Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Kitty Margolis was born November 7, 1955 in San Mateo, California. As a child she listened to underground radio to hear the sounds of Ramsey Lewis, Beach Boys, John Lee Hooker and Santana, and Tower of Power was a local band playing at her high school dances. She would go to the Fillmore and Winterland and hear Miles Davis, Grateful Dead, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, John McLaughlin, Charles Lloyd to name a few. But an outing with her uncle to the Village Vanguard and it was a Rahsaan Roland Kirk performance that changed her life.

She went on to San Francisco State and studied jazz and recording studio arts and was soon gigging with her teachers John Handy and Hal Stein. Hanging out at Todd Barkan’s Keystone Korner she met all the heavyweights, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner, Betty Carter, Cedar Walton, Freddie Hubbard, Flora Purim, Airto, Horace Silver, Red Garland and many more. She even had the oppoertunity to sing Charlie Parker’s solo on Billie’s Bounce and got thumbs up from her idol Eddie Jefferson. In 1989, she made her well-received debut at the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival.

She released her debut studio album Evolution in 1993 and with guest performers Joe Henderson and Joe Louis Walker made a name for herself in the jazz community. On the heels of this album release Kitty won honor of Talent Deserving Wider Recognition in that year’s Down Beat critics’ poll, which she would repeat in 1995 and 1997. Her sophomore album, 1997’s Straight Up With a Twist, was her most eclectic outing yet, featuring quirky interpretations of standards, plus guest appearances by Roy Hargrove and Charles Brown.

Recording in between continuous performance and touring vocalist and record producer Kitty Margolis has taken time to co-found her own record label Mad Kat with Madeline Eastman. She has subsequently released five albums with a couple of live dates in San Francisco among them.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Roger Kellaway was born November 1, 1939 in Waban, Massachusetts. He matriculated through the New England Conservatory and one of his earliest mentors was piano teacher and director of the summer music camp Encore in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

In 1964 Kellaway was a piano sideman for bandleader-producer Boris Midney’s group The Russian Jazz Quartet’s album Happiness on the ABC/Impulse jazz records label. He has written and played the closing theme, Remembering You for the TV sitcom All In The Family and its spinoff Archie Bunker’s Place.

Roger has composed commissioned works for orchestra and jazz big band as well as for film, television, ballet and stage productions. He has served as band leader and pianist for Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl concerts, been nominated for an Oscar for Best Adaptation Score for the 1976 film A Star Is Born, and a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement for Eddie Daniels’ album Memos From Paradise.

He has played with Grady Tate, Jay Berliner, Igor Berukshtis, George Ricci, Ruby Braff, Chuck Domanico, Emil Richards, Edgar Lustgarten, Joe Pass, Red Mitchell, Gene Bertoncini, Jan Allan and Michael Moore among others. He has more than a dozen albums as a leader, and has arranged for Carmen McRae, Diane Schuur, Liza Minelli, Robben Ford, Gary Lemel, Kenny Burrell, J. J. Johnson, Kai Winding, Herbie Mann, Mark Murphy, Oliver Nelson, Clark Terry, Lalo Schifrin, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Ben Webster and Jimmy Witherspoon. Pianist Roger Kellaway continues to perform, compose, arrange and record.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Gary McFarland was born in Los Angeles, California on October 23, 1933. An influential composer, arranger, vibraphonist and vocalist, he made a name for himself on Verve and Impulse Records during the Sixties, making one of the more significant contributors to orchestral jazz. He attained a small following after working with Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Johnny Hodges, John Lewis, Stan Getz, Bob Brookmeyer and Anita O’Day.

His debut as a leader came in 1961 with the Jazz Version of How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. Gary recorded for Skye, Buddah and Cobblestone Records through the 1960s into the early Seventies. As well as eighteen of his own albums as a leader and arrangements for other musicians such as Lena Horne, Steve Kuhn, Gabor Szabo, John Lewis, Shirley Scott, Zoot Sims and Gary Burton, he composed the scores to the films Eye of the Devil in 1968 and Who Killed Mary What’s ‘Er Name in 1971.

By the end of the 1960s McFarland was moving away from jazz towards an often wistful or melancholy style of instrumental pop, as well as producing the recordings of other artists on his Skye Records label, run in partnership with Szabo and Cal Tjader until its bankruptcy in 1970.

Gary McFarland and Louis Savary wrote the classic song Sack Full Of Dreams that was first released by Grady Tate in 1968. He was considering a move into writing and arranging for film and stage when on November 3, 1971 he was poisoned with methadone in a New York City bar at the tender age of 38. In tribute Bill Evans performed Gary’s Waltz in 1979, shortly before his own death.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Urszula Bogumiła Dudziak was born October 22, 1943 in the Straconka neighborhood of Bielsko-Biata, Poland. She studied piano but began to sing in the late 50s after hearing records by Ella Fitzgerald. Within a few years she was one of the most popular jazz artists in her native country.

With her marriage to Michael Urbaniak in the late 60s they began to tour overseas and in the 70s settled in New York. Dudziak has some problems with language and customarily eschews words in favor of wordless vocalizing that is far more adventurous than scat.  Already gifted with a remarkable five-octave vocal range, she employs electronic devices to extend still further the possibilities of her voice.

She has frequently worked with leading contemporary musicians, including Archie Shepp, Lester Bowie, Jay Clayton, Jeanne Lee, Bobby McFerrin, Norma Winstone, Sting, Michelle Hendricks, Michael Urbaniak, Krzysztof KomedaLaura Newton, Gil Evans and collaborated with fellow Polish jazz vocalist Grazyna Auguscik.

Vocalist Urszula Dudziak has been awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by President Leon Kaczynski, published her autobiography Wyspiewam Wam Wszystko, translated means I’ll Sing Everything For You and she has recorded twenty-two albums and appeared in thirteen films. She continues to perform and tour.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Carol Kidd was born on October 19, 1945 in Glasgow, Scotland and knew from five years old that she was a singer. She first came to prominence in the mid-Seventies as the vocalist for the band led by vibraphone and saxophonist Jimmy Feighan, and while raising three children and running a hotel she sang part-time all over Britain, performing on stage and television.

Kidd recorded her debut album Just For You in 1981 but it was three years before she released her self-titled sophomore project Carol Kidd and a third in 1985 titled All My Tomorrows. Her full-time professional career began in 1990 when Frank Sinatra issued her an invitation to appear live with him at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow, in front of a capacity crowd. British jazz lovers gave rave reviews and Kidd was invited to sing at London’s internationally acclaimed Ronnie Scott’s Club, where Tony Bennett was in the audience. The momentum of her success picked up after that appearance and she was voted the Best Performer at Edinburgh International Jazz.

With four albums already under her belt, in 1990 Carol released her award-winning album, The Night We Called It a Day for Linn Records and was voted Best Jazz Recording at the U.K. Musical Retailer’s Awards. After being named Best Vocalist at the Cannes International Jazz Awards, she subsequently received invitations to appear all over Europe, the Far East and the United States.

For over a decade, jazz singer Carol Kidd has managed to consistently pull in accolades, “Best Awards,” and honors from an arena consisting of all-time greats such as Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan. She has won several awards at the British Jazz Awards and in 1998 she was awarded an MBE or Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her services to jazz.

Jazz vocalist Carol Kidd has performed and recorded a standards album with the Robert Farnon Orchestra, has sixteen albums to date and continues to perform, record and tour all over the world.

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