Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jutta Hipp was born on February 4, 1925 in Leipzig, Germany. She first studied painting in Germany, but later played jazz during the war and she indicated jazz was important to her during that period. After the war she moved to West Germany due to the Soviet Union working with Hans Zoller and leading a quintet.
In 1954 Jutta played with Attila Zoller where critic Leonard Feather was so impressed with her work that soon after she moved to New York City. She drew some criticism initially from critics who felt she was too similar to her sponsor Horace Silver. In 1956 she played the Newport Jazz Festival and cut a studio album with Zoot Sims that is considered possibly her best.
Hipp went on to work in New York based trios determined to be accepted as an equal amongst her male counterparts, but felt intense nervousness and the anxiety led to her abandoning jazz in 1958. From then on she made her living primarily as a seamstress and returned to her first interest of painting and her portraits of various jazz musicians became popular with musicians.
Although she maintained some contact with musicians like Lee Konitz, she cut herself off from the music industry to the point that by 2000 Blue Note did not know where to send her royalty checks. Jazz pianist Jutta Hipp, who primarily played in the bebop and cool jazz genres during her short musical career, gained new interest after her passing in Queens on April 7, 2003 as a woman instrumentalist in the New York Jazz scene.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bob Cooper was born on December 6, 1925 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began to study the clarinet in high school and the following year he began working on the tenor saxophone. By 1945 he was joining Stan Kenton’s outfit when he was just 20, and as the new tenor saxophone player played alongside vocalist June Christy on “Tampico” that was to be a Kenton million-selling record. He would marry Christy two years later in Washington, DC.
Coop, as he was affectionately known, stayed with Kenton until he broke up the band in 1951. A naturally swinging jazz musician, Cooper and some other ex- Kenton men were hired to play at the Lighthouse Cafe in Los Angeles by the bassist Howard Rumsey. The Lighthouse became one of the most famous jazz clubs in the world, and the band, Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All Stars made history.
With a steady job he could work from home and he expanded his study of the oboe and English horn. While at the Lighthouse he made many momentous recordings, unique amongst them oboe and flute with Bud Shank, and composing a 12-tone octet for woodwind. Bob would go on to lead record sessions as part of a series of long-playing albums under “Kenton Presents” for Capitol Records.
His writing and playing on the album and its successor, “Shifting Winds” in 1955, were seminal in the creation of what was to become known as West Coast jazz. Imaginative writing and a well lubricated polish characterized the session and Cooper’s singing and stomping tenor style on his arrangement of “Strike Up The Band” boosted the record sales considerably.
Cooper would go on to tour Europe, South Africa and Japan with Christy, work as a studio musician in Hollywood, further develop his writing and compose film scores, join Kenton’s huge Neophonic Orchestra and have his composition ‘Solo For Orchestra’ premiered at one of its concerts. Much in demand for his beloved big-band work, he played regularly in other Los Angeles orchestras led by Shorty Rogers, Terry Gibbs, Bill Holman, Bill Berry, Bob Florence and Frankie Capp / Nat Pierce.
Bob Cooper, the West Coast jazz musician known primarily for playing tenor saxophone was also one of the first to play solos on oboe, passed away on August 5, 1993 in Los Angeles, California. Though maturing into one of the finest but least praised tenor saxophonists, he easily ranked with Stan Getz, Zoot Sims and Al Cohn in his talents. His last studio recording, released the year of his death, was on Karrin Allyson’s album Sweet Home Cookin on which he played tenor saxophone.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jack Sheldon was born November 30, 1931 in Jacksonville, Florida became a professional trumpet player at the age of thirteen. It was during his teen years he moved to Los Angeles and subsequently joined the air force playing in military bands in Texas and California. He first gained recognition as part of the West Coast jazz movement in the 1950s performing and recording with Art Pepper, Gerry Mulligan and Curtis Counce.
Sheldon played the trumpet, sang, performed and was the sidekick and comedic foil on the Merv Griffin show. During the sixties he ventured further into television as an actor on such shows as Dragnet, The Girl With Something Extra, the Cara Williams Show and Run Buddy Run. He was also the voice used for “Conjunction Junction” and “I’m Just A Bill” on Schoolhouse Rock. He voice later appeared on such sitcoms as The Simpsons and Family Guy.
