Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Nick Lyons was born in New York City on November 7, 1982. He graduated from Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio, then lived and actively played in the San Francisco Bay Area. Returning to New York he settled in Brooklyn in 2005 and collaborated with pianist and mentor Connie Crothers until her passing in 2016. This had a profound effect on his approach to music and improvisation. His other significant teachers and mentors have included Donald Byrd, Donald Walden, and Gary Bartz.

In 2022 he toured as a solo performer in Denmark and Germany, participated in 2 residencies in France and 1 in the US with the Paris-based group Mobke, appeared on 2 CD releases, “Triple Exposure” under his own name with Gene Perla and John McCutcheon and “Another Spring” with vocalist Cheryl Richards, performed often with bassist Adam Lane’s quartet, performed with pianist Harvey Diamond and bassist Cameron Brown.

In 2020 he joined the improvising ensemble Concerts from Cars which traveled the streets of NYC as a car caravan and performed from the street. They have performed at clubs all over New York. Lyons has been a sideman with William Parker, Sam Ospovat, Adam Caine and Federico Ughi as well as a duet with pianist Carol Liebowitz.

Among the many he has performed with are pianists Connie Crothers and Kazzrie Jaxen; trio with clarinetist Bill Payne and flutist Robert Dick, tenor saxophonist Jimmy Halperin, bassists Michael Bisio, Ken Filiano, Hill Greene, and Ratzo Harris, and drummers Roger Mancuso, Michael Wimberly, Billy Hart, and Billy Mintz.

Nick Lyons, who is an improvising alto saxophonist and composer has earned a reputation among peers for his musical imagination and original approach to playing both standard tunes and pure improvisation.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Willem Breuker was born on November 4, 1944 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. During the mid-1960s, he played with percussionist Han Bennink and pianist Misha Mengelberg. He co-founded the Instant Composers Pool (ICP) with which he regularly performed until 1973. He was a member of the Globe Unity Orchestra and the Gunter Hampel Group.

In 1974 Willem led the 10-piece Willem Breuker Kollektief, which performed jazz in a theatrical and often unconventional manner, drawing elements from theater and vaudeville. They toured Western Europe, Russia, Australia, India, China, Japan, the United States, and Canada. In 1974, he founded the record label BV Haast. Beginning in 1977, he organized the annual Klap op de Vuurpijl (Top It All) festival in Amsterdam.

Haast Music Publishers, which he also operated, published his scores. In 1997, he produced with Carrie de Swaan Componist Kurt Weill, a 48-hour, 12-part radio documentary on the life of Kurt Weill. In 1999, BV Haast published the book Willem Breuker Kollektief: Celebrating 25 Years on the Road, which includes two albums.

Bandleader, composer, arranger, saxophonist, and clarinetist Willem Breuker, who was knighted with the Order of the Netherlands Lion, died from lung cancer on July 23, 2010 in Amsterdam.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

John Henry Basil Mayer was born on October 28, 1930 in Calcutta, Bengal, British India, to an Anglo-Indian father and Tamil mother. After studying with Phillipe Sandre in Calcutta and Melhi Mehta in Bombay, he won a scholarship to London’s Royal Academy of Music in 1952, where he studied composition with Matyas Seiber, as well as comparative music and religion in eastern and western cultures.

He worked for five years as a violinist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra beginning in 1953 and then with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from 1958 to 1965. During that period John was also composing fusions of Hindustani classical and Western classical forms fused with jazz undertones. His Violin Sonata was performed by Yehudi Menuhin and his Shanta Quintet was recorded by jazz sitarist Diwan Motihar and Denis Preston’s Lansdowne String Quartet in 1967.

In the 1960s he worked extensively with the Jamaican-born jazz musician Joe Harriott, with whom he formed the group Indo-Jazz Fusions. John also composed for film, and the BBC quiz show Ask the Family. From 1989 onwards he taught composition at Birmingham Conservatoire where he introduced the BMus Indian music course in 1997. He continued to compose concert works for chamber, solo and orchestral projects and record jazz-fusion albums.

Composer and sitarist John Mayer, known primarily for his fusions of jazz with Indian music, was fatally injured when hit by a motorist in North London and died on March 9, 2004.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bernard Peiffer was born on October 23, 1922 in Épinal, France and was raised in a musical family, with his father and uncle playing the violin and the organ, respectively. Learning piano at age nine, he studied under Pierre Maire and quickly demonstrated his abilities by repeating long sections of classical works by ear. He won the 1st Prize in Piano at the Paris Conservatory and began his professional career at the age of twenty. playing with André Ekyan and Django Reinhardt.

During World War II, he joined the French resistance after witnessing the execution of a friend by the Gestapo in the streets of Paris. Soon afterwards he was captured, and was incarcerated for over a year. By the early 1950s, he began a successful career, playing with Django Reinhardt, leading his own quintet, composing film soundtracks, and achieving notice in the clubs of Paris, Monte Carlo and Nice, and eventually became nationally known.

He moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1954 with his wife Corine and daughter Rebecca. The subsequent loss of his third daughter profoundly affected him, resulting in Poem for a Lonely Child. During his first years in America, Bernard achieved considerable success, performing at Carnegie Hall, Birdland, and the Newport Jazz Festival. He recorded for the EmArcy, Decca and Laurie labels.

Peiffer released his last commercial album in 1965 and, after having kidney surgery a few years later, restricted himself to performing and teaching, mainly in Philadelphia. His students included Uri Caine, Sumi Tonooka, Tom Lawton, and Don Glanden. His last major appearance was at the 1974 New York/Newport Festival at Carnegie Hall. Pianist, composer and teacher Bernard Peiffer, whose nickname was Le Most for his piano skills, died on September 7, 1976. He was 53.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Edgardo “Dado” Moroni was born October 20, 1962 in Genoa, Italy and started playing piano at age four. A self-taught musician, by his mid-teens he was playing professionally around Italy and by age 17 had recorded his first album.

Throughout the 1980s Dado worked mostly in Europe and played a long stint as part of former Duke Ellington bassist Jimmy Woode’s trio at Widder Bar in Zurich, Switzerland. At 25,  in 1987 he served as a juror at the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition.

He moved to the U.S. in 1991 and became part of the New York jazz scene. He appeared regularly as a leader and sideman at Blue Note, Birdland, and the Village Vanguard. During this period he recorded several CDs.

Moroni has played with Freddie Hubbard, Clark Terry, Zoot Sims, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Ray Brown, Ron Carter, Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, Hank Jones, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and Alvin Queen.

Based in Italy, Dado continues to perform worldwide. In 2007 he won the Italian Jazz Awards as Best Jazz Act. 2009 had him named Best Italian Jazz Pianist in the Top Jazz referendum sponsored by Musica Jazz magazine. The following year he was appointed Professor of Jazz Piano at Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Music in Turin, Italy.

Pianist, composer and educator Dado Moroni continues to perform, record and teach.

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