Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cecilia Wennerström was born on April 21, 1947 in Stockholm, Sweden. Educated at the music academies in Malmoe and Gothenburg. She was influenced by Archie Shepp, Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Elvin Jones, Jack DeJohnette, and Charlie Haden. She took part in a workshop led by David Murray and has allied herself with the music since the Eighties.
From 1979-91 she was the leader of Salamander, a jazz group that toured a lot in Sweden and Europe on festivals and clubs. Salamander made its debut 1981 at the Women’s Jazz Festival in Kansas City, Missouri.
In 1990 she started working with the talented singer and voice art performer Marie Selander in several creative and exciting projects, like for instance Maries composition “Blåst-Tuuli-Wind” that was performed in Kallio-Kuninkala Festival, Finland in 1996. She would go on to tour many times between 1997 to 1999. During the decade she was a member of the all nordic women big band April Light Orchestra
Cecilia is a member of Wennerstrom Larsson Explicity with her husband Sven Larsson. They released their first CD Tussilago in 2011, and she is in the octet LARS 8 which plays compositions by Lars Gullin and other Swedish jazz icons.
Saxophonist, composer and arranger Cecilia Wennerström has won several awards over the three decades and continues to perform, record and compose.
More Posts: arranger,bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Burton Franklin Bales was born on April 20, 1916 in Stevensville, Montana and began to play piano at age twelve. By the 1930s he was in California playing in hotels and nightclubs. He played regularly in San Francisco, California in the 1940s, with Lu Watters’s Yerba Buena Jazz Band until he was drafted in 1943 and only recorded with that group on one brief session with Bunk Johnson.
After he was discharged for myopia he led his own band from 1943 to 1946 before taking an extended residency at San Francisco’s 1018 Club. He played with Turk Murphy (1949–50), Bob Scobey, and Marty Marsala, then played mostly solo between 1954 and 1966 where one of his regular gigs was at Pier 23.
He recorded extensively for Good Time Jazz, Arhoolie, ABC-Paramount, and Euphonic. Stride pianist Burt Bales transitioned on October 26, 1989, in San Francisco.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Czesław Kazimierz Bartkowski was born April 19, 1943 in Łódź, Poland and has been dealing with music since the age of 6. A percussion class graduate of the Secondary Music School in Wrocław, he made his official debut in 1960 as a drummer for Jerzy Pakulski ‘s Far Quartet.
In 1963, he met Zbigniew Namysłowski and became a musician in his band Zbigniew Namysłowski Quartet. He also played with other well-known jazz groups, e.g. with Czesław Niemen’s Niemen Enigmatic or Michał Urbaniak’s Group, and in trios with various musicians. He has also collaborated with the Polish Radio Jazz Studio and Sławomir Kulpowicz’s Mainstream and InFormation bands .
In addition, he participated in the recording of such singers as Ewa Bem, Urszula Dudziak and Stanisław Sojka, and such foreign musicians as: Freddie Hubbard, Clark Terry, Joe Newman, Art Farmer, Ben Webster, and the Polish band Novi Singers.
Not only has he performed in Poland, but abroad in India, USA, New Zealand, Australia and numerous European countries. In the winter of 1976, he took part in the jazz workshop Radost ’76 in Mąchocice, Poland near Kielce, which was immortalized in the documentary titled We’re Playing Standard!.
In 1993 he became a lecturer at the Secondary School of Music. Fryderyk Chopin in Warsaw, Poland and the Warsaw Jazz Studio. Drummer and pedagogue Czesław Bartkowski continues his endeavors in music.
More Posts: bandleader,drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gérard Badini was born April 16, 1931 in Paris, France to an opera singing father. He began playing professionally in the early 1950s, playing clarinet in New Orleans jazz-style ensembles with Michel Attenoux, Jimmy Archey, Lil Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Bill Coleman, and Peanuts Holland.
In 1955, he joined Claude Bolling’s ensemble and then joined him on a worldwide tour as members of Jack Diéval’s orchestra. He switched principally to tenor sax beginning in 1958, continuing to work with Roger Guérin and Geo Daly in the late 1950s. In the 1960s he worked with Alice Babs, Duke Ellington, Jean-Claude Naude, Cat Anderson, Paul Gonsalves, Jef Gilson, and François Guin.
He founded his own group, Swing Machine, in 1973, working in this group with Bobby Durham, Raymond Fol, Michel Gaudry, Helen Humes, Sonny Payne, and Sam Woodyard. From 1977 to 1979, Badini lived in New York City, performing with Roy Eldridge, Major Holley, Oliver Jackson, Dick Katz, Clark Terry, Gerald Wiggins, and Reggie Workman.
In 1984, he formed a new big-band ensemble, Super Swing Machine, which he led and played piano in through the late 1990s. Known as Mr. Swing, bandleader, composer, reedist, and pianist Gérard Badini continues to .
More Posts: bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano,saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Milton Suggs was born on April 15th in Chicago, Illinois as a third generation musician. While growing up in Atlanta, Georgia he was continually exposed to music of varying styles, especially with his church choir at the age of seven. He recognized music as a gift from a young age; it was later that he would accept it as a calling. While in elementary and middle school, he gravitated toward the upright bass and later played the alto saxophone and drums, however, it was not until after high school that he committed to the pursuit of music as his life’s work.
Returning to Chicago, he began studying piano with the legendary Willie Pickens, while also honing his craft as a vocalist and performer. In 2012 Milton moved to New York City where he immediately took to performing throughout the city, branching out internationally as a performer and educator.
His voice and approach to music are a reflection not only of his direct lineage, but of the many great voices in Black American Music and culture from the past century and beyond. Firmly rooted in the blues Milton sports a rich baritone with the breadth and power reminiscent of Joe Williams, Donny Hathaway, and Nat King Cole.
Downbeat Magazine’s annual critc’s poll has been repeatedly voted a top 10 rising star male vocalist. Sugg’s fixture in jazz is cemented having worked with artists and bands such as the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Orrin Evans, Wycliffe Gordon, Ulysses Owens, and Marquis Hill among others.
Vocalist Milton Suggs has produced four albums to date and is continually developing new projects with new ensembles.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal