunn, Carmen McRae, and Natalie Cole, aming other pop and rock artists.
Vocalist and songwriter Michael Franks, who plays guitar, banjo, mandolin, and cabasa, is still active and working on a new project.
More Posts: banjo,cabasa,guitar,history,instrumental,jazz,mandolin,music,songwriter,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Carrie Jackson was born on August 25, 1959 in Newark, New Jersey and began her musical career when she was 6 years old singing in the children’s choir at Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Newark and is a product of the city’s Public School system, attending Peshine Avenue Elementary School, and Weequahic H.S.
She studied piano and voice with teacher, composer and arranger Howard “Duke” Anderson. Under his tutelage she learned the music business and became an accomplished seasoned singer as well as band leader. Coming into her own as a young adult, Jackson worked as a featured vocalist with Anderson’s Big Band. She also studied voice with Inez Mc Clendon, Nadine Herman and Winston Hughes at NCSA in Newark.
Carrie rekindles thoughts of America’s great jazz history, and attributes her vocal style of singing to her mentors, the Great Ladies of Jazz, Sarah “Sassy” Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Nancy Wilson, and Carmen McRae. As a soloist, or with her Jazzin’ All Star Band, Carrie swings and performs the music of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and musical selections songs from the Great American Song Book.
Jackson has been a featured artist in Women in Jazz, Ain’t Misbehavin’, and the musical review 49th Street Jazz, a tribute to Eubie Blake, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Alberta Hunter. She is President/CEO of Mo-Jazz LLC, has toured both Europe and the United States and has fronted several orchestras.
Vocalist Carrie Jacksom continues to perform, tour and record with a variety of musicians, a list too long to document here.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joni Janak was born August 24 in 1944 in Amarillo, Texas and raised in a musical family. He was taught singing, dancing and piano at the Amarillo College of Music. She gave public recitals from the age of eight and had her first professional singing job at thirteen. Receiving a vocal scholarship to Texas Tech University in Lubbock, he eventually returned to Amarillo and sang with many different bands and with the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra when he was 22.
Heading to Houston, Texas she sang in the Carriage Club at the Sheraton Lincoln Hotel until 1969 when she moved to Denver, Colorado, furthering her career. While there she sang with local and visiting jazz musicians, among them Dale Bruning, Ellyn Rucker, Phil Urso, Peanuts Hucko, Bobby Greene, Todd Reid, the Hot Tomatoes Jazz Band, Howard Davis and Jim Riley.
Meeting Carl Fontana while she worked the El Chapultepec he invited her to Las Vegas, Nevada to work with him. In Vegas she worked with Carson Smith, Tom Montgomery, Vinnie Tano, Bill Berry, Herbie Phillips and Bill Watrous. She also sang on a jazz cruise with the Johnny Carson Tonight Show Allstars, played jazz festivals and concerts
Vocalist Joni Janak continues to perform and record.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal