PAQUITO D’RIVERA QUINTET

Paquito D’Rivera is a living monument of Latin jazz. Born in Havana in 1948, he was introduced to music at an early age by his father, who is a classical saxophonist but also with a clear passion for listening to jazz. During his studies at the Havana Conservatory of Music he met Chucho Valdés with whom in 1967 he created the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna. But it was in 1973 that the two laid the foundations for their legend: they founded the group Irakere, mixing jazz, rock, classical and Cuban music. A mix with Western music certainly not too pleasing to the Cuban regime: it was precisely the continuous interference of the communist government that pushed D’Rivera to ask for political asylum from the United States in 1980.

Even in his new homeland he soon emerged as a beacon of Latin jazz . He collaborates with McCoy Tyner, George Coleman, Chick Corea, Tito Puente, Astor Piazzolla, while in his formations he welcomes young musicians, projecting them towards international fame (Michel Camilo, Danilo Pérez, Hilton Ruiz, Claudio Roditi). In 1989 he joined one of the most amazing Afro-Latin orchestras that have ever graced the stage, the United Nation Orchestra created by Dizzy Gillespie, of which he himself became director after Gillespie’s death.

He is the only artist who can boast of having won the Grammy Award for both jazz, Latin and classical music. And D’Rivera has won quite a few awards: the last two at the 2023 Latin Grammys for the best Latin jazz/jazz album ( I Missed You Too!, with Chucho Valdés) and for the best contemporary classical composition (the Concerto Venezolano , recorded by trumpeter Pacho Flores..

The Band:

Paquito D’Rivera: clarinet/saxophone | Jose Rivero: piano | Gaston Joya: double bass | Sebastian Laverde: vibraphone | Mauricio Zottarelli: drums

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Albert Burbank was born March 25, 1902 in New Orleans, Louisiana and was taught clarinet by Lorenzo Tio, one of that city’s most famous clarinet players. Staying in the New Orleans area throughout the 1920s, he played wherever his services were needed. During the 1930s, he worked with Kid Milton’s band but was drafted into the US Navy during World War II.

Upon demobilization, he worked internationally with the bands of Paul Barbarin and Kid Ory. Returning to New Orleans he played with several of the well-known jazz and brass bands in the city. He was regularly seen at Preservation Hall and toured Australia with a band made up of Preservation Hall musicians.

In 1975 Albertsuffered a stroke but continued playing until his death on August 15, 1976. Many of his recordings of broadcast performances with Kid Ory’s band at San Francisco’s Hangover Club, have been issued on the Danish Storyville label, and some with trombonist Bill Matthews appear on Southland.

Burbank would go on to record with Wooden Joe Nicholas, Herb Morand, Kid Clayton, Paul Barbarin, Percy Humphrey, and Jimmy Archey.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz..

Benny de Weille was born on March 6, 1915 in Lübeck, Germany. He studied clarinet under Hans Helmke and was heavily influenced by Benny Goodman, whom he often emulated in his own ensembles.

Benny made recordings with Teddy Stauffer, Hans Rehmstedt, and Willy Berking in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1940 he led his own Bar Trio. Following World War II he worked at Radio Frankfurt and conducted the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk Orchestra.

Clarinetist and bandleader Benny de Weille, whose last recordings were in a Dixieland style in 1951,  died on December 17, 1977 in Westerland, Germany.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Booker Pittman was born on March 3, 1909 in Fairmount Heights, Maryland, was the son of Portia Pittman and a grandson of Booker T. Washington. He became an accomplished jazz clarinetist and played with greats like Louis Armstrong and Count Basie in the US and Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

Leaving the States for the first time in 1933, he went with Lucky Millinder’s orchestra to France and stayed there for four years. During that period, he met a Brazilian musician named Romeo Silva, who took him on a tour of Brazil along with other musicians. They sailed to Bahia aboard the Siqueira Campos.

In 1937, Booker moved to Brazil, where he was known by the nickname “Buca“, and continued his musical career there, playing at the Urca Casino. He lived in Copacabana and befriended Jorge Guinle and Pixinguinha. He also played in Argentina and other countries.

He performed and recorded with his singer/actress stepdaughter Eliana Pittman. On October 19, 1969 clarinetist and saxophonist Booker Pittman, sometimes spelled Pitman, transitioned in his home in the São Paulo quarter of Vila Nova Conceição of laryngeal cancer at the age of 60. On behest of his wife Ofélia he was transferred to Rio de Janeiro and there laid to rest at the Cemitério São João Batista in the quarter of Botafogo.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bert Niosi was born on February 10, 1909 in London, Ontario, Canada into a family of musicians, having two brothers who became musicians. As a teenager he briefly played clarinet with Guy Lombardo in Cleveland, Ohio.

Proficient on several instruments he played clarinet, flute, saxophone, trombone, and trumpet and formed a dance band in 1931. This began a long association with the Palais Royale dance hall in Toronto, Canada which lasted until 1950.

His orchestra, and a smaller group made up of some of its members, was broadcast frequently on CBC Radio. Bert played alto saxophone and clarinet in the small band. He was also a member of CBC radio’s The Happy Gang musical series from 1952 to 1959.

Alto saxophone, clarinetist and bandleader Bert Niosi, known as Canada’s King of Swing, died in Toronto, Canada on August 3, 1987.

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