ERIC KENNEDY
Eric Kennedy & Friends: Tribute to Lisa
A Baltimore, Maryland native, Eric Kennedy is a drummer, vocalist, percussionist, educator, arranger and composer. He started performing at the age of three with a family band and encouraged by visiting local and national musicians.
Eric was the 2004 runner-up in the Billie Holiday Vocal Competition and first-place band member in the Chick Webb Jazz Combo Competitions 2008 and 2009. Eric also won the Jazz Journalists Association of America 2023 award for Baltimore Jazz Hero.
Eric has performed, toured, and recorded with Curtis Fuller, Jimmy Heath, Gary Bartz, Phil Woods, Billy Harper, Curtis Lundy, Bobby Watson, Gary Thomas, Fred Wesley, Wallace Roney, Cyrus Chestnut, Ethel Ennis, Larry Willis, Cecil McBee, Donald Harrison, Joe Locke, TK Blue, John Hicks, Richard Wyands, Yusef Salim, Eddie Henderson, Joe Bonner, Carl Grubbs, David Murray, Oliver Lake, Pansori master Ahn Sook Sun and many others.
The Band:
Eric Kennedy ~ drums
Marc Cary ~ piano
John Lee ~ guitar
Kelly Shepherd ~ alto saxophone
More Posts: adventure,arranger,bandleader,club,composer,drums,educator,genius,history,instrumental,jazz,music,percussion,preserving,travel,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Patrick Dease was born August 25, 1982 in Augusta, Georgia. He attended John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet High School where he studied saxophone and voice. He achieved all-state vocal honors for three consecutive years.
At 17 Michael taught himself to play trombone and was soon invited to join the inaugural class of the Juilliard jazz studies program by Wycliffe Gordon. He earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees while at the school. While at Juilliard he won many awards, including the Frank Rosolino Award, J.J. Johnson Award, the Sammy Nestico Jazz Composers Award, ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award, and the Fish Middleton Jazz Competition.[2]
He began his career in Illinois Jacquet’s Big Band in 2002, and has performed as a featured member of the big bands of Christian McBride, Roy Hargrove, Nicholas Payton, Jimmy Heath, Charles Tolliver and the Dizzy Gillespie All-Stars. He also performs with small groups led by Claudio Roditi, Rodney Whitaker, Wycliffe Gordon, and David Sanborn. He has toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia, North America and Latin America. In addition to performance, Dease serves as president and producer at his jazz record label, D Clef Records.
Dease conducts master classes and workshops at universities and conservatories around the world, holds the position of Associate Professor of Jazz Trombone at the Michigan State University College of Music. He has held similar positions at Queens College, CUNY, and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City.
Tenor and bass trombonist, composer, producer and educator Michael Dease continues to perform, compose, record and educate.
More Posts: bandleader,bass,composer,educator,flugelhorn,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano,producer,saxophone,trombone,trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jack Payne was born John Wesley Vivian Payne on August 22, 1899 in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England. He is the only son of a music publisher’s warehouse manager and it wasn’t until he was serving in the Royal Flying Corps that he played the piano in amateur dance bands. Towards the end of World War I, he led dance bands for the troops and was part of a voluntary group The Allies Concert Party that performed to wounded soldiers convalescing around Birmingham.
He played with visiting American jazz bands at the Birmingham Palais during the early 1920s, including the Southern Rag-a-Jazz Orchestra in 1922, before moving to London in 1925. He played in a ten-piece band which became the house band at London’s Hotel Cecil. Three years later Payne became the BBC Director of Dance Music and the leader of the BBC’s first official dance band.
After leaving the BBC in 1932 he returned to playing hotel venues and switched labels to Imperial, followed by Rex from 1934. Payne took his band on nationwide tours and made a couple of films, composed and published waltzes, and recorded jazz working with Garland Wilson.
>Returning to the post of Director of Dance Music at the BBC until 1946. Bandleader and composer Jack Payne, who authored two autobiographies, died in Tonbridge, Kent, England on December 4,1969, aged 70.
More Posts: author,bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
David Bryan Benoit was born in Bakersfield, California on August 18, 1953. He studied piano at age 13 with Marya Cressy Wright and continued his training with Abraham Fraser, who was the pianist for Arturo Toscanini. He attended Mira Costa High School and went on to focus on theory and composition at El Camino College, studying orchestration and later took film scoring classes at UCLA. He went on to study music conducting and worked with Jeffrey Schindler, Music Director for the UC Santa Barbara symphony orchestra.
He began his career as a musical director and conductor for Lainie Kazan in 1976, before moving on to similar roles with singer/actresses Ann-Margret and Connie Stevens. His GRP Records debut album, Freedom at Midnight in 1987, led his roster of top ten albums he has released. He has recorded tribute albums to pianist Bill Evans, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. Collaborators included the chorus group Take 6, guitarist Marc Antoine and trumpeter Chris Botti.
Benoit has arranged, conducted, and performed music for Russ Freeman and the Rippingtons, Kenny Loggins, Michael Franks, Patti Austin, Dave Koz, Kenny Rankin, Faith Hill, David Lanz, Cece Winans, David Pack, David Sanborn, The Walt Disney Company and Brian McKnight.
Pianist David Benoit, who has three Grammy nominations, has performed three times at the White House, and has a morning program on jazz radio station KKJZ in Long Beach, California, continues to perform and record..
More Posts: arranger,bandleader,composer,conductor,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Everette Harp was born August 17, 1961 in Houston, Texas and was the youngest of eight children. His mother played the organ and gospel music was one of his earliest influences. He started playing jazz in middle school at Marshall Junior High under the tutelage of drummer Buddy Smith. He attended the High School for Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, then North Texas State University as a music major in the early 1980s.
He worked as an accountant for a short time, and played in local bands, most notably a jazz/funk group called The Franchise which released a 1987 album locally with the first recording of Harp’s There’s Still Hope. 1988 saw him moving to Los Angeles, California and touring briefly with Teena Marie, then Anita Baker.
Two years later George Duke signed him to a contract with Capitol Records to record with his group 101 North. Bruce Lundvall of Blue Note Records signed Harp to a solo contract before the group album was released. Harp’s album was produced by Duke and released by Blue Note in 1992.
Harp appeared at the Montreux Jazz Festival, would go on to appear on The Arsenio Hall Show, on Sax by the Fire, and perform on the theme songs for Entertainment Tonight and Soul Train and shared the stage with President Bill Clinton at the Arkansas Ball in 1992.
Harp has worked with Stanley Clarke, Natalie Cole, Neil Diamond, Aretha Franklin, Wayne Henderson, Al Jarreau, The Jazz Crusaders, Billy Joel, Chaka Khan, Kenny Loggins, Bobby Lyle, Peter Maffay, Marcus Miller, Chante Moore, Dianne Reeves, Eros Ramazzotti, Brenda Russell, Joe Sample, and Luther Vandross.
Saxophonist Everette Harp, who received his first nomination in 2015 for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album, continues to perform, compose and record.
More Posts: bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone