Daily Dose Of Jazz..

Jay Clayton was born on October 28, 1941, in Youngstown, Ohio as Judith Colantone and after studying at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio she ventured to New York City and took lessons from Steve Lacy. Together with her husband, percussionist Frank Clayton, she presented Jazz at the Loft in their home around 1967.  Among the featured musicians Sam Rivers, Cecil McBee, Joanne Brackeen, Dave Liebman, Larry Karush, Pete Yellin, Hal Galper, Jeanne Lee, Bob Moses, Junie Booth, John Gilmore, and Jane Getz.

Earning her own reputation as an avant-garde singer, Jay developed her personal wordless vocabulary. Her pioneering vocal explorations placed her at the forefront of the free jazz movement and loft scene in the 1970s, where she counted among the first singers to incorporate poetry and electronics into her improvisations. She performed and recorded with Muhal Richard Abrams, John Fischer’s Interface, Byron Morris’s Unity and for a long time she was a member of the Steve Reich ensemble. She was one of the first singers to record composer John Cage’s vocal music.

Clayton’s own performance dates appear under the heading the Jay Clayton Project, while she titles her work with other esteemed vocalists Different Voices. She co-leads a trio, Outskirts, with drummer Jerry Granelli and saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom. She has more than 40 recordings to her credit, Clayton has appeared alongside Bud Shank, Charlie Haden, Kirk Nurock, Stanley Cowell, Lee Konitz,  Julian Priester, George Cables, Gary Bartz, Gary Peacock, Fred Hersch, Jeanne Lee, Lauren Newton, Urszula Dudziak, and Bobby McFerrin.

As an educator, in 1971 Jay began leading her own workshops, partly together with Michelle Berne and Jeanne Lee. By 1981 onwards she taught at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington for 20 years. In addition to that tenure, she taught for several semesters at New York’s City College, at Graz in Austria, Berlin, Cologne and Munich. She developed the vocal program for the Banff Center in Canada, which she co-taught with fellow vocalist Sheila Jordan. The two are also teaching together at Vermont Jazz Workshop and at Jazz in July at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has taught masterclasses to the Manhattan School of Music and the Peabody Conservatory.

In 2001 her book, Sing Your Story: A Practical Guide for Learning and Teaching the Art of Jazz Singing, was published. She was the first artistic director for the first ever Women in Jazz Festival, served as a consultant for ABC Cable’s Women in Jazz, and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and Chamber Music America. Vocalist Jay Clayton continues to perform, record and tour.

More Posts: vocal

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Magos Herrera was born in Mexico City, Mexico on October 24, 1972 and started her career as a vocalist upon graduating in 1992 from the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles. Following this, she continued her studies under Russian opera teacher Konstantin Jadan, perfecting her vocal technique, and later moved to Boston, for specialized instruction on contemporary improvisation.

She released five albums between 2000 and 2006 while living in Mexico City, then moved to New York City in 2008 and promptly became part of the local scene after a highly successful performance at the New York Winter Jazz Festival. She has recorded and participated in multiple projects including the album Stones World: The Rolling Stones Project II with saxophonist Tim Ries, The Music of Chick Corea with pianist Elio Villafranca and for contemporary composer Paola Prestini for VIA project, among others.

In 2009 Herrera released her album Distancia on the Sunnyside Records label to wide critical acclaim, co-produced by Tim Ries and featuring pianist Aaron Goldberg and guitarist Lionel Loueke. She has worked with John Patitucci, Luis Perdomo, Adam Rogers, Tim Hagans, Rogerio Boccato, and Alex Kautz, Javier Limón, Fito Páez, Eugenia León, Grégoire Maret and Chabuco. She has toured globally at clubs and jazz festivals throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia.

As an educator Magos teaches vocal technique and improvisation at  the Fermatta Music Academy and DIM Music School in Mexico City. She has been a guest professor for master classes and clinics at Berklee College in Boston, Berklee Latino in Colombia, Central College in Pella, Iowa, Miami Dade College, Kula Lumpur Music Academy, Escuela Superior de Música in Mexico City, JazzUV in Xalapa, and held academic residencies in Swarnabhoomy Academy of Music in Tamil Nadu, India, the Carnegie Hall Musical Exchange Program in 2012, and the Langnau Jazz Camp in Switzerland in 2016.

