Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gilbert Bibi Rovère was born on August 29, 1939 in Toulon, France and grew up in Nice, where he also attended the Conservatory beginning in 1954. He became part of the jazz scene there and for 17 years played the San Remo Festival.
In 1956, a move to Paris saw him working in the jazz clubs and by 1957 he started playing the double bass with Barney Wilen. Over the coming years he accompanied Duke Ellington, Sonny Rollins and Billie Holiday with Mal Waldron. Between 1962 and 1974 he was always part of the combos of Martial Solal and between 1962 to ‘63 he joined Bud Powell, Kenny Drew, Johnny Griffin, Dexter Gordon and Kenny Clarke.
During the Sixties Bibi went on to play with Art Simmons and Jean-Luc Ponty on his first album Jazz Longplaying. He also worked with the Swingle Singers, René Thomas and Cannonball Adderley. In 1966 he received the Prix Django Reinhardt.
During the Seventies he accompanied Al Haig on his album Invitation and in 1978 he retired from the music industry only to become re-active eight years later, performing with Bud Shank and Jackie McLean. In 1990 he played on Steve Grossman’s album My Second Prime.
On March 13, 2007 double bass and violincello player Bibi Rovère passed away in Menton on the French Riviera.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Addison Farmer was born August 21, 1928 an hour after his twin brother, in Council Bluffs, Iowa reportedly at 2201 Fourth Avenue. Their parents divorced when the boys were four, and their steelworker father was killed in a work accident not long after this. He moved with his grandfather, grandmother, mother, brother and sister to Phoenix, Arizona when he was four.
Addison and his brother moved to Los Angeles, California in 1945 and attended the music-oriented Jefferson High School, where they got music instruction and met other developing musicians such as Sonny Criss, Ernie Andrews, Big Jay McNeely, and Ed Thigpen. They brothers earned money by working in a cold-storage warehouse and by playing professionally. He went on to take bass lessons from Fred Zimmermann, and studied at Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music.
By late 1945, Farmer was with Johnny Alston and His Orchestra recording for the Bihari Brothers’ Modern Music label, backing Jeanne De Metz. Shortly afterwards he recorded on the Blue Moon label with Al “Cake” Wichard and King Fleming and worked with Teddy Edwards’s band. He played and recorded in several groups with his brother and in ensembles led by Benny Golson, Gigi Gryce, Mose Allison, Jay McShann, Charlie Parker, Gene Ammons, Bob Brookmeyer, curtis Fuller, Hampton Hawes, Curtis Fuller, Stan Getz, Teo Macero, Sahib Shihab, Mal Waldron and Miles Davis.
Bassist Addison Farmer recorded extensively for the jazz label Prestige before passing away suddenly from bed death on February, 20, 1963 in New York City at the age of 34.
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Daily Dose Of jazz…
John Lee Clayton Jr. was born on August 20, 1952 in Venice, California. He began seriously undertaking the study of double bass at age 16, studying with bassist Ray Brown. By age 19, he had become a bassist on Henry Mancini’s television series The Mancini Generation. He later graduated in 1975 from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music with a degree in bass performance.
He toured with the Monty Alexander Trio and the Count Basie Orchestra before becoming the principal bass in the Amsterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in the Netherlands. Returning to the States after five years and moved towards jazz and jazz composition. Shortly after his return he founded the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra with his saxophonist brother Jeff Clayton and drummer Jeff Hamilton. He and his brother also founded The Clayton Brothers which has featured instrumentalists such as Bill Cunliffe and Terell Stafford.
Clayton has composed and/or arranged for The Count Basie Orchestra, Diana Krall, Whitney Houston, Carmen McRae, Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams, Ernestine Anderson, Quincy Jones, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Natalie Cole, Till Bronner, and The Tonight Show Band. He won a Grammy for Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s): “I’m Gonna Live Till I Die” (Queen Latifah) and was nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group for Brother To Brother by The Clayton Brothers.
From 1999 to 2001 he served as Artistic Director of the Jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic program at the Hollywood Bowl, has conducted the All-Alaska Jazz Band and and has been president over the International Society of Bassists. In addition to performing, bassist John Clayton currently serves as Artistic Director for the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, Sarasota Jazz Festival, Santa Fe Jazz Party, Jazz Port Townsend Summer Workshop, and Vail Jazz Workshop. He is also an educator, teaching at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Butch Warren was born Edward Warren on August 9, 1939 in Washington, D.C. and began playing professionally at age 14 in a local Washington, D. C. band led by his father, Edward Warren. He later worked with other local groups, including Stuff Smith as well as with altoist and bandleader Rick Henderson at the historic Howard Theatre on 7th and T Streets.
Moving to New York City in 1958 Butch played first with Kenny Dorham and appeared on his first recording in 1960 along with saxophonist Charles Davis, pianist Tommy Flanagan and drummer Buddy Enlow. During his stay in New York City he became house bassist for Blue Note Records.
As a sideman, he recorded with Miles Davis, Hank Mobley, Donald Byrd, Sonny Clark, Dexter Gordon, Elmo Hope, Grant Green, Slide Hampton, Booker Ervin, Walter Bishop Jr. Horace Parlan, Bobby Timmons, Don Wilkerson, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Jackie McLean, and Stanley Turrentine. He played with Thelonious Monk in 1963 and 1964 before moving back to Washington, D.C.
Back home he briefly worked in television before becoming seriously ill. Following the onset of his illness he played professionally only occasionally, including a regular gig at the jazz club Columbia Station in the Adams Morgan neighborhood. Bassist Butch Warren, whose solos were inventive and played in the hard bop genre, passed away October 5, 2013.
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Cedric Wallace was born August 3, 1909 in Miami, Florida. He moved to New York City in the 1930s, where he first started playing in a band led by Reggie Johnson at the Saratoga Club.
Later in the decade Wallace worked with Jimmie Lunceford before joining Fats Waller’s band from 1938-1942, the association for which he is best known. He played with Waller at the peak of his popularity and plays on many of his biggest hits.
He also recorded with Una Mae Carlisle, Maxine Sullivan, Champion Jack Dupree, Pat Flowers, Gene Sedric, and Dean Martin. Cedric led his own ensemble in New York in the 1940s which featured Eddie Gibbs on bass for a time, and continued to perform well into the 1970s.
Double-bassist Cedric Wallace passed away on August 19, 1985 in New York City.
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