Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rachel Gould was born Rachel Field on June 25, 1953 in Camden, New Jersey. She studied cello and classical singing at Boston University. Upon moving to Germany in 1975 she established herself as a jazz musician, formed her own quartet and toured Europe. In 1979 she appeared in London, England with Chet Baker and recorded the much acclaimed album All Blues.
In the early 1980s, she performed at numerous European festivals, and worked with groups led by Ack van Rooyen, Lou Blackburn, Ferdinand Povel, Bobby Burgess, Michel Herr, Tom Nicholas, Dieter Reith and Erwin Lehn. In 1983 Gould sang for quite a while in the United States and, in New York City, with Woody Herman, Sal Nistico and Jake Hanna.
Upon her return to Germany, she presented the band Breath & Bones at the Leverkusen Jazz Festival. She continued her work in Germany from 1984 onwards, consisting mainly of teaching as a lecturer at the conservatories in Maastricht, Cologne, Mainz and Hamburg. Then in 1987 she travelled to the Swiss Jazz School.
She went on to work with Joe Haider and Benny Bailey. Gould played with Riccardo Del Fra on the 1989 album A Sip of Your Touch, and with his band on a live album at the 1991 Montreux Jazz Festival.
Since 1991, vocalist Rachel Gould has continued to perform in addition to working as a lecturer in jazz singing at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.
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The Jazz Voyager
The Jazz Voyager is on his way across the pond once again to the City of Lights to a little venue located in the heart of Paris, between the Forum des Halles and the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Sunset/Sunside Jazz Club, which was created in 1982 by Michèle and Jean-Marc Portet.
The restaurant was transformed upon the request of musicians and regulars who patronized, thus the basement with vaulted ceilings and great acoustics made the area perfect for an intimate club. It was the first club to open on rue des Lombards.
This week I’m landing in Paris to hear a new voice from Kansas City called Eboni Fondren. She comes to Sunside as the lead singer of the famous Kansas City Big Band. Because she has often been compared to Nancy Wilson, my all time favorite vocalist, I have to hear her unique sensual voice tinged with gospel and R&B and an innate sense of swing for myself.
Showtimes: 9:30pm ~ 11:00pm
Cover: 20.00 € ~ 30.00 €
Sunset / Sunside is located at 60 Rue des Lombards 75001 Paris, France. For more information contact the venue at https://www.sunset-sunside.com.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Danielle Wertz was born on June 11, 1994 in Washington, D.C. She was a semi-finalist in the 2015 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocal Competition.
Danielle independently released her debut album, Intertwined, in 2017 which ranked #4 on Capital Bop’s list of Best DC Jazz Albums of 2017 and was a finalist in both the Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Vocal Competition and the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Vocal Competition.
After making a cross-country move to California, Wertz quickly became an integral and sought-after musical collaborator and educator in the Bay Area. She has taught workshops and masterclasses at the Berkeley Jazzschool, joined the California Jazz Conservatory faculty, as well as the Sonoma State University faculty.
2022 saw her moving to NYC and being hired by Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA to co-create and co-star in a theatrical concert about the lives and music of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. In 2023 Danielle released her sophomore album, Other Side, as a composer and conceptualist. Reimagining arrangements of the Great American Songbook she paired them with her original compositions.
Vocalist, composer and arranger Danielle Wertz continues to collaborate as a new member of the NYC jazz scene, recording with Remy LeBoeuf, releasing a new album and looking forward to headline her first European tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Louis Aldebert was born on June 8, 1931 in Ismailia, Egypt. He studied both singing and piano after his family moved to Paris, France and became efficient enough on the latter instrument to gig with tenor saxophonist Don Byas in the mid-1950s. Several years later he played with violinist Stephane Grappelli of Hot Club fame.
Having a career as a singer, he worked with the Blue Stars in the mid-’50s. From 1959-1965 he was a member of the Double Six, a kind of experiment in overcrowding via scat singing. Needless to say, this attracted the attention of Jon Hendricks who made use of Aldebert on a 1965 session.
He married singer Monica Dozo, and after feeling a bias as Byas bandmates, she changed her name to Monique Aldebert-Guerrin. She was part of the rotating Double Six recording cast when some members needed to recover from nagging earaches.
Leaving the Double Six, Byas’ group and the French jazz scene in 1967, the couple moved to America. They initially settled in Las Vegas, Nevada before heading West to Los Angeles, California. They had their own group and did freelance studio vocal work in various capacities, one highlight being a feature on a 1979 side by the Crusaders.
Vocalist, pianist and composer Louis Aldebert, who with his wife collaborated as composers of original songs as well as vocal arrangements of various jazz standards, died on October 10, 2014 in Los Angeles.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Horace Kirby Dowell, known professionally as Saxie, was born on May 24, 1904 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Attending the University of North Carolina he met Hal Kemp and joined Kemp’s orchestra as a tenor saxophonist, clarinetist, flutist and vocalist in the fall of 1925.
He composed I Don’t Care, which was recorded by Kemp for Brunswick in 1928. When the band’s style changed in the early 1930s to that of a dance band, Dowell became the group’s comedic vocalist for novelty songs. After Three Little Fishies became a hit in 1939, Dowell was involved in a legal dispute with lyricists Josephine Carringer and Bernice Idins. In 1940 he wrote the song Playmates.
Dowell left Kemp and started a big band in 1940. Drafted during World War II he served as a bandleader aboard an aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Franklin. He went on to record for Brunswick, Sonora, and Victor. Around 1946 he led a naval air station band with 14-year-old Keely Smith as a singer.
>After the war he reunited his orchestra, performing mostly in Chicago, Illinois. In 1949 he became a disc jockey for WGN radio in Chicago, and retired in the late 1950s. He moved to Scottsdale, Arizona and worked as a disc jockey part-time for KTAR in Phoenix during his retirement.
Saxophonist and vocalist Saxie Dowell died on July 22, 1974 in Scottsdale.
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