Jazz singer-songwriter, producer and educator Magos Herrera has been nominated and received several awards. Currently based out of New York City, she is continuing to expand her 20-year career that embraces the Spanish, English, and Portuguese languages.

Give A Gift Of Jazz – Share

More Posts: vocal

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Adelaide Louise Hall was born on October 20. 1901 in Brooklyn, New York and began her stage career in 1921 on Broadway in the chorus line of the Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake hit musical Shuffle Along. She went onto appear in a number of similar black musical shows including Runnin’ Wild on Broadway in 1923, in which she sang James P. Johnson’s hit song Old-Fashioned Love.

In 1925, Hall toured Europe with the Chocolate Kiddies revue that included songs written by Duke Ellington, backed by the Sam Wooding Orchestra. The following year appeared in the short-lived Broadway musical My Magnolia after which she appeared in Tan Town Topics with songs written by Fats Waller and had a short road tour on the TOBA circuit. She then starred in Desires of 1927, with a score written by Andy Razaf and J. C. Johnson, that toured America for a year between 1926 and 1927.

In 1927 Adelaide recorded her wordless vocals on Creole Love Call, The Blues I Love To Sing and Chicago Stomp Down with Duke Ellington  and his Orchestra. The recordings were worldwide hits and catapulted both careers into the mainstream. She and Duke Ellington went on to record I Must Have That Man and Baby. She starred on Broadway with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Tim Moore and Aida Ward in Blackbirds of 1928. The show became the most successful all-black show ever staged on Broadway at that time and made Hall and Bojangles into household names. It was this musical that not only secured her success at home and abroad in Europe when the production was taken in 1929 to Paris, France, where it ran for four months at the Moulin Rouge. In Europe she rivaled Josephine Baker for popularity on the European stage.

With Blackbirds′ music score written by Jimmy McHugh and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, Hall’s performances of the songs I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby, Diga Diga Do, Bandanna Babies and I Must Have That Man made them into household hits, and they continued to be audience favourites throughout her long career. Through the 1930s she would perform on Broadway again with Bojangles in Brown Buddies, toured worldwide, discovered and hired blind pianist Art Tatum and recorded with him Strange as it Seems, I’ll Never Be The Same, This Time it’s Love and You Gave Me Everything but Love. She would continue to tour America, Canada and South America before turning to Europe once again and settling in Paris, France. Her husband, Bert Hicks, opened a nightclub for her called La Grosse Pomme where she entertained often. The Quintette du Hot Club de France featuring Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli were one of the house bands at the club.

Leaving Paris for London, England in 1938, she lived out the rest of her days there, becoming one of the most popular singers of her time. Hall recorded I Can’t Give You Anything But Love and That Old Feeling at London’s Abbey Road Studios with Fats Waller. Throughout her career she made more than 70 records for Decca, had her own BBC Radio series Wrapped in Velvet, making her the first black artist to have a long-term contract with the BBC, became one of the highest paid entertainers in the United Kingdom and appeared on the stage, in films, and in nightclubs, of which she owned her own in New York, London and Paris.

Adelaide would go on to record with Humphrey Lyttleton, and perform alongside Lena Horne, Spike Milligan, John Betjeman, Ethel Waters, Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Fela Sowande, Rudy Vallee, Jools Holland, Tony Bennett, Phyllis Hyman, Jacques Loussier, Alan Downey, Wayne Sleep, Ronnie Scott, Stan Tracey, the New Swingle Singers, Elisabeth Welch, Gregory Hines, Bobby Short, Honi Coles, Edith Wilson, Nell Carter, John W. Bubbles, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Stephane Grappelli, Mel Torme, Zoot Sims, Carmen McRae and Chick Corea, among a list too vast to mention.

She pioneered scat singing along with Louis Armstrong and is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s first jazz singers, holds the accolade of being the 20th century’s most enduring female recording artist, her recording career having spanned eight decades, In the 100 Great Records of the 1920s she is at number 26 with Duke Ellington’s Orchestra, singing The Blues I Love To Sing, and her recording of the Dorothy Fields/Jimmy McHugh tune I Can’t give You Anything But Love represent 1928 in the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) celebration of its centenary timeline of songs chosen to represent the past hundred years.

Singer, dancer, actress and nightclub chanteuse Adelaide Hall, who entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2003 as the world’s most enduring recording artist having released material over eight consecutive decades, passed away on November 7, 1993, aged 92, at London’s Charing Cross Hospital.

