Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James J. Snidero was born in Redwood City, California on May 29, 1958 and grew up in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Camp Springs, Maryland. He then attended the University of North Texas, performed in the One O’clock Lab band and then moved to New York City in 1981. Once there he recorded and toured with Jack McDuff from 1981 to 1982, then joined Toshiko Akiyoshi’s Jazz Orchestra in 1983 after she moved to New York.
Snidero was a working member of Frank Sinatra’s band from 1991 to 1995 and Eddie Palmieri’s band beginning 1994. He performed with the Frank Wess Sextet, the Mingus Big Band, and Walt Weiskopf. He has worked as a sideman for David Hazeltine, David Murray, Mike LeDonne, Joe Magnarelli, Maria Schneider, Mel Lewis, Jim Rotondi, Brian Lynch, Conrad Herwig, and Tom Varner.
He recorded and performed with his own quintet and over time had various musicians including trumpeters Brian Lynch, Tom Harrell and Tim Hagans; pianists Benny Green and Mulgrew Miller; double bassists Peter Washington and Dennis Irwin; and the drummers Billy Hart and Louis Hayes, Gene Jackson, and Adam Nussbaum.
As an educator Jim has held professor positions at the New School University, Indiana University and Princeton University. He has written five series of jazz etude books and produced courses in jazz improvisation and performance for The Jazz Conception Company.
Saxophonist Jim Snidero Snidero, who has recorded 27 albums as a leader and thirty-three as a sideman, continues to perform throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan.
More Posts: bandleader,educator,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edo Castro was born on May 24, 1957 in San Francisco, California to mother Aida Saberi, the only child from her first marriage. He attended Grattan Elementary, Herbert Hoover Junior High and J. Eugene McAteer High School, all in the city by the bay. Growing up during the tumultuous 1960s, where from an early age he was exposed to a myriad of musical styles, listening not only to rock and roll, R&B, but classical music, folk and jazz.
The first jazz albums came to him via his uncle, a recording engineer pioneer Reice Hamel. From these, Edo was first exposed to and enthralled by the sounds of Vince Guaraldi, Hugh Masekela, Ahmad Jamal, Bill Evans, Ramsey Lewis and Paul Desmond. He initially studied piano and violin, but when a friend suggested he try the electric bass, he knew he had found his instrument.
Castro attended Humboldt State University in northern California. Nearly three years later he bought an acoustic bass and auditioned for the music department at San Jose State University. So inspired by the musicians he met and their sound, he moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1982, and studied at DePaul University for a year, then completed his studies at the American Conservatory of Music, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1987 with a focus on jazz studies and electric bass.
Returning to the Bay Area in 1990, Edo has performed and recorded with among others David Amram, Roy Haynes, Fareed Haque, David Onderdonk, Ed Thigpen, Johnny Griffin, Joel Harrison, Deborah Winters, Jill Knight, Bethany Pickens, Armando Peraza, Caren Armstrong, Percy Howard, Mark Egan, Yves Carbonne, and David Friesen.
Bassist Edo Castro has performed across Europe, Asia and South America. He continues to perform and record.
More Posts: bandleader,bass,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Artie Shaw was born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky on May 23, 1910 in New York City to Austrian and Russian Jewish parents Sarah and Harold Arshawsky, a dressmaker and photographer. He grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, where his natural introversion was deepened by local antisemitism. Buying a saxophone by working in a grocery store and began learning the saxophone at 13. At 16, he switched to the clarinet and left home to tour with a band.
From 1925 to 1936 Shaw performed with many bands and orchestras, working in Cleveland, Ohio and establishing a lasting reputation as music director and arranger for an orchestra led by violinist Austin Wylie. Exposed to symphonic music while playing with Irving Aaronson’s Commanders, which he later incorporated in his arrangements. In 1932 he joined the Roger Wolfe Kahn Orchestra and made several recordings. Three years later he gained attention with his “Interlude in B-flat” at a swing concert at the Imperial Theater in New York. During the swing era, his big bands had numerous popular hits with Begin the Beguine, Stardust and others.
