Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Joe McPhee was born November 3, 1939 in Miami, Florida and grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. He began playing trumpet when he was eight, before learning other instruments. He played in various high school and then military bands before starting his recording career. His first recording came in 1967 when he appeared on the Clifford Thornton album titled Freedom and Unity.

McPhee taught himself saxophone at the age of 32 after experiencing the music of John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and Ornette Coleman. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, he lectured on jazz music at Vassar College.

In 1975, Werner Uehlinger started the Swiss label Hathut Records with the specific intent of showcasing McPhee’s music. In the 1980s, he met Pauline Oliveros, began studying her musical theories, and worked with her Deep Listening Band.

Not having been signed with any major label in his native United States, Joe was better known throughout Europe until the 1990s. His 1996 album As Serious As Your Life, which takes its title from the jazz book by Val Wilmer, has been said to arguably be the finest of his solo recordings, according to the AllMusic review.

He has recorded or performed with Ken Vandermark, Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, Mats Gustafsson, Jeb Bishop, The Thing, Clifton Hyde, Jérôme Bourdellon, Raymond Boni, and Joe Giardullo. Since 1998, he, Dominic Duval, and Jay Rosen have performed and recorded as Trio X. In the 1990s Dominique Eade and McPhee had a jazz ensemble called Naima.

He has written reviews and commentary for Cadence magazine and was awarded the Resounding Vision Award by Nameless Sound. Multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, who plays tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone, trumpet, flugelhorn and valve trombone, is most notable for his free jazz work done from the late 1960s to the present day.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Arlene Bardelle was born on November 2, 1959 and Chicago, Illinois is her home. Growing up Judy Garland was an early influence and Ella Fitzgerald was a major influence on her singing. She also took cues from Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae and Irene Kral.

Having a longtime love affair with the grand old movies of the 30’s and 40’s, Arlene has accumulated a vast repertoire of the great American standard songbook as a result.

Bardelle has performed at the top Chicago venues with her band including the likes of pianists Tom Muellner, John Campbell, Jeremy Kahn and Dennis Luxion, bassist Kelly Sill, Jim Cox, Rob Amster, Larry Kohut, Joe Policastro and Larry Gray, drummers Tim Davis, Phil Gratteau, Bob Rummage and Rusty Jones and multi-instrumenatalist Ira Sullivan, saxophonists Eric Schneider and Ron Dewar, as well as trumpeter Art Davis.

Vocalist Arlene Bardelle released her last album Blue Gardenia in 2010 and  she continues to perform and select the music she is passionate about.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Born in Rock Island, Illinois on November 1, 1912 Franz Jackson got his first lessons on saxophone from Jerome Don Pasquall and later studied at the Chicago Musical College.

Early in his career, Jackson played with Albert Ammons’s band and for much of the 1930s he was based in Chicago, Illinois. He toured with Fletcher Henderson in 1938, then played with Roy Eldridge’s band in New York City. In 1940 he toured with Fats Waller and then went to work with Earl Hines.

Following small band work back in New York City, Franz joined Cootie Williams’s big band, played in Boston, Massachusetts with Frankie Newton, toured with Eldridge, and worked with Wilbur De Paris at Jimmy Ryan’s in the city.

Jackson formed his own band in Chicago in 1957, the Original Jass All Stars and with this group he made overseas tours, including playing in Vietnam. Moving to Dowagiac, Michigan in 1975, he formed another band, the Jazz Entertainers, in 1980.

Saxophonist and clarinetist Franz Jackson, who played in the Chicago jazz school, passed away on May 6, 2008 in Niles, Michigan. The Franz Jackson Collection at the Chicago Jazz Archive contains his papers and oral history material.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jane Jarvis, née Louella Jane Nossette on October 31, 1915 in Vincennes, Indiana, to Charles and Luella Nossette. She was recognized as a piano prodigy at the age of five and she studied under a Vincennes University professor as a young girl.

A family move to Gary, Indiana in 1927 soon put her in place to be hired to play the piano at radio station WJKS in Gary. Orphaned at 13 when her parents perished in a train-auto wreck, she returned to Vincennes, graduating from high school in 1932. She continued her studies at the Chicago Conservatory of Music, the Bush Conservatory of Music, Loyola University Chicago and DePaul University.

By 1954, Jane was on television in Milwaukee, hosting a show called Jivin’ with Jarvis while serving as staff pianist and organist. At the time, the Milwaukee Braves had just relocated from Boston and sought her out to be the organist at Milwaukee County Stadium. Jarvis stayed with the Braves for eight seasons and then went to New York City, where she took a position with Muzak Corporation as a staff composer and arranger. She would rise to become a corporate vice-president and its director of recording and programming.

In 1964, she was hired by the New York Mets to play the organ at Shea Stadium, where she is remembered for playing their theme song, Meet The Mets, which debuted in the 1963 season before every home game, followed by the Jarvis composed Let’s Go Mets, as the team took the field.

Leaving Muzak in 1978, the next year she left the Mets to concentrate on her first musical love, jazz piano. She became a fixture at New York City nightclubs, frequently playing alongside bassist Milt Hinton. She became a founding member of the Statesmen of Jazz, a group of jazz musicians aged 65 and older sponsored by the American Federation of Jazz Societies, and was featured on their 1994 album. She performed with this group across the US as well as in Japan and elsewhere.

Jarvis released several albums of her jazz piano work, including Jane Jarvis Jams, and Atlantic/Pacific. In addition to Hinton, she often collaborated with trombonist Benny Powell and bassist Earl May. As a member of ASCAP, she also had over three hundred compositions to her credit.

Living in Cocoa Beach, Florida, where she was honored in 2003 by the Space Coast Jazz Society for her lifetime achievement. Back in New York City in 2008, she was displaced when a construction crane collapsed, damaging her building on East 50th Street.  Pianist, composer, baseball stadium organist and music industry executive Jane Jarvis spent her final years of her life at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey until she passed away on January 25, 2010.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bobby Jones, born October 30, 1928 in Louisville, Kentucky and played drums as a child, started on clarinet at age 8, and his father encouraged him to explore jazz. He studied with Simeon Bellison, Joe Allard, Charlie Parker, and George Russell.

He played with Ray McKinley from 1949 into the mid-1950s, and then with Hal McIntyre before rejoining McKinley later in the decade. During a stint in the Army he met Nat and Cannonball Adderley as well as Junior Mance. After his discharge he played country music and rock & roll as a studio musician, and did time with Boots Randolph. He worked with Glenn Miller in 1950 before returning to McKinley from 1959 to 1963.

He spent a brief time with Woody Herman and Jack Teagarden in 1963, and after the latter’s death he retired to Louisville and started a local jazz council there in addition to teaching at Kentucky State College. In 1969 he moved to New York City and played with Charles Mingus from 1970 to 1972, touring Europe and Japan with him. He also recorded sessions under his own name in 1972 and 1974.

Late in his life he moved to Germany, where he ceased performing due to emphysema. Saxophonist Bobby Jones passed away on March 6, 1980 in Munich, Germany.

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