Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Andrzej Trzaskowski was born on March 23, 1933 in Kraków, Poland. He began playing piano at age four and founded his first jazz band, Rhythm Quartet. He attended Jan III Sobieski High School, passed his final exams cum laude, and eventually was admitted to Jagiellonian University where he earned his masters degree with his thesis being on Charlie Parker. Prior to his admittance he earned his living by playing in Kraków, Łódź and Zakopane night clubs.
By 1956 he was performing at jazz festivals and being recognized as the best jazz pianist by a Przekrój poll. From 1958, he played together with Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski in the band Jazz Believers. The following year Trzaskowski moved permanently to Warsaw, established his own hard bop band, The Wreckers, that drew inspiration from the music of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Horace Silver. In 1960, the Trzaskowski’s Trio accompanied saxophonist Stan Getz, and they recorded together the album Stan Getz & Andrzej Trzaskowski Trio.
At the end of the 1950s he began working with Polish cinema, arranging and recording music for the film Night Train, composed or created soundtracks for films and appeared on the screen, playing piano in Innocent Sorcerers in 1960 and Feliks Falk’s Był jazz in 1981. Andrzej moved to the United States in 1961 with a new configuration of The Wreckers and toured the country.
The Andrzej Trzaskowski Quintet would go on to perform with Don Ellis, Ted Curson, and in 1963 the Quintet gave concerts in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, East Germany and Belgium over the next year. By 1963, he began to move away from bop music towards free jazz.
In the Seventies he performed and recorded at the Polskie Radio Jazz Studio, and became the head of Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra Studio S-1. From 1992 he lectured at the Jazz Department of the State Music School of Warsaw and during the last years of his life he composed almost exclusively for cinema and television. In 1995, he was awarded the Cross of Merit for his artistic career.
Pianist, composer and musicologist Andrzej Trzaskowski, who from the mid-1950s onward was regarded as an authority on syncopated music, died in Warsaw on September 16, 1998, aged 65.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lawrence Joseph Elgart was born on March 20, 1922 in New London, Connecticut and grew up in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. His mother was a concert pianist and his father also played piano, though not professionally. With his brother Les they attended Pompton Lakes High School.
Both brothers began playing in jazz ensembles in their teens, and young Larry played with jazz musicians such as Charlie Spivak, Woody Herman, Red Norvo, Freddie Slack and Tommy Dorsey. In the mid-1940s, Les and Larry started up their own ensemble, hiring Nelson Riddle, Bill Finegan and Ralph Flanagan to arrange tunes for them. Their ensemble was not successful, and after a few years, they scuttled the band and sold the arrangements they had commissioned to Tommy Dorsey. Both returned to sideman positions in various orchestras.
In 1953, Larry met Charles Albertine and recorded two of his experimental compositions, Impressions of Outer Space and Music for Barefoot Ballerinas. The recordings were not commercially successful but became collector items for fans of avant-garde jazz. With Albertine they put together an ensemble and using precise microphone placements produced what came to be known as the Elgart Sound. Proved to be very commercially successful, throughout the 1950s they enjoyed a run of successful albums and singles on the Columbia label.
Their initial LP, Sophisticated Swing, released in late 1953, was credited to The Les Elgart Orchestra, because, according to Larry, Les was more interested than his brother in fronting the band. In 1954, the Elgarts left their permanent mark on music history in recording Albertine’s Bandstand Boogie, for the legendary television show American Bandstand. In 1955, the band became The Les and Larry Elgart Orchestra, but the brothers split in 1959, each subsequently releasing his own series of albums.
Larry signed with RCA Victor and his 1959 album New Sounds At the Roosevelt was nominated for a Grammy. From 1960 to 1962, he released music on MGM Records. The brothers reunited in 1963 and recorded several more albums until 1967 they again went their separate ways.
In 1981 he departed from the Elgart Sound for jazz funk and fusion genres, producing Flight of the Condor for the RCA Victor. His biggest exposure came in 1982, with the success of Hooked on Swing. The instrumental was a medley of swing jazz hits In the Mood, Cherokee, Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree, American Patrol, Sing, Sing, Sing, Don’t Be That Way, Little Brown Jug, Opus #1, “ake the A Train, Zing Went the Strings of My Heart and A String of Pearls.
