Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nina Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon on February 21, 1933 in Tryon, North Carolina, the sixth of eight children. She began playing piano at age three and demonstrating a talent with the instrument, she performed at her local church but her concert debut, a classical recital, was given when she was twelve. With the financial assistance of her mother’s employer, Nina was able to take piano lessons, graduated from high school and studied at Julliard School of Music.
Her ambition to become the first black concert pianist was thwarted by the realities of poverty, racial prejudice and denial for full scholarship at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Philadelphia. So changing direction she began playing in a small club in Philadelphia to fund her continuing musical education to become a classical pianist, and was required to sing. Approached by Bethlehem Records, she recorded her debut album “Little Girl Blue” in which “I Loves You, Porgy” became a smash hit in 1958.
Her original style arose from a fusion of gospel and pop songs with classical music accompanied with her expressive jazz-like singing in characteristic low tenor injecting as much of her classical background to give it more depth and quality.
A vocal civil rights activist, Simone’s music became highly influential in the fight black people faced for equal rights at this time in America and was a source of inspiration and enjoyment for her generation, continuing to be for those that follow.
Nina Simone, singer, songwriter, pianist and arranger widely associated with jazz passed away quietly in her sleep after a long battle with breast cancer on April 21, 2003 in Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhone, France. She recorded over forty albums, mostly between 1958 and 1974 but left a legacy of music that has influenced generations of artists from Cat Stevens and Van Morrison to Talib Kweli and Mos Def to Christina Aguilera, Mary J. Blige and John Legend.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wallace Bishop was born February 17, 1906 in Chicago, Illinois and started on drums as a teenager, studying under Jimmy Bertrand. His first professional gig was with Art Sims and his Creole Roof Orchestra in Milwaukee in 1926. Around this time he also played with Jelly Roll Morton, Bernie Young, Hughie Swift, Richard M. Jones and Tommy Dorsey.
Often addressed as “Bish”, from 1928 to 1930 he played with Erskine Tate followed with the Earl Hines Orchestra from 1931-1937. By the 1940s he was playing with Jimmie Noone, Coleman Hawkins, Don Redman, Phil Moore, Foots Thomas, John Kirby and Sy Oliver among others.
While touring Europe with Buck Clayton in 1949, Wallace elected to remain there, and found work both with noted European jazz musicians and with touring or expatriate Americans, including Bill Coleman, Don Byas, Ben Webster, Kid Ory, Milt Buckner, Buddy Tate and T-Bone Walker. Bishop recorded only two pieces as a bandleader in 1950, with a trio, but he continued to record regularly into the 1970s.
Wallace Bishop, a subtle and supportive jazz drummer who was one of the finest drummers of the swing era, passed away on May 2, 1986 in Hilversum, Holland.
From Broadway To 52nd Street
Hello Dolly opened at the St. James Theatre on January 16, 1964 with music composed by Jerry Herman. The show starred Carol Channing & David Burns, Eileen Brennan, Sondra Lee and Charles Nelson Reilly, running for a record 2,844 performances landing it amongst the grand collection of blockbuster hits. It was revived in 1967 with Pearl Bailey & Cab Calloway in the lead roles and in 1969, Barbra Streisand & Walter Matthau took the characters to the silver screen. The title song Hello Dolly and It Only Takes A Moment went on to become a part of the jazz catalogue.
The Story: At the turn of the 20th century in New York City, a brassy and intrepid matchmaker Dolly Galagher Levi is in town to find wealthy Horace Vandergelder a wife. However, unbeknownst to Horace, Ms. Levi has her sights set on him herself. While helping two rich pretenders to find love, Dolly finds romance and a husband for herself in this spoof on love and marriage.
Broadway History: Broadway, previously the home to jazz influenced choreographers like Cole, Fosse, and Robbins, saw a part of its nature change to reflect the mood of the country. While there were still blockbuster musicals of the old type – like My Fair Lady, Hello Dolly, Mame – a new generation of musicals reflected the changes in American society, and dance. Hair was a depiction of the rebellious nature of the hippie movement. And Fosse, that champion of syncopated, tap and minstrel based movement, absorbed the new 60s feel of dance with his hit musical Sweet Charity. In this show, Fosse based much of his movement on the social dances of the 1960s, while injecting his own unique brand of style and angular movement and jutting body parts. The movements of jazz dance had evolved to absorb the blossoming social scene. Broadway was no longer the spawning ground for theatrical jazz dance. It had become a pastiche of old standard styles and movements, and an incubator for a new form of jazz dance.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herbert Lee “Peanuts” Holland was born on February 9, 1910 in Norfolk, Virginia. Holland learned to play trumpet at the Jenkins Orphanage. A veteran of the Alphonse Trent territory band with whom he recorded and played with from 1928 to 1933, he also played with Al Sears, the Jeters-Pillars Orchestra, Willie Bryant Jimmie Lunceford and Lil Armstrong’s band.
In 1938 Peanuts led his own very successful band prior to moving to New York City the following year. There he joined the big bands of Coleman Hawkins and Fletcher Henderson. Through the first half of the Forties he was part of Charlie Barnet’s band and in 1946 with Don Redman toured Europe.
Holland elected to stay in Europe living in Paris and Stockholm and performing with his own small combo. He amassed a catalog of 46 recordings for European labels between 1946 and 1960 regularly working with such jazz names as Mezz Mezzrow, Don Byas, Billy Taylor and Claude Bolling.
Jazz trumpeter Peanuts Holland best known for his contributions to swing jazz, passed away on February 7, 1979 in Stockholm, Sweden, just two days shy of his 69th birthday.
From Broadway To 52nd Street
Funny Girl opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on March 26, 1964 and entered into the fraternity of blockbuster musicals with 1,348 performances. Jule Styne & Robert Merrill composed the music and from the score came the classic tune People, that became a hit long before it premiered on Broadway performed by Barbra Streisand. Joining her in the cast of players were Sydney Chaplin, Jean Stapleton and Lainie Kazan.
The Story: The early years of Ziegfield Follies star Fanny Brice in which Streisand recreates her Broadway triumph. She reminisces about her life as she wanders back to the days of Keeney’s Music hall, her eventual success and the two men in her life. There’s Flo Ziegfeld, who makes her a star and Nicky Arnstein, a gambler, who she marries. Her career flourishes as Nicky’s gambling and prison sentence destroy her marriage. She sings, roller-skates, cracks jokes, loves & marries a gambler, and tugs at your heart in a tour-de-force performance)
Jazz History: The Sixties was the most tumultuous decade in the history of America and the changes were reflected in jazz. Many musicians were falling under the modal-jazz spell of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, and the free-jazz influence of saxophonist Ornette Coleman; John Coltrane performs in concert as a member of Miles Davis’ group for the last time, riots break out at the Newport Jazz Festival and Max Roach begins to record his Freedom Now! Suite. The country saw John F. Kennedy elected as the youngest President in U.S. history, we lived the Cuban missile crisis, student sit-ins and segregation protests at restaurants, and the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Dave Brubeck lost $40,000 in bookings from a month-long tour of U.S. southern states because he refused to drop African-American bassist Eugene Wright from his group.
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