He has played with Jimmy Guiffre, Herb Geller, Mel Torme, Wardell Gray, Helen Humes, Gary Burton, June Christy, Rosemary Clooney and the big bands of Stan Kenton, Bill Berry, Tom Kubis and Benny Goodman.
Jack performed the trumpet solo for the theme song “The Shadow Of Your Smile” on the soundtrack of the 1965 movie, The Sandpiper, appeared in the Oscar-nominated documentary “Let’s Get Lost” about the life of fellow jazz trumpeter Chet Baker, performed a trumpet solo in the Coppola film “One From The Heart”, appeared as an ill-fated trumpeter in Radioland Murders, and is the subject of an award winning feature documentary, “Trying to Get God: The Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon”. The trumpeter continued to be an active performer of the bebop and cool jazz schools until his transition on December 27, 2019.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
French Horn jazz musician and arranger John Graas was born March 14, 1917 in Dubuque, Iowa. Classically trained, partially at Tanglewood Music Center, he soon became interested in jazz and studied ways to bring it together with classical. His earliest effort would be called Third Stream music.
Following the path of dual music loves, between 1941 and 1953 John was a member of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, The Claude Thornhill Orchestra, the Army Air Corps band during WWII, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Tex Beneke Orchestra and the Stan Kenton Orchestra.
Eventually settling in Los Angeles, Graas found work as a studio musician and played with kindred spirits on the innovative side of West Coast jazz including Shorty Rogers, Jimmy Giuffre, Gerry Mulligan, Art Pepper, Buddy Collette and Shelly Manne. All of these musicians were involved in efforts to blend jazz with elements of classical music.
John recorded a few albums under his own name, including French Horn Jazz, Coup de Graas, and Jazzmantics. His “Jazz Chaconne No. 1” was an example of his ambitious attempts to fuse jazz with classical music. It appeared on the 1958 International Premiere in Jazz with his “Jazz Symphony No. 1”, which, despite its title, was far more classical than jazz.
The 1950s held intense activity for Graas, as performer, composer, and arranger. Leading groups under his own name, he appeared in the musical aggregations of Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson, Billy May, Pete Rugolo, Mel Lewis, Henry Mancini and Bobby Darin among others.
John Graas was known primarily as one of the first and best French horn players in jazz. He had a short but busy career on the West Coast, until his career was cut short by his death of a heart attack, at age 45, on April 13, 1962 in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chico Hamilton was born Foreststorn Hamilton on September 20, 1921 in Los Angeles, California and was on a drumming fast track musical education in a band with his schoolmates Charles Mingus, Illinois Jacquet, Ernie Royal, Dexter Gordon, Buddy Collette and Jack Kelso. Subsequent engagements with Lionel Hampton, Slim & Slam, T-Bone Walker, Lester Young, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnet, Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Billie Holiday, Gerry Mulligan and six years with Lena Horne established this young West Coast prodigy as a jazz drummer on the rise, before striking out on his own as a bandleader in 1955.
He recorded his first LP as leader in 1955 on Pacific Jazz with George Duvivier and Howard Roberts and in the same year formed an unusual quintet in L.A. featuring cello, flute, guitar, bass and drums that has been described as one of the last important West Coast jazz bands. The original personnel: Buddy Collette, Jim Hall, Fred Katz and Jim Aton. Hamilton continued to tour using different personnel, from 1957 to 1960, Paul Horn and John Pisano that are featured in the film “Sweet Smell Of Success in 1957 and Jazz On A Summer’s Day with Nate Gershman and Eric Dolphy in 1960. Dolphy was enlisted to record on Hamilton’s first three albums, however by 1961 the group was revamped with Charles Lloyd, Gabor Szabo, George Bohannon and Albert Stinson.
Over the course of his career Chico changed personnel keeping his sound fresh and innovative. Subsequently he recorded for Columbia, Reprise and Impulse, scored for television, commercials and radio. He has worked with countless musicians and vocalists, received the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music Programs Beacons in Jazz Award and was awarded the WLIU-FM Radio Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been given a NEA Jazz Master Fellowship, was confirmed by Congress with the President’s nomination to the Presidents Council on the Arts, received a Living Legend Jazz Award as part of The Kennedy Center Jazz in Our Time Festival, as well as receiving a Doctor of Fine Arts from the New School where he currently teaches. Drummer Chico Hamilton continued to perform and record until his passing on November 25, 2013.
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