Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Mike Elliott was born on May 18, 1940 in Chicago, Illinois to a studio musician father and a blues singer mother. Raised in Colorado he learned guitar at a young age and was playing professionally by the time he was sixteen. It was in Colorado where he studied guitar with Johnny Smith.

He formed his first jazz group and in 1964 was on the road. He moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota two years later, and in the Seventies he helped found the jazz fusion group Natural Life, which included saxophonist Bob Rockwell, bassist Billy Peterson, pianist Bobby Peterson, and drummers Bill Berg and Eric Kamau Gravatt.

The 1980s saw him moving to Nashville, Tennessee and becoming manager of Gibson Professional Musical Services and holding clinics with Les Paul, Howard Roberts, and Elliot Easton. Mike did session work, engineering, producing, arranging, and songwriting. In the middle of the decade he teamed up with songwriter musician Jim Pasquale to form Magic Tracks Recording Studio.

Remaining in Nashville until 1998 he worked with Johnny Cash, Mickey Newbury, Chubby Checker, Emmylou Harris, Trisha Yearwood, Joe Diffie, Earl Klugh, Vic Damone, Steve Earle, Crystal Gayle, and Tennessee Ernie Ford.

Gruitarist Mike Elliott died on September 14, 2005. A Mike Elliott Scholarship Award for excellence in guitar was established in his honor.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Giuseppe “Pippo” Barzizza was born on May 15,1902 in Genova, Italy. He was a child prodigy and at age six he entered the Camillo Sivori Institute to study violin, quickly passing the exam and taking his first award. He could hardly read words but he was already able to write a Mozart symphony without error.

After attending primary and secondary schools he went to Cristoforo Colombo High School, where he studied violin at the Conservatory. Listening to his father’s phonograph, Pippo developed a passion for classical and symphonic music. He became skilled in mathematics and decided to follow mathematical studies, graduating as an engineer. 

Barzizza also studied harmony, counterpoint, composition, and instruments. He focused on the piano until 1933, followed by the violin, banjo and the trumpet section. During this period he was the lead violinist at Politeama and performed music for silent movies at the cinema near his home.

By seventeen he had stopped his violin studies for the pursuit of conducting and composition. For the next four years he performed on ships and for orchestras in Genova. However, it was in New York City he first heard jazz and swing music. Through the 1920s Pippo became a skilled arranger, joined an orchestra, served in the Italian Army and founded a military orchestra. 

His first line up was playing violin for Blue Star Orchestra, then he conducted the Cetra Orchestra, recorded during the Thirties for Fonit, Columbia, La Voce del Padrone, Odeon, Brunswick and Fonotipia record labels. Post World War II he played on soundtracks and counducted the Modern Orchestra. Retiring from music in 1960 he taught music, established a recording studio in his home

At the age of 92, composer, arranger, conductor and music director Pippo Barzizza, who was active from 1924 to 1960 playing violin, piano, saxophone, banjo, and accordion, died on April 4,1994 in Sanremo, Italy.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Randy Sutin was born on May 14, 1958 in Great Falls, Montana where he studied piano starting at age four and guitar when he turned eight. By the time he was ten he began study of the drums. He began playing mostly rock and some country professionally with local groups at age thirteen. At 20, he began to study mallet percussion, in particular the vibraphone, which became the main staple of his professional life as a musician.

In 1985, Randy relocated to Trenton, New Jersey, then to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area four years later. He was a regular member of the Bill Hollis Quartet and soon began working regularly and recording with the Barry Sames Jazz Ensemble. A regular member of the late pianist Eddie Green’s group, he was featured on Eddie’s last recording, Shades of Green. He has also played and recorded with Walter Bell and the Latin Jazz Unit.

Over the last fifteen years, Sutin has continued playing as a regular member of the Barry Sames Jazz Ensemble, which does jazz arrangements of Christian music. He is featured as a soloist on both of Barry Sames’ recordings, Awaiting the Spirit and Celebration. This association with playing jazz for spiritual purposes and a desire to do a project with his wife, Marianne, who is an experienced yogi, led to his latest musical endeavor.

In 2007 they released Meditations for Percussion and Flute, a suite of compositions based on yoga practice blending a mixture of styles, but always falling back to jazz as its core. Together they created their record label, Balanced American Music. Recent work has focused on The Birdhouse Project, a trio with Jim Miller and Tyrone Brown, performing the compositions of Charlie Parker.

His most current project is with The Tyrone Brown String Ensemble. Randy is featured on both of their 2008 releases, The Magic Within and Moon of the Falling Leaves.

Vibraphonist Randy Sutin, who also plays marimba, continues to perform and record.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

ELEW was born Eric Robert Lewis on May 13, 1973 in Camden, New Jersey where he studied piano as a child. Graduating from Overbrook High School in 1991, he received a full merit scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music. He graduated on the Dean’s List in 1995, then began touring.

Lewis began his career as a jazz purist, playing as a sideman for jazz artists like Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, Elvin Jones, Jon Hendricks, and Roy Hargrove as well as performing as a member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Eventually becoming interested in rock music he embarked on a solo career as a crossover musician, quickly gaining recognition for his instrumental Rockjazz piano covers of mainstream rock hits like The Rolling Stones’ Paint It, Black and The Killers’ Mr. Brightside. He released his debut album of instrumental covers, titled ELEW Rockjazz Vol. 1, on his own label, Ninjazz Entertainment, in 2010.

Lewis became disillusioned with the jazz world after a solo record deal failed to materialize and struck out on his own to find success. It was around this time that he heard his first rock album, Linkin Park’s Meteora, which made a profound impression on his musical sensibilities. Taking the stage name ELEW, he adjusted his stage presence accordingly, growing an afro and adopting a distinctive style of dress, wearing armored vambraces over tailored suits. Discarding his piano bench for standing, he reached inside to grab the strings and beat on its wooden case like a percussion instrument.

Mainstream recognition came when he played a cover of Evanescence’s Going Under and an original composition, and was a featured speaker at the Long Beach TED Conference in 2009. He drew the interest of fashion designer Donna Karan, for whom he composed an original piece inspired by her fall 2009 collection and at her next New York City fashion show. That led to an invite by White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers to play in the East Room for President Obama and the First Lady.

Pianist Eric Lewis, popularley known as ELEW, continues his journey of performing, composing, recording and touring.

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TOMI BERRY

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