Alto saxophonist and bandleader Larry Elgart, who was a resident of Longboat Key, Florida died on August 29, 2017 at a hospice center in Sarasota, Florida at the age of 95.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Samuel Koontz Donahue was born on March 18, 1918 in Detroit, Michigan and put together his first band when he was only 15 years old. He played in the bands of Gene Krupa, Harry James, and Benny Goodman. During World War II, he took over the US Navy band of Artie Shaw. After the war, he assembled and led a group that recorded extensively for Capitol Records.
He went on to create a new band enlisting trumpeters Harry Gozzard, Doc Severinsen, Wayne Herdell, arranger Leo Reisman, vocalists Frances Wayne, Jo Stafford and where Frank Sinatra Jr. spent time learning how to sing before it was dissolved in 1951. Then he re-enlisted in the Navy to serve in the Korean War.
His compositions included Quiet and Roll ‘Em with Gene Krupa, Convoy, LST Party, Scuttlin’, Love Scene, Please Get Us Out, Root Toot, Constellation, Conversation at Lindy’s, Saxa-Boogie, and Saxophone Sam. He went on to record with RCA Victor, Acrobat, Arista record labels.
Saxophonist Sam Donahue died from pancreatic cancer on March 22, 1974.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Maria Viana was born on March 17, 1958, Lisbon, Portugal and was the daughter of famous actor and painter, José Viana; and Brazilian singer and actress Jujú Baptista. A meeting with jazz critic and missionary José Carlos Monteiro Costa introduced her Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Anita O’Day. He also introduced her to the producers of Cascais Jazz Festival, Luis Villas-Boas and Duarte Mendonça who took an immediate interest in her, arranging for rehearsals and jam sessions.
It was not until 1983 that she vigorsly pursued her professional ambitions in Jazz, because previously she had been an actress and a famous popsinger. She became the host-singer at the jazz bar, Drogaria Ideal, where dozens of soloists, amateurs and professionals performed. Within months Maria’s career progressed and revealed unquestionable talent and abilities.
She would go on to do television, festivals, record, and work with Al Grey, Bernardo Sasseti, and David Gausden. She created the Maria Viana Quintet, and toured the country for the National Secretary of Culture. 1995 Produces / features in concert, Around the World, Around the Forties, for the celebration of fifty years since the Second World War ending; an initiative of C.M. de Cascais. Tours Portugal with her quintet, and tours with Bill Goodwin quintet.
Maria’s work is rewarded with a Declaration of Manifest Cultural Value, has guested on several recordings and concerts, and became the Artistic Director for Hotels with Jazz. She produced Jazz na Casa da Guia, and Blues for Cascais, benefiting an ecological organization in Cascais.
Through the years vocalist Maria Viana has been featured on over sixty national television shows and concerts and continues to perform and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jayna Nelson was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on March 16, 1958. She began to study piano as soon as she could reach the keyboard. At age 9 she began to study the flute as well and by age 17 had won both the Baldwin Junior Keyboard award and the l Music Teachers’ National Association Competition.
Graduated from the University of Toronto in Flute Performance, for the next two years, she served on the faculty at University of Toronto teaching chamber music. There she also premiered a work by Mario Davidovsky, and was principal flutist with the Union College Orchestra, the Wesleyan College Orchestra, Opera Omaha Orchestra and Symphony Canada. In 1983 she attended the Banff Centre Jazz program headed by Dave Holland and studied and performed with Anthony Braxton, Don Thompson, Dave Liebman and John Abercrombie.
A move to New York City in 1989 saw her continuing to work in the classical and jazz genres as a performer, producer, composer, arranger and educator. She designed and implemented integrated arts curriculum for New York area schools and summer camps. She has lectured and given seminars, maintained a private teaching studio for over 20 years and has been a flute technician and consultant for Anthony Braxton, Dave Liebman, Joe Giardullo, Jeanne Baxtresser, Joannie Maddon, Carlos Malta, Hermeto Pascoal, and James Moody.
Nelson has recorded and performed with a host of musicians including Karl Berger, Hilliard Green, Howard Johnson, Silvana Malta, Francois Moutin, Hermeto Pascoal, Sirius String Quartet, Petula Clark, Ingrid Jensen, Marty Morrell, Dave Valentine, and numerous others.
Flutist Jayna Nelson continues to perform, tour, compose, record and educate.
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