In addition to hiring Buddy Rich, he signed Billie Holiday as his band’s vocalist in 1938, becoming the first white band leader to hire a full-time black female singer to tour the segregated South. However, after recording Any Old Time, Holiday left the band due to hostility from Southern audiences, as well as from music company executives who wanted a more mainstream singer.
He fashioned a smaller band within the orchestra in 1940, naming it Artie Shaw and the Gramercy Five after his home telephone exchange. Over time members of the band were pianist Johnny Guarnieri, electric guitarist Al Hendrickson, trumpeter Roy Eldridge succeeded Billy Butterfield, Oran “Hot Lips” Page, Max Kaminsky, Georgie Auld, Dave Tough, Jack Jenney, and Ray Conniff. In 1940, the original Gramercy Five cut eight sides, then Shaw dissolved the band in early 1941.
The long series of musical groups Shaw subsequently formed included Lena Horne, Helen Forrest, Mel Tormé, Buddy Rich, Dave Tough, Barney Kessel, Jimmy Raney, Tal Farlow, Dodo Marmarosa, and Ray Conniff.
Throughout his career, Shaw formed big bands for his radio broadcasts, made several musical shorts for Vitaphone and Paramount Pictures, and played with Navy personnel during World War II. Active until 1954, his music was used in several films, he had numerous talk show appearances, came out of retirement in 1983 and put together one last band.
Clarinetist Artie Shaw, who received a Lifetime Grammy Award in 2004, died on December 30, 2004, aged 94.
More Posts: bandleader,clarinet,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ferenc Nemeth was born on May 20, 1976 in Keszthely, Hungary and at 14 left home to study classical percussion at the Richter János Conservatory in Győr, Hungary. Following this he attended the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and then received a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. He later enrolled in the graduate program at the New England Conservatory. In 2001 he became the first Hungarian to be accepted into the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, studying there until 2003.
He has played with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Christian McBride, John Patitucci, Terence Blanchard, John Abercrombie, Joshua Redman, Dave Samuels, Mark Turner, Ron McClure, Chris Cheek, Aaron Goldberg, Eli Degibri, and Illayaraja.
He is a founding member of Gilfema with Lionel Loueke and Massimo Biolcati. Since the group’s debut album as a leader he has released six more albums, and his sophomore release Night Songs being nominated for the 7th Annual Independent Music Awards for Jazz Album of the Year.
Based in New York City, drummer and composer Ferenc Nemeth, who has also recorded as a sideman, continues to perform, record and compose.
More Posts: bandleader,composer,drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jan Leder was born May 19, 1958 and raised in New York City and pursued her love for improvisation after twelve years of studying classical music. She studied for three years with pianist Lennie Tristano and then continued her jazz studies with pianist Connie Crothers for over ten years. A self-styled course of study in jazz history at SUNY Purchase led to her compilation of the first comprehensive history of women in jazz titled Women in Jazz: A Discography of Instrumentalists 1913-1968.
In February 1997 Monad Records released her first recording, Passage To Freedom, which was recorded live at the Five Spot in New York City. In 1999 Jan recorded Nonchalant, a collection of mostly original melodies.
Ms. Leder leads her own jazz ensembles in the New York City area, appearing at nightclubs, festivals, cultural functions and other public and private engagements. Her repertoire includes standard bebop, swing, blues and bossa novas as well as her own unique jazz compositions and those of her musical colleagues, including drummer/big band leader Art Lillard, with whom Jan collaborated on numerous compositions, mostly writing lyrics to his catchy songs.
From 1987 to 2012 Jan was a member of the flute section in Art Lillard’s Heavenly Band. Jan was also a member of a group of jazz flutists called the NY Jazz Flutet that included Dotti Anita Taylor, Elise Wood, Michele Smith and Chip Shelton along with drummer Art Lillard.
She entertains at healthcare facilities, teaches workshops and seminars, plays at fundraisers and jazz festivals. She has toured around the world, and composed pop, r&b, theater and film music. Leder has worked with the 9th Street Stompers, a popular local jazz band, playing their unique variety of jazz styles in parades, street fairs and other venues.
Flutist Jan Leder, who is a writer and publisher member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and a member of the National Association of Music Publishers, continues to perform, compose and teach jazz improvisation.
More Posts: bandleader,flute,history,instrumental,jazz,music