The Jazz Voyager
The Jazz Voyager is back in sunny Miami, Florida for a visit to the Koubek Center that sits on the campus of Miami Dade College. This historic landmark remains true to its pioneering heritage, the celebration of its multicultural community with workshops, art exhibitions, theater performances, literary readings, concerts and more.
This evening I will have the pleasure of hearing vocalist Leesa Richards, who has performed with Gerald Austin, Peabo Bryson, and Dionne Farris as well as toured worldwide with Whitney Houston. Also on the night’s ticket is trumpeter Jean Caze, who has worked with Herbie Hancock, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Al Jarreau, Roy Hargrove, Arturo Sandoval, and George Duke, to name a few. Both Leesa and Jean bring with them their own quartets.
The venue location is 2705 SW 3rd Street, 33135. For tickets and more information go to https://notoriousjazz.com/event/leesa-richards-quartet-jean-caze-quartet.
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The Jazz Voyager
The Jazz Voyager is leaving Philly and heading south to Durham, North Carolina for his first visit to the historic landmark, the Hayti Heritage Center. It sits on the campus of North Carolina Central University, an HBCU founded in 1909 and America’s first public liberal arts institution.
The center was named for the independent black community founded shortly after the American Civil War on the southern edge of Durham by freedmen coming to work in tobacco warehouses and related jobs in the city. By the early decades of the 20th century, African Americans prospered due to Jim Crow, owning and operating more than 200 businesses, which were located along Fayetteville, Pettigrew, and Pine Streets, the boundaries of Hayti.
I will be in the audience to witness for a second time the vocal talents of 7 time Grammy Award nominee Nnenna Freelon, who will perform with her bassist John Brown, the North Carolina Central University Jazz Ensemble, directed by Robert Trowers and the Vocal Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Lenora Helm Hammonds, someone I have known for many years, having followed her career as a vocalist and as an educator. She continues to create wonderful accomplishments at NCCU.
The downtown location is at 801 Fayetteville Street 27705. For tickets and more information go to https://notoriousjazz.com/event/jazzmeia-horn-5
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roy Hamilton was born on April 16, 1929 in Leesburg, Georgia to Evelyn and Albert Hamilton, where he began singing in church choirs at the age of six. The summer of 1943 he was fourteen and the family migrated north to Jersey City, New Jersey in search of a better life. There he sang with the Central Baptist Church Choir, and attended Lincoln High School where he studied commercial art. Being gifted, his paintings were placed with a number of New York City galleries.
In 1947 the seventeen-year-old Hamilton took his first big step into secular music, winning a talent contest at the Apollo Theater. But nothing came of it, so to support himself he worked as an electronics technician during the day, and an amateur heavyweight boxer at night, with a record of six wins and one defeat. The following year he joined the Searchlight Gospel Singers, studied light opera, and continued to perform gospel until 1953 when the group broke up. Then he headed back into pop music with something different to offer.
1953 saw Roy discovered by Bill Cook, the first Black radio disc jockey and television personality on the East Coast. As his manager, Cook made a demo tape, brought it to the attention of Columbia Records and got him signed to Okeh Records. His first session produced Rodgers and Hammerstein’s You’ll Never Walk Alone from the musical Carousel. However Columbia released it on their pop label Epic and it topped the Billboard charts for eight weeks. He would go on to have hits with If I Love You, Ebb Tide and Unchained Melody and in 1955 was named Vocalist of the Year by Down Beat magazine. He would go on to record Great American Songbook singles Without a Song, Cuban Love Song, Everybody’s Got a Home But Me, and Somebody Somewhere.
Hamilton’s last hit record, You Can Have Her, came in 1961, and the Epic label treated him as a major star and issued sixteen albums by him. By the middle of the decade his career declined while recording with MGM and then RCA. In 1969 in Memphis, Tennessee, he made the final recordings of his career.
In early July 1969, he suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage at his home in New Rochelle, New York. He was taken to New Rochelle General Hospital where he lay in a coma for more than a week. On July 20, 1969 vocalist Roy Hamilton, who was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, was Epic Records first star, inspired Sam Cooke, and influenced Elvis Presley and the Righteous Brothers, died after being removed from life support. He was 40 years old.
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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…
Lisa Lindsley was born March 27, 1957 in Ogden, Utah. Growing up she listened to her father’s records of jazz greats like Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Her mother, a film actress who had to leave Hollywood in the 1950s because of the McCarthy-era blacklist, imbued in her a love of theater.
While as a young teen attending Wasatch Academy in Mt. Pleasant, Utah Lindsley gravitated to the rock and pop music of the day, she discovered musical theater in high school, a passion that carried through to college. After graduating from the California Institute for the Arts theater program, she spent a decade touring and performing with The Imagination Company. However, raising two daughters put her performing ambitions on hold for years, but she developed a successful career as a voice over artist, cast in national ad campaigns, radio shows and video games.
Comin to jazz singing in mid-life, she earned national attention with her stellar 2010 debut release Everytime We Say Goodbye, featuring bassist Fred Randolph and pianist George Mesterhazy. At the behest of her high school contortionist daughter’s desire to hone her French while studying at the Fratellini Circus School, she moved to Paris, France in 2013. This was the next natural step in her musical evolution. Settling in the 19th arrondissement filled with cultural vitality Lisa quickly developed a network of regular gigs with skilled accompanists. These relationships on her sophomore album, Long After Midnight, with pianist Laurent Marode, drummer Mourad Benhammou, Esaie Cid on flute, clarinet and tenor saxophone, and Bay Area bassist Jeff Chambers.
Back in the States and living in the San Francisco Bay area, Lindsley has been working steadily around the Bay Area over the past decade. She has honed her skills with Roger Letson at Contra Costa College, and studied with Maye Cavallero, Laurie Antonioli and Pamela Rose at the California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley.
Vocalist Lisa Lindsley, who received essential on the job training from Bay area pianist/drummer Kelly Park, continues her career of performance and recording.
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