Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bob Cranshaw was born Melbourne Robert Cranshaw on December 3, 1932 in Chicago, Illinois. His career spanned the heyday of Blue Note Records to his recent involvement with the Musicians Union. He is perhaps best known for his long association with Sonny Rollins. Cranshaw performed in Rollins’s working band on and off for over five decades, starting with a live appearance at the 1959 Playboy Jazz Festival in Chicago and on record with the 1962 album The Bridge.
He recorded on over 3000 sessions as a sideman with Mary Lou Williams, Pepper Adams, Nat Adderley, Eric Alexander, Hank Mobley, Mose Allison, Granchan Moncur III, Gene Ammons, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Barron, James Moody, George Benson, Shirley Scott, Wayne Shorter, Horace Silver, Walter Bishop Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Lee Morgan, Oliver Nelson, Duke Pearson, Paul Bley, Jaki Byard, Johnny Coles, Donald Byrd, Hank Crawford, Sonny Criss, Houston Person, Frank Foster, and Sonny Red, and the list goes on and on.
Bassist Bob Cranshaw, who was a session bassist for the iconic PBS children’s programs Sesame Street and The Electric Company and played bass in the Saturday Night Live house band, passed away at the age of 83 on November 2, 2016 in Manhattan, New York from stage four cancer.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Lamb was born in Vero Beach, Florida on November 29, 1933 and grew up as a child who loved playing music, specializing in the tuba. He left high school to join the United States Air Force as a musician for their military band. Stationed in Texas and then Montana, the long winters left him with ample time to practice. He replaced the regular string bassist in 1951. He When the band’s usual string bass player was unavailable for a gig in 1951, the bandmaster asked Lamb if he could play the bass; Lamb immediately said yes, and before long became the band’s new string bassist.
Lamb joined Duke Ellington’s orchestra in 1964, and toured with them for three years. Lamb was more of a fan of Miles Davis and Red Garland when he was with Ellington, In 1966 Lamb performed with Ellington and Sam Woodyard for artist Joan Miró at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.
A later move to St. Petersburg, Florida saw him teaching music in public schools as well as St. Petersburg College. John was awarded the Jazz Club of Sarasota’s Satchmo Award for his service to jazz. Double bassist John Lamb, who recorded with the Duke Ellington Orchestra until 1975, continues to perform.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wilber Morris was born on November 27, 1937 in Los Angeles, California and began playing drums as a child. Joining the Air Force in 1954, during his tour of duty of eight years switched to the bass. He would play around San Francisco, California in his off times with the likes of Pharoah Sanders and Sonny Simmons. After his discharge, he returned to Los Angeles and played with Arthur Blythe and Horace Tapscott.
Moving back to San Francisco in 1969 his jazz career didn’t really take off until he relocated to New York City nearly a decade later. By 1978 Wilber found work with violinist Billy Bang and saxophonist David Murray, the latter would become a long-standing association well into the ’90s. During the early Eighties, he formed his own trio, Wilber Force, with drummer Denis Charles and saxophonist Charles Tyler with whom he recorded.
He held various teaching positions in addition to recording and performing. He began to work outside Murray’s group and also founded the One World Ensemble. He recorded four albums as a leader and as a sideman another two dozen albums. Morris performed with such musicians as Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Simmons, Alan Silva, Joe McPhee, Horace Tapscott, Butch Morris, Arthur Blythe, Charles Gayle, William Parker, and Bob Ackerman, Charles Tyler, Dennis Charles, Roy Campbell, Avram Fefer, Alfred 23 Harth, Borah Bergman, Bobby Few, and Rashied Ali.
Double bassist and bandleader Wilber Morris, who performed mainly in the free jazz genre and was the brother of the cornetist, composer, and conductor Butch Morris, passed away on August 8, 2002 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Peter Warren was born November 21, 1935 in Hempstead, New York and learned to play the cello as a child, studying the instrument formally, giving a recital at Carnegie Hall in 1953. After studying at Juilliard School, he went on to play with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra before switching to double-bass and studying jazz under Chuck Israels.
From 1965, for two years Peter was Dionne Warwick’s touring bassist, and following this, he played with David Izenzon in the New York Bass Revolution. Working in Belgium in the early Seventies, he played with Chick Corea, John Surman, Rolf Kuhn, Joachim Kuhn, Jean-Luc Ponty, Don Cherry, Terumasa Hino, Masahiko Sato, Albert Mangelsdorff, John Tchicai, Anthony Braxton, and Tomasz Stańko.
Settling once again back in the United States in 1974, he played with Jack DeJohnette and Carla Bley, and in 1976 he received a National Endowment for the Arts grant in cello composition. The early Eighties saw him working with Mike Stern, Ken Vandermark, and again with DeJohnette. He recorded three albums as a leader Bass Is on Enja Records in 1970, Solidarity for JAPO Records, in 1981, and Bowed Metal Music in 2001. Cellist and bassist Peter Warren continues to perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Victor Sproles was born on November 18, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois. During worked in the 1950s with Red Rodney and Ira Sullivan and appears on the Sun Ra recordings Super-Sonic Jazz, Sound of Joy and Deep Purple.
>As a session player he recorded with Stan Getz and Chet Baker on the 1957 Verve album Stan Meets Chet. In 1960 he joined Johnny Griffin’s Big Soul Band and the following year he played in Muhal Richard Abrams’ Experimental Band.
1964 saw him joining Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, recording the album ‘SMake It for Limelight, Lee Morgan and his old Sun Ra bandmate John Gilmore were in the group. He recorded two more albums with the Messengers after Gilmore left. This led to his subsequent appearance on Morgan’s Blue Note albums The Rumproller and The Sixth Sense.
In 1974 he played in Clark Terry’s big band and appeared on Buddy DeFranco’s album Free Fall. He recorded sixteen albums as a leader and another fifteen as a sideman. Bassist Victor Sproles passed away on May 13, 2005.
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