Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jack James Costanzo was born on September 24, 1919 in Chicago, Illinois to Italian parents. Starting his career as a dancer, he toured as a team with his wife before World War II. After his discharge from the Navy, he worked as a dance instructor at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Latin band leader Bobby Ramos heard him playing bongos in a jam session and offered him a job.
He visited Havana, Cuba three times in the 1940s and learned to play Afro-Cuban rhythms on the bongos and congas. Throughout the 1940s, Costanzo worked with several Latin bands, including a revived version of the Lecuona Cuban Boys, Desi Arnaz, and Rene Touzet.
Jack toured with Stan Kenton from 1947 to 1948 and occasionally in the 1950s, and played with Nat King Cole from 1949 to 1953. He also played with the Billy May Orchestra, Peggy Lee, Danny Kaye, Perez Prado, Charlie Barnet, Pete Rugolo, Betty Grable, Harry James, Judy Garland, Patti Page, Jane Powell, Ray Anthony, Martin & Lewis, Frances Faye, Dinah Shore, Xavier Cugat, Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, and Eddie Fisher.
Costanzo formed his own band in the 1950s which recorded and toured internationally. Hollywood stars Marlon Brando, Rita Moreno, Carolyn Jones, Hugh O’Brian, Keenan Wynn, Van Johnson, Tony Curtis, Betty Grable, Vic Damone, James Dean, and Gary Cooper among others, studied bongos with him.
He went into retirement until 1998 when he decided to make a comeback. In 2001 he recorded Back From Havana featuring Gilbert Castellanos, Steve Firerobing and singer Marilu. In 2002 he released his sophomore album with the same cast called Scorching The Skins. He continued to tour and perform in California and abroad.
Percussionist, dancer, composer and bandleader Jack Costanzo, nicknamed Mr. Bongo, died of complications from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm at his home on August 18, 2018 in Lakeside, California at the age of 98.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charles Fowler Singleton Jr. was born on September 17, 1913 in Jacksonville, Florida. He attended several schools in and around the city and graduated from Stanton High School in 1935. Always interested in singing and dancing, by the time he left school he had become a proficient songwriter. He also produced shows and was responsible for several musical extravaganzas, including April Frolics, which was staged at a nightspot in LaVilla in Jacksonville. Singleton continued to work in Jacksonville into the 1940s.
The early 1950s Singleton moved to New York City and presented his lyrics to Decca Records, who signed him up as a songwriter. By 1954, he had teamed up with Rose Marie McCoy, and the pair went on to write successful hits for Joe Turner, Faye Adams and Ruth Brown. In 1956, Singleton and McCoy, as Charlie and Rosie, recorded a single together on RCA Victor.
Singleton went on to write songs for Pat Boone, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, B. B. King, Peggy Lee, Johnny Mathis, Wayne Newton and Andy Williams. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Singleton largely wrote songs without a writing partner, and also recorded an album, The Big Twist Hits, released in 1962 and credited to the Charlie “Hoss” Singleton Combo.
When the song Beddy Bye by Bert Kaempfert came to Frank Sinatra through his producer Jimmy Bowen, he asked the composer to tune it into a song. Bert engaged Singleton wrote the lyrics and Eddie Snyder adapted the music for what became Strangers in the Night and the song became a #1 hit for Sinatra.
He and Snyder had also reworked another Kaempfert instrumental called “Moon Over Naples” into the song Spanish Eyes. Composer and lyricist Charles Singleton, who was known as Hoss, and who also produced several platinum albums, died on December 12, 1985 in his home city.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gerald Graham Valentine was born on September 13, 1914 and received formal training in music when he was young, learning piano, composition, and music theory. He learned to play the trombone on his own.
In the early 1940s Jerry composed and arranged for Earl Hines and worked in Chicago with Dallas Bartley, King Kolax and he booked shows for the Club DeLisa. He then joined Billy Eckstine’s band from 1944 to 1947 and worked later in the decade with Wynonie Harris and Buddy DeFranco.
From 1950 to 1952 Valentine was an artist and repertory man for National Records. He played with Gene Ammons in 1954, and in 1958-1959 wrote arrangements for Pepper Adams, Art Farmer, and Coleman Hawkins in the group Prestige Blues Swingers.
Trombonist, composer and arranger Jerry Valentine died in October 1983.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joëlle Léandre was born September 12, 1951 in Aix-en-Provence, France on Opera Street across from a theatre. She studied the standard double-bass repertoire intensively in her hometown conservatory and at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris. By her late teens she was subbing in the bass sections of large classical ensembles. Drawn to Paris jazz clubs, she wasn’t involved in the scene because her pizzicato playing off-putting the jazz field’s standard.
Her appreciation of improvisation came from her chance discovery of Bowin’ Swingin’ Slam, by swing bassist Slam Stewart. Around the same time Joëlle received a one-year scholarship to study at the Center for Creative and Performing Arts in Buffalo, New York. Not only was she exposed daily to serious music from composers and travelled to New York to listen to improvisers.
She began her career in the early 1970s when she was still a student at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, France. She studied with renowned bassist Jean-Louis Rassinfosse and developed a unique style that fused avant-garde jazz with classical music. In 1974, she formed the ensemble Musica Elettronica Viva with Italian composer and electronic musician Luciano Berio.
Collaborating with many on the avant-garde jazz scene including John Cage, Anthony Braxton, Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton, George E. Lewis, India Cooke, Steve Lacy, Sylvie Courvoisier, John Zorn and Cecil Taylor, among others. She is also a founding member of the improvising trio Fish Music with saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer Barry Guy. Aside from performing as a soloist, her bands have been trio, quartet configurations.
In 1983 she became a member of the European Women Improvising Group (EWIG), which evolved from the Feminist Improvising Group. In the early 1990s she co-founded the feminist improvising trio Les Diaboliques, with Irène Schweizer and Maggie Nicols.
Double bassist, vocalist, and composer Joëlle Léandre remains active in new music, avant~garde and free improvisation.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Samuel Quinto Feitosa was born Samuel Quinto Feitosa on September 5, 1973 in Belém, Pará, but grew up in Salvador, Bahia. From the age of seven, he developed his interest in piano from the gospel music performed in the Baptist Church during his childhood. An autodidact, he played at home without teachers, learning harmony, reading and writing music and orchestration, musical composition, arranging for the church choir, and started playing as a pianist at age 12.
Releasing his debut CD Latin Jazz Thrill in 2007 in Portugal, with his trio, Samuel followed it with Salsa ‘n Jazz, containing eight original compositions and a standard the following year. After a European tour he established the first course of Latin Jazz at Jazz School North, Porto. He also became the artistic director of one of the most traditional jazz Portuguese clubs, B-flat.
He returned to Brazil in 2012 to take the position of Music Minister at the Second Baptist Church in Mossoro, Rio Grande do Norte. During this period he wrote symphonies, opera, minuets and christmas rratorio for choir.
In 2015 he becames the newest piano representative of Fritz Dobbert pianos and returned to jazz performance. He published his first book called Improvisar é muito fácil in 2016. Quinto is a member of several organizations including the International Council for Traditional Music, the American Council of Piano Performers, the National Federation of Music Clubs and has a collaborative relationship with UNESCO.
Pianist Samuel Quinto, who is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London, continues to perform, compose and educate.
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