Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph Leslie Sample was born February 1, 1939 in Houston, Texas and began playing piano at age five, taking lessons from organ and piano great, Curtis Mayo. While in high school during the 1950s, Sample teamed up with two friends, saxophonist Wilton Felder and drummer Stix Hooper and formed the group “Swingsters”. While studying piano at Texas Southern University he added trombonist Wayne Henderson and several other players to the Swingsters, which evolved into the Modern Jazz Sextet and then the Jazz Crusaders in emulation of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Prior to graduation in 1960 the Jazz Crusader moved to Los Angeles.
The group quickly found opportunities on the West Coast, making its first recording, Freedom Sounds in 1961 and releasing up to four albums a year over much of the 1960s. The Jazz Crusaders played at first in the dominant hard bop style of the day, standing out by virtue of their unusual front-line combination of saxophone and trombone. Another distinctive quality was the funky, rhythmically appealing acoustic piano playing of Sample, who helped steer the group’s sound into a fusion between jazz and soul[2] in the late 1960s.
In 1969 Sample made his first recording under his own name titled Fancy Dance that was followed by a string of albums such as Rainbow Seeker and Street Life. He continued to record and perform as a solo artist while maintaining steerage of The Crusaders into jazz fusion, changing the name in 1971 which it remained until the group disbanded in 1987.
Sample has had a very successful career working and recording with the likes of Miles Davis, George Benson, Joni Mitchell, Jimmy Witherspoon, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Steely Dan, The Supremes, Minnie Riperton, Marvin Gaye, Ray Brown, Shelly Manne, Randy Crawford, Anita Baker, Lalah Hathaway, Howard Hewitt, George Duke and Lizz Wright, well into the new millennium.
His song “One Day I’ll Fly Away” was sung by Nicole Kidman in the film Moulin Rouge; and “Rainbow Seeker” is included on the Weather Channel Presents: Smooth Jazz II. Pianist, keyboardist and composer Joe Sample, who has played through various genres of jazz, continued to perform, record and tour with the Coryell Auger Sample Trio with his son Nicklas, who plays bass, until his passing on September 12, 2014 at age 75 in Houston, Texas.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jason Moran was born January 21, 1975 and grew up in Houston, Texas. He began playing the piano when he was six, though he had no love for the instrument until, at the age of 13, he first heard the song “Round Midnight” by Thelonious Monk and switched his efforts from classical music to jazz. He attended Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, and then enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with pianist Jaki Byard. While still in college Moran also received instruction from other avant-garde pianists including Muhal Richard Abrams and Andrew Hill.
In 1997, when Moran was a senior at the Manhattan School of Music he was invited to join the band of saxophonist Greg Osby for a European tour. Osby liked his playing and Moran continued to play with the group upon their return to the United States, making his first recorded appearance on Osby’s 1997 “Further Ado” for Blue Note, subsequently appearing on several Osby albums. This led to Blue Note signing Moran and his debut “Soundtrack to Human Motion” was released in 1999.
He has since released several albums playing with contemporaries Stefon Harris, Lonnie Plaxico, Eric Harland, Tarus Mateen, Nasheet Waits, Sam Rivers and Marvin Sewell as well as collaborations with Charles Lloyd, Cassandra Wilson, Joe Lovano, Don Byron, Lee Konitz, Steve Coleman, Ravi Coltrane, Von Freeman and Christian McBride.
Jason has been commissioned to create a number of works by the Walker Art Center, the Dia Art Foundation and Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has been voted Up-n-Coming Jazz Musician by the Jazz Journalists Association, Down Beat’s critics poll voted him Rising Star Jazz Artist, Rising Star Pianist, and Rising Star Composer for three years straight from 2003-2005, named Jazz Artist of the Year in 2007 by Playboy, and was named a USA Prudential Fellow.
Pianist Jason Moran is currently working on a multimedia project “In My Mind” inspired by Thelonious Monk’s 1959 large band concert at Town Hall. He serves as music advisor to the Kennedy Center, serves on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, as he continues to compose, perform, tour and record.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cyrus Chestnut was born January 17, 1963 in Baltimore, Maryland. He started his musical career at the age of six, playing piano at Mount Calvary Baptist Church. By age nine, he was studying classical music at Peabody Institute and in 1985 earned a degree in jazz composition and arranging from Berklee College of Music where he was awarded the Eubie Blake Fellowship, the Quincy Jones Scholarship and the Oscar Peterson Scholarship.
A year after graduating his prolific career began with a tour with Jon Hendricks, followed by two-year stints with Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison, Wynton Marsalis and Betty Carter. Under Betty’s tutelage, Cyrus was advised to take chances and play things she had never heard.
