Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kat Gang was born on August 9, 1980 in Boston, Massachusetts. She developed a passion for jazz at Berklee School of Music in her hometown and while matriculating received the Berklee College of Music Judges’ Choice Award and the Outstanding Vocalist Award. Honing her skills further at New York University, she earned a Bachelor’s degree while majoring in drama and voice.
A singer/songwriter, Kat takes on the traditional standards but is no stranger to interpretations of Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, Arctic Monkeys or Oasis as she works as a duo with jazz guitar or piano. She is also known to work with many of Europe’s leading musicians in big bands, nonets, or as part of an eight piece Ella Fitzgerald tribute.
Currently with her own trio and quartet, vocalist Kat Gang stays in constant demand to perform in theaters, clubs, restaurants and even bateaux on London’s River Thames.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Helga Plankensteiner was born on August 1, 1968 in San Candido, Italy and studied classical saxophone at the Conservatory in Innsbruck under Florian Brambock, then jazz at the Conservatory of Trento. She would go on to study in various jazz workshops with Dick Oatts, Steve Slagle, Bobby Watson, Bob Bonisolo, Heinrich von Kalnein and Sandro Gibellini.
Helga expanded her talents to include vocals in her theater experience of the Threepenny Opera in addition to performing as a saxophonist for several other plays. She has been chosen by Musica Jazz in 2009 as one of the top ten rising talents, won the AMJ Big Band competition, and performed with the Orchestra Laboratorio of Trento with Matthias Ruegg, Bruno Tommaso, Maria Schneider, John Surman and Carla Bley.
She plays with the all-female saxophone quintet Girltalk, the Helga Plankensteiner Walter Civettini Quintet and the Unit Eleven Jazz Orchestra and. She is a permanent member of the Carla Bley Big Band, The Torino Jazz Orchestra and solos with Tom Harrell, Dusko Goykovich, Valery Ponomarev, Francesco Cafiso, Uri Caine, the Dani Felber Big Band and the Italian Sax Ensemble.
In addition, she conducts the ensemble Sweet Alps featuring soloists Gianluigi Trovesi, Florian Brambock, Michel Godard, Gianluca Petrella and Matthias Schriefl. Alto saxophonist Helga Plankensteiner continues to compose, record and perform at festivals worldwide.
Uplift Someone’s World
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Margaret Eleanor Whiting was born in Detroit, Michigan on July 22, 1924 and her father Richard wrote popular hits such as Hooray for Hollywood, Ain’t We Got Fun? and On the Good Ship Lollipop. In 1929 when she was five years old, her family moved to Los Angeles.
In her childhood, Whiting’s singing ability had already been noticed, and at the age of only seven she sang for singer-lyricist Johnny Mercer, with whom her father had collaborated on Too Marvelous for Words. In 1942, Mercer co-founded Capitol Records and signed her to one of Capitol’s first recording contracts.
In the early years of her career Margaret would work with Freddie Slack and His Orchestra, Billy Butterfield’s Orchestra and Paul Weston and His Orchestra. By 1945 she began to record under her own name with songs like All Through The Day, In Love In Vain, Baby It’s Cold Outside and A Tree In The Meadow. She would work with Jimmy Wakely, Johnny Mercer, Bob Hope and Strange Sounding Names. Through to the mid-1950s she recorded for Capitol, but as hits waned she switched to Dot Records, then Verve Records, returned to Capitol in the early 1960s and finally signing with London Records by 1966. Her final solo albums were made for Audiophile in the Eighties and DRG Records in 1991. Her distinguished conductors and musical arrangers through the years included Buddy Bregman, Frank DeVol, Russell Garcia, Johnny Mandel, Billy May, Marty Paich, Nelson Riddle, Pete Rugolo, and Paul Weston.
Whiting would go on to co-star on the 15-minute radio musical programs The Jack Smith Show and Club Fifteen. She was a vocalist on The Eddie Cantor Show, was in the cast of The Philip Morris Follies of 1946 and The Railroad Hour. She was hostess on the Spotlight Revue and a featured singer on the transcribed Barry Wood Show and was casted as a young Sophie Tucker, in the Lux Radio Theater production No Time For Heartaches.
With her sister Barbara they starred as themselves in the CBS sitcom Those Whiting Girls produced by Desilu Productions, and was a regular over the years on tv variety shows The Big Record, The Bob Hope Show, The Colgate Comedy Hour, The David Frost Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The George Jessel Show, The Jonathan Winters Show, The Merv Griffin Show, The Mike Douglas Show, The Nat King Cole Show, The Patti Page Show, The Red Skelton Hour, The Steve Allen Show, The Ford Show Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, among numerous others.
