Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Dave Holland was born on October 1, 1946 in Wolverhampton, England and taught himself how to play stringed instruments, beginning at four on the ukulele, graduating to guitar and later bass guitar. Quitting school at age 15 to pursue a profession in a top 40 band, but gravitated to jazz buying albums of Ray Brown, Leroy Vinnegar, Charles Mingus and Jimmy Garrison and trading his electric bass in for an acoustic.

After moving to London in 1964, Holland began playing acoustic bass in small venues and studied with James Edward Merrett, learning to sight read, and enrolling in a three-year scholarship program at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

At 20, Holland was keeping a busy schedule in school, studios and Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club playing behind American musicians like Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Joe Henderson and British musicians such as John McLaughlin, Evan Parker and began a working collaboration with Kenny Wheeler that has continued to today.

In 1968 he joined Miles Davis’ group, recorded on Files de Kilimanjaro, In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew and Live at the Fillmore East, March 7, 1970: It’s About Time. Leaving Miles he joined the group Circle with Chick Corea that started a 34-year association with ECM record label. During the Seventies and 80s he worked as a leader and a sideman with Anthony Braxton, Stan Getz, John Abercrombie, Jack DeJohnette, Bonnie Raitt, Steve Coleman, Kevin Eubanks, Billy Higgins, Roy Haynes, Hank Jones, Pat Metheny and Marvin “Smitty” Smith.

Dave would go on to tour with Herbie Hancock, renew his affiliation with Joe Henderson and Betty Carter, formed his third quartet introducing Steve Nelson to the world, record dozens of albums as a leader and sideman, form his current quintet, win his first Grammy for big band album “What Goes Around”, win numerous other recognitions and he continues to compose, record, perform and tour.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Tommy Potter was born Charles Thomas Potter in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 21, 1918. He began on the bass fairly late, originally playing piano and guitar and not switching to bass until he was already 21 in 1940. He played with John Hardee and Max Roach before joining Charlie Parker’s “classic quintet”, first playing with him in 1944, then John Malachi and Trummy Young before hitting with Billy Eckstine’s band fro ’44-45 with Dizzy Gillespie, Lucky Thompson and Art Blakey, and worked with Miles Davis between 1947 and 1950.

In the 1950s he remained in demand though never a major soloist himself on the level of an Oscar Pettiford, Potter was really an advanced swing stylist who was flexible and skilled enough to keep up with Parker’s rapid tempos.

Potter performed and recorded with such notable jazz musicians including Earl Hines, Artie Shaw, Bud Powell, Count Basie, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Max Roach, Eddie Heywood, Tyree Glenn, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Buck Clayton, Wardell Gray, Fats Navarro and Charles Lloyd.

After playing in a Charlie Parker memorial group in 1965, he gradually dropped out of music, becoming semi-retired and on March 1, 1988 double bassist Tommy Potter passed away.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Victor Lemonte Wooten was born on September 11, 1964 in Mountain Home, Idaho and was the youngest of the five Wooten Brothers; Regi, Roy, Rudy and Joseph, all of whom are musicians. Regi began to teach him to play bass when he was two, and by the age of six was performing with his brothers in their family band, The Wooten Brothers Band.  As a United States Air Force family, they moved around a lot when he was very young, but the family finally settled in the Warwick Lawns neighborhood of Newport News, Virginia in 1972.

While in high school, he and his brothers played in the country music venue at Busch Gardens theme park in Williamsburg, Virginia, Graduating from Denbigh High School in 1982, by 1987 Victor was traveling to Nashville, Tennessee to visit friends that he made at the theme park, one of whom was a studio engineer who introduced him to Béla Fleck, with whom he still collaborates musically.

As an educator Wooten has created a music program called Bass/Nature camp that has since expanded into the Victor Wooten Center for Music and Nature and now includes all instruments. All of his camps are held at his location called Wooten Woods which is a 147 acre retreat center located in Only, Tennessee, outside of Nashville. He also co-leads the Victor Wooten/Berklee Summer Bass Workshop at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. He collaborates with Berklee Bass Dept. chair, Steve Bailey and the two bassists have been teaching together since the early 1990s.

He has been featured on the cover of Making Music Magazine, has won the “Bass Player of the Year” award from Bass Player magazine three times, is the first to win the award more than once, and was named #10 in the “Top 10 Bassists of All Time” by Rolling Stone. As a leader he has recorded ten albums, another seven with various groups and with Bela Fleck, fourteen. He has authored a novel titled “The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music” and has a sequel in the making. Bassist, composer, author, producer, educator, and five-time Grammy Award winner Victor Wooten, who has recorded an album titled SMV with Stanley Clarke and Marcus Miller, continues to compose, perform and record.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Lonnie Plaxico was born on September 4, 1960 in Chicago, Illinois and started playing the bass at age twelve. He turned professional at 14 playing both double bass and bass guitar. His first recording was with his family’s band, and by the time he was twenty he had moved to New York City, where he had stints playing with Chet Baker, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, Junior Cook and Hank Jones.

In 1978 he won the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award but first came to public attention through his work with the Wynton Marsalis group in 1982. Lonnie’s first regular attachment was with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers from 1983–1986, with whom he recorded twelve albums. At the end of his work relationship with Blakey he joined Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition, and stayed with them until 1993.

Plaxico held the musical director and featured bassist position for Cassandra Wilson for fifteen years and has performed and recorded with a wide range of artists, including David Murray, Alice Coltrane, Stanley Turrentine, Andrew Hill, Abbey Lincoln, Joe Sample, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Cosby, Lonnie Liston Smith, Barbara Dennerlein, Helen Sung and Ravi Coltrane among others.

Bassist Lonnie Plaxico has thirteen albums to his credit as a leader and continues to perform and record.

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Requisites

The Last Concert: The Modern Jazz Quartet broke up after this concert documented on this two-fer, double LP recording. After a glorious 22-year career, it would be nearly seven years before the group would come back together but it certainly went out on top. Mostly revisiting their greatest hits, MJQ is heard playing inspired versions of Softly As In A Morning Sunrise, Bag’s Groove, Skating In Central Park, Confirmation, The Golden Striker and Django. This set is a real gem and an essential addition for all serious jazz collections.

Personnel: Milt Jackson – vibraphone, John Lewis – piano, Percy Heath – bass and Connie Kay – drums

Record Date: November 25, 1974

Songs:  Disc 1 – Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise, The Cylinder, Summertime, Really True Blues, What’s New?, Blues in a Minor, Confirmation, ‘Round Midnight, A Night in Tunisia, Tears from the Children, Blues in H (B), England’s Carol

Disc 2 – The Golden Striker, One Never Knows, Trav’lin’, Skating in Central Park, The Legendary Profile, Adagio from the Guitar Concerto: Concerto de Aranjuez, The Jasmine Tree, In Memoriam, Django, Bag’s Groove

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