Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gene Shaw was born Clarence Eugene Shaw in Detroit, Michigan on June 16, 1926. He played the piano and trombone as a child and didn’t begin playing the trumpet sometime around 1946 after hearing Dizzy Gillespie’s Hot House while recovering from injuries sustained in the army.
He attended the Detroit Institute of Music, and studied with pianist Barry Harris. In his hometown he played with Lester Young, Wardell Gray, and Lucky Thompson. His move to New York City in 1956 had him playing with Charles Mingus’s Jazz Workshop a year later and among his credits with the bassist are Tijuana Moods, East Coasting, where he used a Harmon mute, although he was initially wary of using it, given its association with the sound of Miles Davis.
Later that same year over a fight with Mingus, he destroyed his instrument and quit music. Not returning to playing until 1962, Gene formed his own ensemble. He retired again two years later, then returned to music once more in 1968.
As a leader he recorded three albums between 1962 and 1964 on the Argo label titled Breakthrough, Debut in Blues and Carnival Sketches. As a sideman with Mingus he also recorded three albums, East Coasting and A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry on the Bethlehem label in 1957, and Tijuana Moods in 1962 on RCA.
Trumpeter Gene Shaw, who was an active member of the Chicago Gurdjieff society and a student of Fourth Way psychology, including its music, died in Los Angeles on August 17, 1973.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Darius Brubeck was born David Darius Brubeck on June 14, 1947 in San Francisco, California into a musical family. His father Dave and mother Iola Brubeck named after his father’s teacher and mentor, French composer Darius Milhaud. Moving from Oakland, California they settled in Wilton, Connecticut in 1960 and ultimately graduated from Wilton High School in 1965.
Darius majored in ethnomusicology and the history of religion at Wesleyan University, graduating cum laude in 1969. While there he composed and performed the music for the film Christopher’s Movie Matinee. During the next decade and into the early 1980s he would go on to lead two groups, The Darius Brubeck Ensemble and Gathering Forces, cross America as a sideman with Don McLean and record two albums with guitarist Larry Coryell. He toured the world and recorded as a member of Two Generations of Brubeck and The New Brubeck Quartet, both led by his father.
In 1983, Brubeck and his South African wife, Catherine, moved to Durban, South Africa, joined the music Department at the University of Natal and initiated the first degree course in Jazz Studies offered by an African university. In 1989, he was appointed as Professor of Jazz Studies and Director of the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music, where he taught until 2005.
A move to London, England in 2005, Darius taught courses at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Brunel University. Appointed as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Jazz Studies in 2007, he taught at Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul, turkey and subsequently at the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in 2010.
His years in South Africa saw him forming five student/staff bands, record the album The Jazzanians: We Have Waited Too Long to be released in 2024, form the band Afro Cool Conceptwhich toured for nearly 15 years and recorded a live album in New Orleans.
As a composer Brubeck has written music for all types of ensemble, large and small. He has arranged and written an original composition for his father’s 80th birthday, and the Rockefeller Foundation awarded him a residency as a composer at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center in Italy.
Pianist, author, composer, arranger and educator Darius Brubeck, who has had a documentary film made by Michiel ten Kleij titled Playing the Changes: Tracking Darius Brubeck, currently leads The Darius Brubeck Quartet.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frank Fontaine was born June 12, in Los Angeles, California into a musical family, absorbing a great deal from his father Frank Sr., who is a ten year veteran of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. By age 16, he was performing with Harry Sweets Edison, Billy Higgins and Kenny Burrell. He has received his Bachelor degree from Seton Hall University, a Masters of Education from Boston University and is currently a Doctoral Candidate.
He released his debut album as a leader titled Wisdom Rising on the LifeForce Jazz Records label with John Beasley, Robert Hurst, and Marvin “Smitty” Smith. A saxophonist of choice for an array of artists, Frank is equally in demand as a flutist and arranger, while leading his organ trio or quartet.
The New York jazz scene has seen Fontaine become a favorite among elite jazz instrumentalists Francisco Mela, Ari Hoenig, George Garzone, Larry Harlow and Chembo Corniel. His collaboration with Chembo produced a Grammy Award Nomination for the album, Things I Wanted To Do. He has recorded as a sideman with Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight, Celia Cruz, Bobby Matos, Anita Baker, Gym Class Heroes, Charanga Cubana and Tyler Perry’s Soundtracks.
Saxophonist Frank Fontaine, who is an educator teaching music as well as leading band and orchestra at McAuliffe Middle School, continues to cultivate his musical prowess at The Manhattan School of Music, a conservatory second to none, in a city second to none.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jean Oh was born in Seoul, Korea on June 11, 1978 and began playing the guitar at the age of 13. He began studying music formally at Seoul Jazz Academy, and soon began playing gigs. After several years of playing with many different bands around town, he realized he needed different experiences which led him to Paris, France.
In Paris he studied jazz with Misja Fitzerald Michel, Sylvain Beof, Bernard Maury, Joe Malcolm, Emil Spanyl and Frederic Favarel. He performed in various clubs and after graduating from the music conservatory Jean moved to New York City to attend New York University where he obtained a master’s degree. During his two years at NYU, he studied with Ralph Alessi, George Garzone, John Scofield, and Gil Goldstein. He also attended the School of Improvisation Music, studying with Steve Coleman, Mark Helias, Uri Caine, David Binney, and Bily Hart.
Working his way into the New York Jazz scene he played different gigs that became his springboard to his professional career. He has played on several commercially released recordings and toured throughout the United States, Canada, Japan, South America, Philippine, Russia and has shared stages with George Garzone, John Lockwood, Jeff Hirshfield, Billy Drummond, Ralph Alessi, Ron McClure, Mike Richmond.
Guitarist Jean Oh released his debut album Invisible Worth featuring George Garzone, John Lockwood, and Jeff Hirshfield. He is pushing himself to have his voice defined in music, both as a sideman and as a band leader.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John William Stevens was born on June 10, 1940 in Brentford, Middlesex, England, the son of a tap dancer. He listened to jazz as a child but was more interested in drawing and painting, through which he expressed himself throughout his life. He studied at the Ealing Art College and then started work in a design studio, but left at 19 to join the Royal Air Force. It was here that he studied the drums at its School of Music in Uxbridge, England and where he met Trevor Watts and Paul Rutherford, two musicians who became close collaborators.
In the mid-1960s, Stevens began to play in London jazz groups with Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott, and in 1965 he led a quartet. He moved away from mainstream jazz when he heard free jazz from the U.S. by musicians like Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler. By 1966, he formed the Spontaneous Music Ensemble (SME) with Watts and Rutherford. The band moved into the Little Theatre Club at Garrick Yard, St Martin’s Lane, London, England. In 1967, they released their debut album, Challenge, however, his interest turned to quiet music, non-Western music and improvisation.
Stevens would go on to play with free improvisors Derek Bailey, Peter Kowald, Julie Tippetts and Robert Calvert, until the mid-1970s when the SME settled down to regulars Stevens, Nigel Coombes on violin, and Roger Smith on guitar. During the same period he consistently played with guitarist and songwriter John Martyn as part of a trio that included bassist Danny Thompson, recording Martyn’s 1976 Live at Leeds.
The Eighties saw John becoming an educator involved with Community Music, an organisation through which he took his form of music making to youth clubs, mental health institutions, the Lewisham Academy of Music, and other unusual places. Notes taken during these sessions were later turned into a book for the Open University called Search and Reflect.
Drummer John Stevens died at the age of 54 from a heart attack on September 13, 1994.
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