Signing with Atlantic Records in 1993 he released the critically acclaimed Revelation followed by The Dark Before The Dawn the next year, debuting at #6 on the Billboard charts. He has performed and/or recorded with Freddy Cole, Bette Midler, Freddie Hubbard, Jimmy Scott, Chick Corea, Isaac Hayes, Kevin Mahogany, Dizzy Gillespie, Manhattan Transfer, Vanessa L. Williams, Brian McKnight, Christian McBride, Lewis Nash, James Carter, Wycliffe Gordon and the list continues.
Never straying far from his church roots he collaborated and toured with soprano opera diva Kathleen Battle, recording the notable “So Many Stars” in 1996. Later that same year came Blessed Quietness: A Collection of Hymns, Spirituals and Carols.
Chestnut’s leadership and prowess as a soloist has also led him to be a first call for the piano chair in many big bands including the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie Big Band and the Carnegie Jazz Orchestra. He has amassed a further string of critically acclaimed albums while continually touring with his trio, playing jazz festivals around the world as well as clubs and concert halls.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Onzy Matthews was born in Fort Worth, Texas on January 15, 1936, grew up in Dallas until he was 14, when his mother pulled up stakes and moved to Los Angeles for a better job. He graduated from high school at 16 and had already decided he wanted to sing. Nearly every day he walked to a nearby park, where he could play piano for hours in the recreation building.
Augmenting his early gospel roots with healthy doses of smooth California jazz and big band music, Matthews taught himself to accompany his singing on piano until he realized he needed arrangements.
He attended Westlake College of Music, studied ear training and harmony, started singing with a dance band and learning about arranging. After several years of performing, attending concerts and asking questions he had 21 original songs arranged for big band.
His musical career sprang from eight bars of music. As an aspiring singer, pianist and composer in 1963, a young Mr. Matthews gave his first professional arrangement to Les Brown for a tryout with the Band of Renown. Out of the arrangement came 8 bars that sounded good to Onzy and Les Brown advised him to take those 8 bars and start from there. Doing so he went on to become one of the most sought-after arrangers in jazz and pop music. It was later through Dexter Gordon that these first twenty-one were played by the best musicians in Hollywood that turned into a regular Wednesday night jam session. The word spread and he started getting courted by record labels to work with their artists.
Onzy’s first major arranging job was on Lou Rawls’ album Black & Blue, followed by his debut as a leader in 1964 on “Blues With A Touch Of Elegance” for Capitol. About a year later, with his career in full swing, he held a guest spot on a New York radio show hosted by mercer Ellington who introduced him to his dad, friendship was struck and four years later became collaborators, filling the void from Billy Strayhorn’s death.
Matthews tailors the arrangements according to the empathy of the artist by listening to the artist and arranging to bring out things in them they weren’t aware of. This was his magic. After Ellington death in ’74, he moved to Seattle, formed a big band for three years moved between Texas and New York and finally moved to Paris in ’79, put together another big band, played with Miles Davis and finally moved back to Dallas in 1994.
Onzy D. Matthews, whose 35-year career had him working with some of jazz’s most notables, was discovered in his Dallas apartment passed away at his typewriter by jazz singer Jeanette Brantley and her husband Hans Wango on November 15, 1997. He was 67.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herbie Nichols was born in San Juan Hill, Manhattan, New York City on January 3, 1919. His first known work was with the Royal Barons in 1937, a few years later performing at Minton’s Playhouse but he did not find a very happy experience due to a competitive atmosphere that did not suit his personality.
Nichols was drafted into the Infantry in 1941. After the war he worked in various setting, beginning to achieve some recognition when Mary Lou Williams recorded some of his songs in 1952. He befriended Thelonious Monk and from about 1947 persisted in trying to persuade Alfred Lion at Blue Note to sign him. Lion finally acquiesced and between 1955 and 1956 Herbie recorded less than half his 170 compositions that produced three albums, with other tracks from these sessions not being issued until the 1980s.
As a player he was capable not only of dark lyricism but also of writing melodies so harmonically adventurous that placed his music in a rhythmic league of its own. Nichols was indeed fortunate in the drummers with whom he worked Art Blakey and Max Roach. As a composer he penned such notable standards as “Serenade” that had lyrics added as well as “Lady Sings The Blues” that became synonymous with Billie Holiday, to which she set lyrics and adopted the title for her autobiography.
Jazz pianist and composer Herbie Nichols died from leukemia at the age of 44 on April 12, 1963 in New York City. Although he lived most of his life in relative obscurity, he is now highly regarded by many musicians and critics.