Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Nelson Boyd was born on February 6, 1928 in Camden, New Jersey. He played in local orchestras in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania around 1945, and then moved to New York City in 1947.

While living there Boyd first performed with Coleman Hawkins, Tadd Dameron, and Dexter Gordon. He would go on to play with Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Barnet in 1948. In 1947, he recorded with Fats Navarro and Charlie Parker. He later played with Jay Jay Johnson and recorded with Miles Davis on Davis’s Birth of the Cool sessions in 1949. In addition, Davis’s song “Half Nelson” was named after Boyd because of his stature.

After 1949, Nelson often played with Gillespie and toured the Middle East with him in 1956. Later, he recorded with Melba Liston in 1958 with her trombone ultimates on Melba Liston and Her ‘Bones. He also did sessions with Max Roach and Thelonious Monk.

He recorded four albums with Gillespie, and one each with Milt Jackson, Charles McPherson, Max Roach, and Sonny Stitt, Bud Powell, and J. J. Johnson. Bebop bassist Nelson Boyd, whose last recordings were in 1964, passed away in October 1985.

More Posts: bass,history,instrumental,jazz,music

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Wyatt Robert Ruther was born on February 5, 1923 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Playing trombone in high school before picking up the double-bass, he studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Pittsburgh Musical Institute.

From 1951 to 1952 he played in New York City with Dave Brubeck and Erroll Garner from 1951-55. A sought after bassist Wyatt toured with Lena Horne in 1953 and recorded an album under his own name alongside Milt Hinton in 1955 for RCA Records entitled Basses Loaded. Following this he played with Toshiko Akiyoshi in 1956, then studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada.

While in Canada he played with the Canadian Jazz Quartet for two years beginning in 1956 and then in 1957 with Peter Appleyard. During the same period back in the States, Ruther played with Ray Bryant, Zoot Sims, Bob Brookmeyer, and Chico Hamilton. From the end of the Fifties to the mid~Sixties he toured with George Shearing, went on a world tour with Buddy Rich, played in Gerry Mulligan’s quartet, then joined Count Basie.

In the late 1960s, Wyatt worked freelance in the San Francisco area, and played at the Olympic Hotel in Seattle, Washington in the early Seventies. Moving to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada he played with Fraser MacPherson from 1975 to 1979. He went on to play at the Ankor Hotel in Vancouver in the early 1980s, and while there worked with Sammy Price, Jay McShann, and Dorothy Donegan. Returning to San Francisco in 1984, he played with Stan Getz, Lou Stein, John Handy, Benny Carter, and Jerome Richardson late into thedecade and early Nineties. Bassist Wyatt Ruther played until he passed away of a heart attack at age 76 on October 31, 1999 in San Francisco, California.

More Posts: bandleader,bass,history,insrumental,jazz,music

Three Wishes

When Monk Montgomery was asked by the Baroness if given what his three wishes would be he responded by telling her:  

1. “My first wish would be that the older people let the younger people think for themselves.”
2. “I wish they would give jazz an opportunity.”
3. “I wish I could beat you just one time at Ping-Pong.”

*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter

More Posts: baroness,bass,history,instrumental,jazz,music,pannonica,three,wishes

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Steven Dirk Gilmore was born January 21, 1943 in Trenton, New Jersey and picked up bass when he was twelve years old, playing locally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as a teenager. At age 17 he enrolled at the Advanced School of Contemporary Music, run by Oscar Peterson.

Later in the 1960s Steve played with Ira Sullivan and the Baker’s Dozen Big Band. In 1967 he joined Flip Phillips’s group and remained until 1971, after which he worked with Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, Mose Allison, The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, Phil Woods, Richie Cole, and the National Jazz Ensemble.

The 1980s saw him performing with John Coates, Meredith D’Ambrosio, Dave Frishberg, Hal Galper, Tom Harrell, and Toshiko Akiyoshi, as well as with Woods. Gilmore and Woods would remain collaborators well into the 1990s.

In 1988 he began working with Dave Liebman, with whom he would work intermittently through the late 1990s. Other performing and recording associations included Carol Sloane, Susannah McCorkle, Bill Charlap, and Jim Hall, Tony Bennett, Michele LeGrand, Tom Waits, Susannah McCorkle, and Eddie Jefferson.

An experienced clinician, he has recorded eight jazz Play-along teaching recordings with Jamey Aebersold. In addition he has produced two transcribed bass line books and has received three Best Of The Year Grammy Group Awards in 1977, 1982, 1983 as part of the Phil Woods Quartet. Bassist Steve Gilmore continues to perform and record.

More Posts: bass,instrumental,jazz,music

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Mark Egan was born on January 14, 1951 in Brockton, Massachusetts and was influenced by his father, studying trumpet at age 10. Playing the trumpet throughout high school, he began playing the bass when he was fifteen. While attending the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, initially a trumpet student, he studied with Jerry Coker. He switched from trumpet to bass part way through the program. His teachers included Jaco Pastorius, Dave Holland, and Andy LaVerne. While in Miami he became friends and performed with Ira Sullivan, Pat Metheny, Danny Gottlieb, Clifford Carter.

After graduate school, in 1975 Egan went on tour with Eumir Deodato and the Pointer Sisters and recorded with David Sanborn. Two years later, working as a studio musician in New York City, he met Joe Beck and Steve Khan. He then joined the Pat Metheny Group until 1981, before starting the jazz fusion band Elements with the Group’s drummer, Danny Gottlieb. They were joined by saxophonist Bill Evans and keyboardist Clifford Carter. They recorded and toured through the 1990s. During the 1980s and Nineties, he was a member of the Gil Evans Orchestra.

He founded his own record label, Wavetone Records and has made three music videos: Om Yoga & Meditation, Music on the Edge, and Bass Workshop. He has appeared on the soundtracks of movies including Two Moon Junction, The Object of My Affection, You’ve Got Mail, The Color of Money, Rollover, Quick Change, Blown Away, and A Chorus Line. He recorded an album, Urge, with trumpeter Forrest Buchtel, Jr., featuring, among other things, the theme from CNN Headline News.

Egan has toured and recorded with jazz artists including Stan Getz, Gil Evans, John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell, Pat Martino, Pat Metheny, Michael Franks, Jim Hall, Bill Evans, Lew Soloff,  Paul Shaffer, rock and pop musicians and The Pointer Sisters, Sting, Arcadia, Roger Daltrey, Joan Osborne, Marianne Faithfull, Carly Simon, Art Garfunkel, Judy Collins, Sophie B. Hawkins, Bryan Ferry, Joe Beck, as well as Brazilians Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, and Toninho Horta.

Bassist and trumpeter Mark Egan continues to perform and record.

More Posts: bandleader,bass,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet