Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jesse Powell was born in Smithville, Bastrop County, Texas, on February 27, 1924. He received his formal music training before he began his professional career at age eighteen, when he toured with fellow Texan, Oran “Hot Lips” Page beginning at the age of eighteen during 1942–43.
During the war years he went on to play with Louis Armstrong in 1943–44, then with the Luis Russell Orchestra in 1944–45. He replaced fellow Texas tenorist Illinois Jacquet in the Count Basie Band for a tour of California in 1946. At this time Powell also worked with blues singers Champion Jack Dupree and Brownie McGhee.
1947 saw Jesse joining Curly Russell’s band, and in 1948 he formed his own band in New York City. That same year he performed with trumpeter Howard McGhee at the first international jazz festival in Paris. In 1949–50, he was a member of the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band, with whom he recorded a solo on Tally Ho. In 1953 he once again formed another jump-rhythm band, and in 1964 a Powell quintet played at Birdland in New York City.
Tenor saxophonist Jesse Powell died on October 19, 1982 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Thomas Penn Newsom was born in Portsmouth, Virginia on February 25, 1929 and earned degrees from the Norfolk Division of the College of William & Mary, the Peabody Conservatory of Music, and Columbia University. He went on to serve in the United States Air Force during the Korean War where he played in the band.
He toured with the Benny Goodman Orchestra and performed with Vincent Lopez in New York. Newsom joined the Tonight Show Band in 1962, and left it when Carson retired in 1992. In addition to Carson’s orchestra, he performed with the orchestra for The Merv Griffin Show.
Well known within the music industry as an arranger as well as a performer, he arranged for groups as varied as the Tonight Show ensemble and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, and musicians Skitch Henderson, Woody Herman, Kenny Rogers, Charlie Byrd, John Denver, and opera star Beverly Sills.
He won two Emmy Awards as a music director, one in 1982 with Night of 100 Stars, and in 1986 for the broadcast of the 40th Annual Tony Awards. He also recorded six albums as a bandleader and another four as a sideman.
On April 28, 2007 saxophonist Tommy Newsom, who was nicknamed Mr. Excitement by Johnny Carson and was the band’s substitute director, died of bladder and liver cancer at his home in Portsmouth. He was 78 years old.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jan Verwey was born on February 24, 1936 in Vlissingen, The Netherlands. A self-taught harpist, he created his own style on this characteristic instrument. He is the only one who plays octaves on the harmonica.
Very much a bebopper and his unique self-developed instrumental technique, he boldly brings about his desired harmony and melody to his solo’s. During his first visit to the United States in 1990 he was immediately rushed into the recording studio by producer Bill Goodwin, Phil Woods drummer, to record The Dutch Connection which led to a performance at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands.
In 1991 he was back in the States being the only European invited to play at the festival Celebration Of The Arts in Watergap, as a soloist. He also gave a duo concert with pianist Hod O’brien who recorded with Chet Baker at The Dearhead Inn. In 2007 he was playing at festivals in Medicine Hat and Calgary in Canada. He has toured Europe, playing in Copenhagen, Denmark as well as Frankfurt, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Rhede and Darmstadt in Germany.
He has a nomination for the Pall Mall Export Award, was a guest soloist with the Metropole Orchestra, in addition to guest performances on television- and radio shows. As a composer he has written for television series, documentaries and commercials.
He has recorded eight albums as a leader with his last being his 2019 The Music of Horace Silver. Harmonica player Jan Verwey, who plays bebop and cool jazz, continues to perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Maxwell Collie was born on February 21, 1931 in Melbourne, Australia. In 1946 he first heard professional jazz listening to Graham Bell’s lunchtime concerts at The New Theatre Melbourne. By 17 he was playing with a local band and shortly after leading it.
When he received the invitation by cable to take the trombone chair in the Melbourne New Orleans Jazz Band that was on tour in Europe, Max accepted and in 1962 arrived in England. He toured Europe until the band went back to Australia a year later, however, he decided to stay and joined the London City Stompers, becoming leader after a year. In 1966 he formed Max Collie’s Rhythm Aces and that band, notwithstanding the collapse of the UK jazz scene flourished.
The group released their first record in 1971 and in 1975 they won the World Championship of Jazz in traditional jazz against fourteen competing North American jazz bands in Indianapolis, Indiana.
He would go on to tour Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Japan and create a theater show. This show, Max Collie’s New Orleans Mardi Gras, which included Ken Colyer and Cy Laurie, turned out to be the most successful jazz show in British jazz history. Trombonist Max Collie died on January 6, 2018, at the age of 86.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gianni Mimmo was born on February 13, 1957 in Pavia, Italy. He developed a unique blend of abstract lyricism and contemporary flavours and has built an international reputation for his unique treatment of musical timbre and his exploration of the advanced techniques on the soprano saxophone. His peculiar work is mainly focused on the relationship among distant artistic declinations and his style is based on a deep knowledge of the instrument and on a sound consciousness which is the constitutional element of his voice.
As composer he often works with graphic scores where elements coming from different musical languages find a new form where fragments and more unbound ideas ask for a fresher interpretation and performing responsibility.
His pantheon is pretty crowded and includes several names coming from art, music and philosophy: painters like Jackson Pollock, John McLaughlin, Toti Scialoja, Mario Sironi, Felice Casorati; adventurous jazz musicians like Steve Lacy, Roscoe Mitchell, contemporary souls like John Cage, Robert Ashely, Earle Brown, philosophers and beautiful minds like Giorgio Agamben and John Berger, writers like Yasunari Kawabata and Herman Melville, poets like Marina Cvetaeva and Wisława Szymborska.
He has numerous current projects and extensively tours in Europe and USA invited by international festivals and venues. In addition, he runs the indie label Amirani Records. Saxophonist and composer Gianni Mimmo continues to perform, compose and record.
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