Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Corky Hale was born Merrilyn Hecht on July 3, 1936 in Freeport, Illinois. She learned piano, harp, flute, and cello by the time she was in her teens. She went on to study at the Chicago Music Conservatory and then at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.
By age 16 she had enrolled in Stephens College, a school for young ladies, for her last year of high school. After graduation she decided to move to Hollywood, California to be a musician but her father had other plans, sending her to nearby University of Wisconsin–Madison. After a year she dropped out, intent on moving to Hollywood but again a compromise with her parents led her to UCLA.
During the 1950s, she became a studio musician in Hollywood, playing harp on albums by Chet Baker, June Christy, Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O’Day, and Frank Sinatra. She worked as a vocalist with Freddy Martin at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles, California. Jerry Gray invited her to perform with his band in Las Vegas, Nevada where she played piano for Billie Holiday and accompanied her on tour.
As a solo act, she recorded the album Corky Hale Plays George Gershwin and Vernon Duke with Buddy Collette, Howard Roberts, and Chico Hamilton. The late Sixties saw her accompany Tony Bennett on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and sang a song by herself.
She has worked with Liberace, Barbra Streisand, Elkie Brooks, Harry James, Peggy Lee, James Brown, Spike Jones, George Michael, Roberta Flack, Les McCann, Herbie Mann, Nina Simone and Björk, to name a few. Hale has also produced plays, including Give ‘Em Hell, Harry, starring Jason Alexander and Lullaby of Broadway, a profile of the lyricist Al Dubin. She has appeared at Vibrato, Catalina Bar & Grill, The White House, and the Kennedy Center.
At the University of Wisconsin, Hale was one of the few white students to join the NAACP. She was a birth control teacher at Planned Parenthood in New York and is on the National Advisory Board of NARAL and on the board of WRRAP. She is an American Film Institute associate and is the founder of Angel Harvest, an organization which redistributes unused food from restaurants, hotels, and events to hungry and needy people in Los Angeles.
Harpist, pianist, flutist, and vocalist Corky Hale, who recorded four albums as a leader and has been a theater producer, political activist, restaurateur, and is the owner of the Corky Hale Women’s Clothing Store in Los Angeles.
More Posts: bandleader,flute,harp,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Barbara Montgomery ws born in San Francisco, California on June 30, 1948 and during her teen years lived in Vietnam in the early to mid Sixties because her father’s work as an electrical engineer took them there. In the late 1960s she moved to her adopted home of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and during this period is when she started singing.
In the early to mid-’70s, Montgomery’s day gig was The Mike Douglas Show, for which she performed a variety of duties including makeup artist, camera person, and stage manager. When the popular television program moved from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, California she chose to stay and ultimately went on tour with pop/folk singer Harry Chapin later in the decade, helping with lighting and doing some background vocals. Becoming a full time mother in 1979, she took a break from music for several years.
Since 1986, she has served as musical director for fitness expert Richard Simmons. Between the demands of working for Simmons and raising a child, Barbara had little time for jazz singing in the 1980s. But she returned to club gigs in 1992 and acquired a small following playing the Philadelphia jazz circuit, where she has been joined by such notables as guitarist Jimmy Bruno and pianists Sid Simmons, Barry Sames, and Dennis Fortune.
Montgomery recruited former Chick Corea drummer Dave Weckl and co-producer/guitarist Michael Sembello for her self-titled debut album in 1996. Two years later she released her sophomore LP, Ask Me Now and her third Dakini Land followed after three more years, in tribute to the work of Chick Corea. This release won her much praise and put her on the scene as a vocalist to follow. That reputation was helped by Little Sunflower, the following year’s record of standards.
Vocalist Barbara Montgomery, who was influenced by Chris Connor, Julie London, and June Christy, continues to perform and record.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal
Three Wishes
Girl talk always ensued when Pannonica and Carmen McRae were together and when she wanted to know what her friend would say asked her what her three wishes would be and she told her:
- “I wish that we had more people that appreciated good American music.”
- “I wish my father were alive – it’s in the wrong order! That should come first.”