Sponsored By

More Posts: vocal

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ismael Rivera also known as Maelo was born on October 5, 1931 in the Santurce sector of San Juan, Puerto Rico. The oldest of five children he was always singing and banging on cans with sticks. He received his primary education at the Pedro G. Goyco Elementary School and then went on to learn carpentry at a vocational school. He also shined shoes to help his family financially and when he was 16 years old, he worked as a carpenter. During his free time he would hang around the corner with his best friend Rafael Cortijo and sing songs. In 1948, he and Cortijo joined El Conjunto Monterrey, where he played the conga and Cortijo the bongos, but was unable to work full-time as a musician because of his work as a carpenter.

In 1952, Ismael joined the U.S. Army but was quickly discharged, because he didn’t speak English. He returned to Puerto Rico and went to work as the  lead singer with Orquesta Panamericana, recording and scoring his first hits with the songs El charlatán, Ya yo sé, La vieja en camisa and La sazón de Abuela. However, an incident between Rivera and another band member, over a girl, led to his departure from the popular band. In 1954, he joined Cortijo’s Combo and recorded songs, such as, El Negro Bembón, El Yayo, María Teresa  and Yo Soy del Campo, which soon became hits in the Latin community in America

With Cortijo’s Combo continuing to gain fame, so did Rivera’s reputation as a lead singer. Rivera was named sonero mayor by Cuban producer Ángel Maceda, owner of club Bronx Casino in New York and played the band went to New York City and played in the famed Palladium Ballroom.

By 1959, Rivera, together with Cortijo and his Combo were casted in the Harry Belafonte movie titled Calipso. He toured with the combo that included Rafael Ithier and Roberto Roena, throughout Europe, Central and South America. Arrested for drug possession after a trip to Panama with the Cortijo combo, he took the fall to spare the other band members. After his release he formed his own band called Ismael Rivera and His Cachimbos, becoming quite successful for eight years. He reunited with Cortijo and recorded Juntos otra vez. Eventually going solo, he did well with the recordings of El Sonero Mayor, Volare and scored his greatest hit with Las Caras Lindas (de mi gente negra).

1974 saw Ismael in a recording in concert at Carnegie Hall and four years later was in Paris, France opening for Bob Marley in 1978. The death of his childhood friend, Rafael Cortijo in 1982, affected him emotionally to the point that he couldn’t sing in the tribute, and was actively involved in the creation of a historical museum which depicts the contributions made to the cultural life of Puerto Rico by the black Puerto Ricans.

Composer and vocalist Ismael Rivera passed away on May 13, 1987 in the arms of his mother Margarita, from a heart attack. He recorded eleven albums as a leader and has had some thirty compilations released. Posthumously in 2008 Puerto Rico’s governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá signed a proclaim stating that every anniversary of Rivera’s birth will be celebrated as Día Conmemorativo del Natalicio de Ismael Rivera, the Puerto Rican Senate declared October 5 as Ismael Rivera Day, has a plaza named for him Plaza de los Salseros that has a statue and plaque dedicated to him.

Take A Dose On The Road

More Posts: vocal

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Patti Cathcart was born on October 4, 1949 in San Francisco, California. She is one half of the jazz duo Tuck & Patti. She grew up singing and was performing with The Brides of Funkenstein when she met guitarist Tuck Andress at an audition in Las Vegas in 1980.

After relocating to Patti’s hometown of San Francisco, the two worked as members of a Bay Area rock-cover band. Needing to make some real money they learn some songs as a duo, put together a band, started performing as a duo, and catching on. Their fame as Tuck & Patti around the Bay Area grew and finding themselves declining recording offers to focus on polishing their unique sound.

In 1987 they signed with Windham Hill Records, recorded their breakout album Tears of Joy and received airplay on both jazz and pop radio stations around the U.S. They recorded several more albums for the label before signing with Epic Records for an album in 1995. They followed this with more releases on the Windham Hill and 33rd Street Records labels. Ultimately they established their own label, T&P Records, which licenses their recordings for worldwide distribution.

Married since 1983, Patti and her husband Tuck Andress, who hails from Tulsa, Oklahoma, plays a 1953 Gibson L-5 guitar because it was the model played by his idol Wes Montgomery. The duo continues to record and perform at concerts and festivals around the world. In between gigs the two are educators, holding vocal and guitar workshops and teach privately. 

Sponsored By

More Posts: vocal