Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Neal Hefti was born on October 29, 1922 in Hastings, Nebraska, outside Omaha and was a child of the jazz age. His mother, a music teacher, started piano lessons at the age of 3, becoming well versed in theory and harmony by the time he took up the trumpet at 11. He was already writing arrangements, having taught himself by trial and error in high school and was supplying local dance bands with music well before he graduated. After winning several school prizes, he was to start making a living as a jazz trumpeter in the big bands of Charlie Barnet and Charlie Spivak.
After travelling to California with Spivak to make a film, Hefti stayed on the West Coast, joined Woody Herman’s band as a trumpeter in 1944 and his arranging began to take precedence over his playing. Hefti married, moved back to New York and began writing in every genre and for all sizes of ensembles, becoming adept at using small forces to create a big sound. He arranged for Count Basie both in octet and big band configurations making Neal became one of his principal writers. He went on to write numerous compositions for Harry James in the late 40s and 50s designed to feature the leader’s trumpet and the band’s star drummer Buddy Rich.
Hefti fronted his own band in the Fifties, contributed to some of Frank Sinatra’s most popular albums, including “Frank Sinatra and Swinging Brass”, which he also produced. From the early 1960s onwards, he was increasingly involved in the world of films and television, winning a Grammy award for his Batman theme. Hefti was a brilliant composer and arranger who created the scores for many other television shows and films, notably the two Neil Simon movies The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park. His score for Harlow included the song “Girl Talk” that has become a jazz standard.
However, in 1978 after his wife’s passing, he ceased to write and record new music. Nevertheless, because Basie continued to commission other writers to replicate his style, his effect on big band arranging and on film scores remained extremely influential. Trumpeter, composer, songwriter and arranger Neal Hefti, who contributed to the genres of swing and big band along with scores for the film and television industries, passed away in Toluca Lake, California on October 11, 2008.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Carmell Jones was born in Kansas City, Kansas on July 19, 1936 and was reared by parents how were both teachers. He became interested in music and jazz, by his own admission, at the age of two. Piano lessons began at age five, gave way to the “that’s for sissy’s attitude” and trumpet started at seven.
He spent two years in the army followed by two years at the University of Kansas as a music education and trumpet major. Leaving the Midwest for the Pacific coast, he became a California studio musician in 1960 recording with such artists as Sammy Davis Jr., Bob Hope, and Nelson Riddle. During this chapter in his success story, he was being compared to Clifford Brown and Fats Navarro. Carmell developed a close association with Bud Shank as a member of his quintet. He recorded with many other notables and most importantly he recorded his first album under his own name and contract with Pacific Jazz – “The Remarkable Carmell Jones”.
In ‘64 moving to New York he joined the Horace Silver Quintet recording three albums with Silver including “Song For My Father”. Down Beat Magazine awarded Jones the designation of “New Star Trumpeter” and signing with Prestige, he recorded what he considers his most successful personal album, “Jay Hawk Talk”, with pianist Barry Harris, tenor Jimmy Heath, drummer Roger Humphreys and bassist Teddy Smith. This album received the critics 5 Star Best Album Award.
The next year Carmell left the U.S. for Germany and spent the next fifteen years working with Milo Pavlovic, Herb Geller, Leo Wright and Eugene Cicero, the SFB Big Band and Radio Free Berlin recording 8 hours a day, composing and arranging for radio, TV and film. Upon his return to the States he devoted much of his time building new musicians from the ground up teaching music in his hometown elementary schools.
Carmell Jones, trumpeter, composer, arranger, music publisher, educator and recording artist with over sixty albums to his credit passed away in Kansas City, Kansas on November 7, 1996.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Oliver Edward Nelson was born on June 4, 1932 in St. Louis, Missouri. His brother played sax with Cootie Williams and his sister sang and played piano. He began playing the piano when he was six, the saxophone by eleven and by age 15 he was playing in territory bands around St. Louis. In 1950 he joined Louis Jordan’s big band, playing alto saxophone and arranging.