- “And the other one… I hope that I’ll know when I’ve had it.”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
More Posts: baroness,history,instrumental,jazz,music,pannonica,three,vocal,wishes
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Maria Jeanette Lindström was born on May 29, 1971 in Stockholm, Sweden and grew up in Östersund and Ås in the Jämtland region of Sweden. She made her recording debut for Caprice Records with Another Country in 1995, which earned her the Jazz in Sweden prize. Two more albums followed for the same label.
In 2003 Jeanette began a collaboration with the Bonnier Amigo Music Group on the album Walk. The album and its sequel, In the Middle of This Riddle, were warmly received by audiences and critics in Sweden and abroad. She recorded a side project album Whistling Away the Dark with Palle Danielsson, Bobo Stenson, Jonas Östholm, and Magnus Öström.
In 2007 the song Leaf, from In the Middle of This Riddle, was remixed by King Britt, a DJ and record producer from Philadelphia, and a track from the album was chosen for Volume 7 of the compilation series Saint-Germain-des-Prés Café. Her album Attitude & Orbit Control was released in 2009 and she received a Swedish Grammis at the awards ceremony the following year.
She has worked with pianist Steve Dobrogosz and the group ONCE with bassist Anders Jormin. She has appeared as guest soloist in small groups, big bands, and chamber and symphony orchestras.
Vocalist, composer and lyricist Jeanette Lindström continues to tour worldwide and explore the endless realms of jazz.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Alf was born Alfredo José da Silva on May 19, 1929 in Vila Isabel, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and began playing piano at age 9. His father died when he was 3 and was raised by his mother, who worked as a maid to raise him. He attended Colégio Pedro II, receiving support from his mother’s employers who had appreciation for music. He was enrolled at the IBEU, Instituto Brasil-Estados Unidos, and it was there that he received his first formal musical training, studying classical piano with instructor Geni Bálsamo.
Influenced by Nat King Cole and George Sheaing, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Brazilian born Dick Fame, he eventually gained membership into the Sinatra~Farney Fan Club, a performers collective. Alf’s membership allowed him regular access to a piano as well as a group of musically sympathetic peers with which to play and experiment. They would finally get the payless opportunity to play in a few well known venues.
By 1950 he was pursuing a professional musical career and received his first professional break in 1952 when he was hired as the pianist at the newly inaugurated Cantina do César, owned by the popular radio host César de Alencar. With free musical reign. Johnny would receive frequent visits from pianist João Donato, vocalist Dolores Duran, and guitarist/vocalist João Gilberto who would sit in on the way to their gigs.
He would begin to combine Samba-cançãoes and foxtrots with American jazz styles. He would go on to record his first two albums, however, the recordings garnered no more than a pittance of recognition for Alf at the time, but would later in the early Sixties be hailed as the progenitors of the Bossa Nova style.
He continued to find nightly work in the Rio clubs and work with musical companions João Gilberto, João Donato, and the young pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim, all following him from venue to venue provided they could afford the cover fee. By 1954 he was performing regularly at the Hotel Plaza nightclub. Due to its haunted reputation Johnny was able to play his own compositions plus hold early evening jam sessions and these improvisatory collaborations that the harmonic and rhythmic structures eventually blossomed into the style now known as Bossa Nova.
Moving to Sao Paulo in 1955 he became the house pianist at a new club, Baiúca and formed a short-lived duo with double-bassist Sabá. Unfortunately the group only established a moderate following before Baiúca was closed down for health-code violations. In 1961 he declined the invitation to play at Carnegie Hall’s historic Bossa Nova Festival because he didn’t like the connotation bossa nova brought with it. That decision sent him towards obscurity and very little was heard from Alf, although he infrequently produce albums throughout the 60s and early 70s. He would continue to collaborate, record and perform to earn a living and eventually landed a position at a local conservatory of music.
Pianist, vocalist, composer and educator Johnny Alf, who is widely considered the Father of Bossa Nova, transitioned from complications caused by prostate cancer on March 4, 2010 in Santo Andre, just outside São Paulo, Brazil. This was his home for the last fifty years of his life. He left no immediate survivors.
More Posts: bandleader,club,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano,vocal