Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Julia Feldman was born on June 22, 1979 in Samara, Soviet Union to Israeli parents and into a family with a large musical background; her father wa ajeweler who played jazz piano, and a grandfather who was an accomplished conductor and a leader of the city philharmonic orchestra. Classically trained by studying the piano from the age of 5 until the family’s immigration to Israel in 1990 where she continued her piano studies along with jazz improvisation at the High School Of Arts in Jerusalem.
Becoming interested in jazz singing in the last year of her high school studies Feldman began studying voice technique and jazz improvisation along with intensive studies of jazz with the saxophonist Arnie Lawrence at the International Music Center of Jerusalem. While there she studied and performed with known American jazz musicians, such as Evelyn Blakey, Larry Goldings, Armen Donelian, Bob Meyer, Sheila Jordan, Judi Silvano and composer Allen Gershwin, performing the latter’s Walk In The Wilderness.
The late Nineties had her continuing her education and performing with a host of musicians. She has put together her self-titled ensemble and quartet with the former releasing a tribute album in 2006 Words Are Worlds inspired and featuring many standards by Billie Holiday. Other projects she has worked on as a vocalist have delved her into progressive rock Musicca Ficta, vocalist in Radical Shlomo, as pianist, vocalist, co-composer and co-lyricist in Ayulyul and collaboration with ethno-core Jerusalem band Shoom.
Vocalist, composer and educator Julia Feldman, whose singing combines elements of multiple jazz genres, free improvisation and modern classical music, continues to explore, perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tamm E. Hunt was born into a musical family in New York City, New York on June 19, 1954. The niece of jazz and blues singer Hannah Sylvester and record company owner Benny Clark, she is the daughter of K.D. Searcy, a tap dancer who danced at the Apollo Theater with Tip Tap & Toe. Growing up around music when she heard Dakota Staton’s The Late Late Show, she knew early on that she wanted to sing jazz.
Despite that prophetic introduction, Hunt started out singing other styles of music. In her childhood she sang with a variety of R&B girl groups. She had some commercial success in the early ’80s singing disco, but then switched to jazz. Inspired by Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan and pianist Dorothy Donegan, she has sung with such notables as alto saxophonist Gary Bartz, tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan, pianists Ronnie Matthews and Larry Willis, bassist Buster Williams, and drummer T.S. Monk among others.
She has performed throughout the U.S. in addition to Europe, Canada, and Japan. Hunt has thus far recorded one CD, Live @ Birdland, for her New Jazz Audience label. She founded the Harlem Jazz Foundation, and has written jazz education programs including Adopt a Kid 4 Jazz and Jazz 4 the Beginner.
She starred in and produced the off-Broadway show Billie Holiday: The Legend, and appeared in a short dramatic film with Bartz called A Jazz Story. Moving to Baltimore, Maryland she has been an important force in the city’s jazz community, both as a singer and behind the scenes. Vocalist Tamm E. Hunt, who is also the executive/artistic director of the Maryland Center for the Preservation of Jazz & Blues, continues to sing, educate and promote jazz.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nancy King was born June 15, 1940 in Springfield, Oregon. She started gigging in 1959 with fellow University of Oregon music students. After moving to San Francisco in 1960, her accomplished scat singing landed her many gigs with various bebop artists. Performing the Playboy Club circuit and Las Vegas, Nevada during the 1960s, it was during Monday night hits at the Jazz Workshop where she met her future husband Sonny King. By the Seventies she took a break from touring, settled in Eugene, Oregon and raised her three sons while doing weekend gigs at Portland’s Benson Hotel.
Known for her masterful scatting and elastic range, Nancy has performed in worldwide tours and recordings, as well as collaborations with such artists as Jon Hendricks, Vince Guaraldi, Ralph Towner, Karrin Allyson and Dave Friesen among others.
King has released ten albums beginning with her 1991 debut release of Impending Bloom and including her 2004 recording of her performance Live At Jazz Standard with pianist Fred Hersch. In 2011 she released her Prennia project on the Ornry Diva label.
Vocalist Nancy King would occasionally pop into jazz loving cities to perform but by 2014, suffering from degenerative hips has limited her ability to travel and perform. Though Covid had postponed the operation he is looking forward to replacement surgery, recovery and getting back onto the stage and recording studio.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Karin Krog was born May 15, 1937 in Oslo, Norway and started singing jazz as a teenager, attracting attention while performing in jam sessions in her hometown. By 1955, she was hired by the pianist Kjell Karlsen to sing in his sextet.
1962 saw Karin forming her first band and becoming a student of the Norwegian-American singer Anne Brown, studying with her until 1969. Throughout the Sixties she performed with the rhythm and blues band Public Enemies, releasing the hit singles Sunny and Watermelon Man.
She has worked with Vigleik Storaas, Jacob Young, Terje Rypdal, Arild Andersen, Jan Garbarek, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Drew, Don Ellis, Steve Kuhn, Archie Shepp, Paul Bley, John Surman, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Red Mitchell, and Bengt Hallberg. During 1994, she became the first Norwegian musician to have an album released by Verve Records. The album Jubilee was a compilation of songs from her thirty-year career.
She has released thirty-seven albums as a leader with her latest live album Infinite Paths in 2016, as well as three as a guest. Vocalist Karin Krog, who has been bestowed with fifteen awards, including being knighted in 2005 into the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olavz, continues to compose and perform.
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The Quarantined Jazz Voyager
A simple statement: You know what to do to remain safe and healthy. The fat lady hasn’t begun to warm up because it’s not over.
This week I am featuring an album by an understated vocalist who recorded some two dozen albums. I’ve selected from the library. I Just Dropped By To Say Hello is a studio album by jazz vocalist Johnny Hartman, released on Impulse! Records. It was his second and next-to-last album on the label, after his highly successful collaboration with John Coltrane which produced John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, recorded a few months earlier.
Tracks 1 & 6 were recorded on October 9, 1963 and the balance of the songs were recorded on October 17, 1963 at Van Gelder Studios in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. It was produced by Bob Thiele, The album was mastered at Longwear Plating and released in 1964. Tracks 1~6 were on the A side of the album and 7~11, the B side of the original album.
Track List | 33:09- Charade (from Charade) (Henry Mancini, Johnny Mercer) ~ 2:38
- In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning (Bob Hilliard, David Mann) ~ 2:49
- A Sleepin’ Bee (Harold Arlen, Truman Capote) ~ 2:15
- Don’t You Know I Care (Or Don’t You Care To Know) (Mack David, Duke Ellington) ~ 4:14
- Kiss & Run (Rene Denoncin, William Engvick, Jack Ledru) ~ 3:35
- If I’m Lucky (Eddie DeLange, Josef Myrow) ~ 2:52
- I Just Dropped by to Say Hello (Sid Feller, Rick Ward) ~ 4:10
- Stairway to the Stars (Matty Malneck, Mitchell Parish, Frank Signorelli) ~ 3:09
- Our Time (Stanley Glick, Johnny Hartman) ~ 3:00
- Don’t Call It Love (Ronnell Bright) ~ 2:07
- How Sweet It Is to Be in Love (George Cardini, Danny DiMinno) ~ 2:20
- Johnny Hartman ~ vocals
- Illinois Jacquet ~ tenor saxophone
- Kenny Burrell ~ guitar (tracks 2-5, 7-11)
- Jim Hall ~ guitar (tracks 1, 6)
- Hank Jones ~ piano
- Milt Hinton ~ double bass
- Elvin Jones ~ drums
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