After military service Nelson returned to Missouri to study music composition and theory at Washington and Lincoln University graduating in 1958. He married, had a son, divorced, moved to New York City, and began playing with Erskine Hawkins and Wild Bill Davis, and arranged for the ApolloTheatre. In 1959 he briefly worked the West coast with Louie Bellson’s big band and played tenor for Quincy Jones.
After six albums as leader between 1959 and 1961 for Prestige with Kenny Dorham, Johnny Hammond Smith, Eric Dolphy, Roy Haynes and others. Oliver’s big break came with his Impulse album The Blues and The Abstract Truth featuring his now classic standard “Stolen Moments”. Propelling him into prominence as a composer and arranger, it opened up opportunities to arrange for Cannonball Adderley, Irene Reid, Sonny Rollins, Billy Taylor, Wes Montgomery, Johnny Hodges and many others.
Moving to Los Angeles in 1967 Nelson spent a great deal of time composing for television shows like Colombo, Ironside, Bionic Woman and films like Death of a Gunfighter and Last Tango In Paris. He produced for Nancy Wilson, James Brown, the Temptations and Diana Ross.
Less well-known is the fact that Nelson composed several symphonic works, and was also deeply involved in jazz education, returning to his alma mater, Washington University, in the summer of 1969 to lead a five-week long clinic that also featured such performers as Phil Woods, Mel Lewis, Thad Jones, Sir Roland Hanna, and Ron Carter.
Oliver Nelson, saxophonist, clarinetist, pianist, arranger and composer died of a heart attack on October 28, 1975, aged 43.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lennie Niehaus was born June 1, 1929 in St. Louis, Missouri. A musical family heralded a concert pianist sister and a father who was an excellent violinist who started his son on the violin at seven, then switched to the bassoon. At 13 he began learning the alto saxophone and clarinet.
Always interested in composing and writing music Lennie studied music in college and in 1946 began playing professionally with Herb Geller, Herbie Steward and Teddy Edwards in 1946. Six months later he joined Stan Kenton, then drafted in 1952 but two years late rejoined Kenton after his discharge.
Leaving Kenton in 1959, Niehaus began composing, moved back to Los Angeles and arranged for the King Sisters, Mel Torme, Dean Martin, and Carol Burnett. Three years later saw him orchestrating for film composer Jerry Fields, a relationship that yielded more than sixty TV shows and films.
He orchestrates his own pieces and never forgets his jazz roots in film, writing jazz and using jazz musicians like Marshall Royal, Bill Perkins, Pete Jolly, Mike Land, and Clint Eastwood. He was the musical director for the Charlie Parker bio-feature, Bird.
After many years of not playing his alto saxophone at all, Niehaus returned to performing, reportedly in top form. He continues to arrange, compose and play alto on the West Coast jazz scene.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Willis Leonard Holman was born on May 21, 1927 in Olive, California. Known to the jazz world as Bill Holman, he has worked primarily in the jazz idiom as a songwriter, conductor, composer, arranger and saxophonist.
Through his acquaintance with composer Gene Roland he was introduced to Stan Kenton and in the early fifties was hired as a tenor sax player. Beyond his sax playing, Holman had the ability to integrate counterpoint and dissonance in subtle yet distinctive ways thus making Kenton’s band swing. He became Kenton’s chief arranger writing much of Kenton’s late 1950s repertoire and continued to write for Kenton, on and off, throughout the 1960s and 70s.
In addition to working for Kenton, Bill provided charts for Woody Herman, Doc Severinsen, Buddy Rich, Terry Gibbs, Count Basie, Gerry Mulligan, The Association, The Fifth Dimension and Natalie Cole among others. In 1975 he formed his own band that continues to perform in the U.S. and worldwide. In 1997 he won a Grammy for his recording Brilliant Corners: The Music of Thelonious Monk. He continues to create his legacy in jazz.