Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Blieden Wolff was born July 31, 1952 in Victorville, California and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. At age nine, his family moved to Berkeley, California where he continued his study of classical piano that began at age eight, before playing drums at age 12. While attending Berkeley High School he began playing piano with the University of California Jazz Ensembles. After graduating from high school, Wolff attended the University of California, Berkeley before enrolling at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Leaving college in 1972 Michael started his music career by joining Cal Tjader’s band, followed by Cannonball Adderley’s band three years later. By 1977, he formed the band Answering Service with saxophonist Alex Foster.
Wolff has worked with among others Warren Zevon, The Thad Jones/ Mel Lewis Orchestra, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, Jean-Luc Ponty, Children On The Corner and Terri Lyne Carrington. He has composed and played original music, and served as host for the Riverside Shakespeare Company production of The Mandrake in New York City. In 1978, singer Nancy Wilson chose Michael as her musical director, and in 1989, after being Wilson’s opening act, when Arsenio Hall was given his own talk show, he was chosen to serve as its bandleader and musical director.
In 1995, he released Jumpstart featuring Christian McBride and Tony Williams and in 1997 the trio released 2AM. Wolff was the leader of the jazz band Impure Thoughts which features Indian tabla player Badal Roy, drummer Mike Clark, percussionist Frank Colón and electric bassist John B. Williams.
He has written music for the films Who’s The Man?, The Tic Code and Made Up, as well as writing for and performing in other films. Michael has co-starred in The Naked Brothers Band on Nickelodeon, and was the co-executive producer and music supervisor, along with his wife, Polly Draper.
As an educator he is on the faculty at The New School For Jazz And Contemporary Music. He has been honored as a Steinway Artist and obtained a Broadcast Music, Inc. award. In between his teaching duties pianist, composer, producer Michael Wolff continues to compose, record and perform with his jazz-funk band Wolff & Clark Expedition, consisting of Wolff and Clark as band leaders, Steve Wilson and Lenny Pickett as saxophonists, and James Genus as the bassist.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Art Van Damme was born on April 9, 1920 in Norway, Michigan. He began playing the accordion at age nine and started classical study when his family moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1934. By 1941 he joined Ben Bernie’s band as an accordionist and adapted Benny Goodman’s music to the instrument.
From 1945 to 1960 Art worked for NBC, performing on The Dinah Shore Show, Tonight, The Dave Garroway Show and other radio and TV shows with Garroway. He recorded 130 episodes of the 15-minute The Art Van Damme Show for NBC Radio.
Van Damme toured Europe and was popular with jazz audiences in Japan, regularly winning the domestic Down Beat Reader’s Poll for his instrument. Over the course of his career he recorded and released four-dozen albums for Capitol, Columbia, Harmony, BASF, Pausa, Finlandia, MPS record labels.
Retiring to Roseville, California, he continued to perform almost to the end of his life. Ill with pneumonia for several weeks, accordionist Art Van Damme passed away on February 15, 2010 at the age of 89.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Costa was born in Arnold, Pennsylvania on January 17, 1922. He learned to play accordion at age 7 and was reading music three years later. He was encouraged by his high school music teacher, Frank Oliver, to learn the piano after discovering he had perfect pitch. Costa graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with degrees in music and education.
After college Johnny began working the same day as the house pianist for a Pittsburgh radio station and television station providing piano and organ music for many programs, eventually teaming with Fred Rogers to arrange and perform the music heard on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for which he served as musical director until his death. He insisted on not playing “baby” music, believing children understood good music and each day, his trio, Carl McVicker Jr. on bass and Bobby Rawsthorne on percussion played live in the studio for the taping.
Costa’s debut recording was The Amazing Johnny Costa, on the Savoy label. He gave up his lucrative career and international recognition to stay near family and friends, resigning as musical director of the Mike Douglas Show to perform only in western Pennsylvania for the remainder of his life. Costa appeared along with guitarist Joe Negri on the 1954 Ken Griffin TV series 67 Melody Lane performing After You’ve Gone and Little Brown Jug, with the latter being accompanied by Ken Griffin at the organ.
Pianist Johnny Costa, given the title “The White Tatum” by jazz legend Art Tatum, passed away of anemia on October 11, 1996, at age 74 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Much of the music heard on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood continued to be his and the show’s closing continued to list Costa as its Musical Director.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Shu was born Edward Shulman on March18, 1918 in New York City and learned violin and guitar as a child before picking up the saxophone as a teenager. He began his professional career in 1935 in Brooklyn and for the seven years leading up to his service in the U.S. Army, he performed in vaudeville and night clubs as a ventriloquist and played harmonica with the Cappy Barra harmonica Band.
While serving in the Army from 1942 to 1945 with Stan Harper, the two were assigned to a special unit to entertain the troops. He also played in various bans including with Maurice Evans in the Pacific. After the war and through the 1950s Eddie performed with Tadd Dameron, George Shearing, Johnny Bothwell, Buddy Rich, Les Elgart, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnet, Chubby Jackson, and Gene Krupa.
By the 1960s Shu moved to Florida, playing locally as well as with the Louis Armstrong All-Stars, Lionel Hampton and Gene Krupa once again. He was a member of the vocal jazz group Rare Silk in 1980. During this period, he performed with this group in and around Boulder, Colorado and also performed a 6-week Department of Defense tour. He would record his final date on the Island Jazz Label “Shu-Swings” With The Joe Delaney Trio, playing tenor and alto saxophones, clarinet, trumpet and also revisit’s his 1954 78 single “Ruby” on chromatic harmonica.
Eddie Shu died on July 4, 1986 in St. Petersburg, Florida while living in Tampa. The swing and jazz multi-instrumentalist also had a high proficiency on the accordion and was a popular comedic ventriloquist.
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Hermeto Pascoal was born an albino on June 22, 1936 in Lagoa da Canoa, Alagoas, Brazil at a time when there was no electricity. He learned the accordion from his father and practiced for hours as his condition of birth did not allow him to work the fields.
Hermeto’s career began in 1964 with appearances on several Brazilian recordings alongside relatively unknown groups that included Edu Lobo, Elis Regina and Cesar Camargo Mariano, establishing widely influential new directions in post-bossa Brazilian jazz.
By 1966 he was playing in the Sambrasa Trio with Airto Moriera and Humberto Clayber releasing one album Em Som Maior. Then he and Airto joined Trio Novo and in 1967 renamed the group Quarteto Novo and released an album that launched the careers of Pascoal and Moreira. Pascoal would then go on to join the multi-faceted group Brazilian Octopus.
Pascoal initially caught the international public’s attention with an appearance on Miles Davis’s 1971 album Live-Evil, which featured him on three pieces he composed. Later collaborations involved fellow Brazilian musicians Airto and Flora Purim. From the late 1970s onward he has mostly led his own groups, that have included bassist Itibere Zwarg, pianist Jvino Santos-Neto and percussionists Nene, Pernambuco and Zabele.
Known as o Bruxo (the Sorcerer), Hermeto often makes music with unconventional objects such as teapots, children’s toys, and animals, as well as keyboards, button accordion, melodica, saxophone, guitar, flute, voice, various brass and folkloric instruments. Folk music from rural Brazil is another important influence in his work.
Between 1996 and 1997, Pascoal worked on a book project called the Calendário do Som, that contains a song for every day of the year, including 29 February, so that everyone would have a song for his or her birthday. He continues to perform, record and tour.
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