Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Anderson was born January 31, 1921 in Birmingham, Alabama. He studied at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and the Westlake College of Music.
He was a part of the West Coast jazz scene with Stan Kenton and others. He went on to work with Tiny Bradshaw, Jerry Fielding, Perez Prado, Earl Bostic, Charles Mingus, Buddy Collette, Curtis Counce, Britt Woodman, Count Basie, Chico Hamilton, J. W. Alexander, Dee Williams & The California Playboys, and Sam Cooke and many others.
During his career he performed with his own orchestra as well as many others like Georgie Auld And His Orchestra, Jack Costanzo & His Afro Cuban Band and Orchestra, Johnny Mandel Orchestra, and Russell Jacquet And His All Stars.
Trumpeter and composer John Anderson died in Birmingham on August 18, 1974.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Hector Rivera was born on January 26, 1933 in New York, New York. He had been playing for over a decade, beginning in the early 1950s when he joined the band of Elmo Garcia as a teenager. Making his recorded debut as a bandleader in 1957 when Garcia didn’t have enough material prepared, Mercury Records asked if he had any music. Wanting to record a solo album Mercury offered to record him as a solo artist, issuing his debut, Let’s Cha Cha Cha.
Over the next few years, Rivera would be known mostly as a sideman to bandleaders Joe Cuba, Pacheco, and vocalist Vincento Valdez. He made his biggest splash as a bandleader with the 1966 album At the Party, with a large band featuring several trumpet players and percussionists, as well as bassist Cachao.
Dividing his approach between instrumentals and vocals, he employed several singers, including David Coleman who is most heard on the At the Party album. The success of the title cut enabled Hector to cut several more albums, along with continuing to write and arrange. He would go on to participate in projects for Ray Barretto, Machito, and Tito Puente among others.
Pianist, arranger, composer, bandleader and producer Hector Rivera who was one of the more renowned performers of the Latin soul genre, died on January 8, 2006 in his hometown.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Andy Sheppard was born on January 20, 1957 in Warminster, Wiltshire, England. In the late Seventies at the age of 19 he emerged as a musician in the Salisbury-based contemporary quartet Sphere, gigging only three weeks after picking up the saxophone. He honed his skills in the wine bars and jazz clubs of the United Kingdom (UK) and Europe in the early 1980s.
He also played with world music groups and with more established improvisers such as Keith Tippett. While still with Sphere, he moved to Paris, France working with French bands Lumière and Urban Sax. The mid-1980s saw Sheppard returning to the UK, playing often on Ki Longfellow-Stanshall and Vivian Stanshall’s Bristol, England-based Old Profanity Showboat. He released his self-titled debut solo album, featuring trumpeter Randy Brecker and bassist/producer Steve Swallow in 1987 and was awarded the Best Newcomer prize at the 1987 British Jazz Awards, followed by the Best Instrumentalist Award in 1988.
Andy would go on to join George Russell’s Living Time Orchestra and tour with Gil Evans. His sophomore solo album, Introductions in the Dark, also received Best Album and Best Instrumentalist at the 1989 British Jazz Awards. He toured the world and became the first to bring a Western jazz group to play in Outer Mongolia.
The Soft on the Inside Band was Sheppard’s first big band in 1990 for an album of the same name. This band turned into In Co-Motion, and after this he signed a deal with Blue Note Records, who issued Rhythm Method in 1993. That band expanded to Big Co-Motion and recorded a live album Delivery Suite at London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s which was released by Blue Note in 1994.
Saxophonist and composer Andy Sheppard, who has had the television movie The Music Practice, based on his music, continues to perform and compose.
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Daily Dose Of jazz…
Larry Sonn was born in Woodmere on Long Island New York City on January 17, 1919. He graduated from the Juilliard School of Music in New York and began his career with the Southern Symphony Orchestra in Columbia, South Carolina. He took the first trumpet position, but later turned to the popular idioms of jazz and the big band sound. He was soon playing trumpet and arranging for the top orchestras in the United States including Glenn Miller, Teddy Powell, Bobby Byrne, Charlie Barnett, and Vincent Lopez.
In the early 1940’s he moved from New York to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and then to San Antonio, Texas. While performing there an executive from the new Hotel Reforma in Mexico City heard him play. Impressed by Larry’s virtuosity, he offered him a short-term contract at the hotel’s Ciro’s Nightclub that lasted nine years.
Returning to America for a stay late in the1950’s but still Mexico called. Larry came back to form one of the foremost big bands in the country, touring, doing radio shows for XEW, and recording for RCA Victor, CBS, Cisne, Peerless, Sonart and other labels.
Retiring from music in 1972 Sonn relocated forty miles south of Mexico City, opened a popular book store specializing in US editions for English-speaking residents and tourists. After several years he retired completely. Trumpeter, arranger, composer and bandleader Larry Sonn at 91, is alive and well in the City of Eternal Spring, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Werner Dies was born on January 15, 1928 in Frankfurt, Germany. An autodidact on guitar and saxophone, he studied clarinet and composition starting in 1947. From 1947 to 1955 he played guitar in the dance band of Willy Berking, and was a member of the bands Hotclub Combo and Two Beat Stompers.
He led his own ensemble, went on a tour of Yugoslavia in 1955 and from 1955 to 1965 he was a member of Hazy Osterwald’s sextet, and also worked as a session musician and arranger. He toured with Joe Turner and, in 1968, Charly Antolini.
He had a hit in Germany in 1954 with Schuster bleib bei deinen Leisten (The Little Shoemaker) that spent eight weeks at #1 on the German hit parade starting in October 1954. He later worked for Howard Carpendale, Adam & Eve, Graham Bonney, and other singers, and produced easy listening music with his own ensemble, the Werner Dies Sax Band.
He wrote a treatise on clarinet improvisation that was published in 1967. He produced the group Bläck Fööss from 1973 to 2003. Tenor saxophonist, clarinetist, guitarist, composer, and arranger Werner Dies died on February 5, 2003.
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