In the 2000s, Whiting was cast in several documentaries about singers and songwriters of her era, including Judy Garland: By Myself, Fever: The Music of Peggy Lee, Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer, Johnny Mercer: The Dream’s on Me, The Andrews Sisters: Queens of the Music Machines and Michael Feinstein’s American Songbook.
Vocalist Margaret Whiting, who made her reputation during the 1940s & 50s, passed away of natural causes on January 10, 2011.
Put A Dose In Your Pocket
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Magni Wentzel was born on June 28, 1945 in Oslo, Norway, the daughter of musicians Odd Wentzel-Larsen and Åse Wentzel. She began her career at the tender age of 6 in 1951 in Totenlaget Barneteater. She trained under opera singers Erna Skaug, Almar Heggen and professor Paul Lohmann in Wiesbaden. She took guitar lessons from 1956 and released her debut jazz album That Old Feeling in 1959.
Instead of attending the first year of the newly established Statens Operahøgskole in Oslo, by 1963 Wentzel took another path, choosing to study classical guitar in Spain, Switzerland and England. She was also taught the art of jazz song under Tete Montoliu.
Strongly influenced by Aretha Franklin, she was a member of the Geir Wentzel Band playing Club 7 in Oslo. Magni collaborated extensively with a series of Oslo based musicians, such as the quartets and quintets including Einar Iversen and Egil Kapstad. Peter Gullin dedicated the album Far, Far Away Where Longing Live to her and later she worked for Opera Mobile, then portrayed the mother in The Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach.
She has performed and recorded with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Roger Kellaway, Halvard Kausland, Ole Jacob Hansen, Carl Morten Iversen, Terje Venaas, Egil Johansen, Åse Wentzel, Art Farmer, Red Mitchell, Mads Vinding and many others.
Vocalist, guitarist and composer Magni Wentzel, the recipient of the Gammleng-prisen in 1988 and the Buddyprisen in 1998, continues to perform, compose and record at the age of 71.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dominique Frances Eade (was born on June 16, 1958 in London, England. The daughter of an American Air Force officer and a Swiss mother, she grew up in a musical household and spent much of her childhood moving within the US and in Europe. She studied piano as a child and decided she was going to be a singer in the second grade. She picked up guitar in her teens, learning folk, pop and jazz songs and writing some of her own.
She played her first gigs in the coffee houses of Stuttgart while there in high school. Later, as an English major at Vassar, Eade sang for a time with a jazz group, Naima, which also included Poughkeepsie native Joe McPhee. Eade transferred briefly to Berklee College of Music, and then finished her degree at New England Conservatory (NEC), where pianist Ran Blake became an important mentor and performing colleague. Staying in Boston after graduation she soon began teaching at NEC.
Dominique was an active performer on the vibrant Boston jazz scene during the 80’s, forming groups with Boston-based artists including Mick Goodrick, Donald Brown and Bill Pierce. She toured the United States and Europe as a clinician and performer and in addition to her own groups, she performed contemporary classical music and was a featured soloist with Boston Musica Viva, Composers in Red Sneakers, NuClassix and jazz big bands Orange Then Blue and the Either/Orchestra.
By 1987 she became the first jazz artist to be accepted into the NEC Artist Diploma program, where she studied for two years with Dave Holland and Stanley Cowell, and in 1989 she became the first jazz performer to be awarded the New England Conservatory’s NEC Artist Diploma. In 1990, Dominique moved to New York City and released her first CD, The Ruby and the Pearl, featuring Alan Dawson and Stanley Cowell. During this time she maintained her teaching position at NEC, and performed in a variety of contexts including soloist roles in two Anthony Braxton operas, duo restaurant performances with Gene Bertoncini, and an adventurous trio with Ben Street and Kenny Wollesen.
She performed with various groups around the East Village with Mark Helias, Peter Leitch, Larry Goldings, John Medeski, Fred Hersch, Kevin Hays, James Genus, Gregory Hutchinson, and Tom Rainey. She recorded her second CD, My Resistance is Low with Bruce Barth, George Mraz, and Lewis Nash.
Prior to returning to Boston in 1996 she recorded two critically acclaimed CDs for RCA Victor, When the Wind Was Cool featuring Benny Golson, Fred Hersch, James Genus, Matt Wilson, and many others, and The Long Way Home with Dave Holland and Victor Lewis, highlighted her arranging and songwriting. She has toured the United States and Europe, then focused on composing, recording and local performances around Boston.
Dominique eventually began to reemerge in New York, first with Ran Blake, then in duos and quartets with Jed Wilson, Ben Street, Matt Wilson and Brad Shepik, all receiving critical recognition. She continues to perform, record and compose, teach at the New England Conservatory and give private lessons to the likes of Luciana Souza, Kate McGarry, Sara Lazarus, Lisa Thorson, Julie Hardy, Patrice Williamson, Kris Adams, David Devoe, Aoife O’Donovan, Roberta Gambarini and many others.
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