Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ronaldo Folegatti was born on April 30, 1958 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and started playing the guitar at age 10. He studied mathematics and received a master’s degree in science.
When he was twenty-two, he moved to Germany and started a career in music. He released his debut album, Sound of Watercolors, in Germany in 1990. He recorded his sophomore album, Lust, Comics & Some Other Dreams, with Till Brönner and Ronnie Stevenson. The album crossed several genres including jazz, big band, free jazz, and Brazilian.
In 1995 he returned to Brazil and five years later recorded two more albums, Mazy Tales and Anjos & Estrellas. In 2005 he released Jamming! with guest appearances by Randy Brecker, Will Lee, Joel Rosenblatt, Zé Canuto, Teo Lima, Marcelo Martins, and Ada Rovatti. Composer, guitarist, and record producer Ronaldo Folegatti, who had been treated for cancer for two years, transitioned on August 1, 2007, Teresópolis, Brazil.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Russell Morgan was born on April 29, 1904 in Scranton, Pennsylvania into a Welsh family. He was encouraged to express himself musically from the age of seven. His father was a former drummer, his mother a pianist in a vaudeville act. He began studying piano and worked in the mines with his father to earn money to help support the family and pay for his lessons.
By 14, he was earning money as a pianist in a Scranton theater. Purchasing a trombone he learned to play and in 1921 he played trombone with the Scranton Sirens, a popular band in Pennsylvania. Russ moved to New York in 1921 at 18 and three years later he was writing arrangements for John Philip Sousa and Victor Herber. He then joined Paul Specht’s orchestra and toured throughout Europe with the likes of Paul Whiteman, Charlie Spivak, and Artie Shaw. After returning from Europe, Jean Goldkette invited him to Detroit, Michigan to lead his band with former associates Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Chauncey Morehouse, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Bix Beiderbecke, and Fuzzy Farrar.
His first records were made for OKeh in mid 1930 and for Parlophone and Odeon, usually under the name Russell Brown and his Orchestra. During the early 1930s, Morgan joined the group of anonymous studio groups recording pop tunes for the dime store labels, which included Banner, Melotone, Oriole, Perfect, Romeo, Conqueror, and Vocalion.
For a short time in the Thirties he arranged for Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra. In 1935, he played trombone with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band when they recorded four sides for Vocalio and two sides for Brunswick. He was offered the position of musical director for Detroit radio station WXYZ and his show, Music In The Morgan Manner, became one of the most popular radio shows.
An automobile accident in the early 1930s nearly sidelined his career but after several months in the hospital, Russ started again in New York City as an arranger for the George White Scandals, the Cotton Club Revue, and the Capitol Theatre. When not arranging for the Broadway shows, he worked as a pianist or trombonist with orchestras led by Phil Spitalny, Eddie Gilligan, Ted Fio Rito, and Freddy Martin.
He would go on to join the Freddy Martin Orchestra, become music director at Brunswick, hosted The Russ Morgan Show on the Mutual Broadcasting System and formed an orchestra at Rudy Vallee’s insistence. He landed his first engagement at the Biltmore along with Vallee’s band. He was music director for the Rinso-Lifebuoy Show on NBC and the Philip Morris radio series on NBC and CBS for two years.
Through his career he had four songs that charted, was music director for NBC and CBS and hosted television shows, On August 7, 1969 trombonist, arranger, composer, conductor and bandleader Russ Morgan, who has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, transitioned at the age of 65 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kenn Smith was born Kenneth Lamont Smith on April 27, 1962 in Chicago, Illinois.
As a child of the 60s and Seventies living on the WestSide of his hometownhe first heard the sounds of Motown, Soul, Funk, Country, Jazz and Rock. His school was shows like Hee Haw and Midnight Special, his parents’ record collection, and a neighborhood filled with amateur and professional musicians.
When the family moved to the SouthSide in 1975, Smith began his guitar studies at age 13 with a visit to the local music store purchasing two Mel Bay books. Three years later the family moved to the western suburbs of Maywood, Illinois. At 16 he began classical guitar studies with guitarist Bruce Walters, and later continued studies at Jack Cecchini Studio.
While attending Proviso East High School, he played electric and classical guitar as well as timpani in the Proviso Township Orchestra, electric guitar and bass in the Proviso East High School jazz band, where he received the Louis Armstrong Award for Outstanding Jazz Improvisation during his senior year.
1982 saw Kenn beginning his career teaching guitar at Robinson’s Music Academy in Maywood, as well as performing with local funk and fusion bands. This he did while attending Columbia College of Chicago, studying music management and production. In 1987 he enrolled at the American Conservatory of Music where he studied jazz guitar and composition. In between those years of teaching, performing and study, he became an avid fan of progressive rock and fusion, developing skills as a guitarist, bassist and composer.
In 1986, he began his career as a freelance guitarist and bassist, performing on Chicago’s jazz, blues and rock scene. But it wasn’t till 1989 his professional career took off, working as a guitarist at the Chicago Cotton Club. It was here he later formed his first jazz trio and opened for jazz greats Shirley Horn, Stanley Turrentine, Freddy Cole, and Art Porter. As a jazz side man he played with other jazz greats, Jodie Christian, Guy Fricano, Johnny Frigo, Bobby Broom, Najee and many others.
He would go on tour with the Chi-Lites, start his own label Kenn Smith Music, has written, produced and recorded eight albums, as well as authored an instruction book for electric bass and numerous articles for online magazines such as Mel Bay Bass Sessions, and Bass Musician Magazine.
Guitarist, bassist, composer, educator and journalist Kenn Smith, who is well versed in many styles of music, continues to explore his music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lakshminarayana Shankar was born on April 26,1950 in Madras, India and raised in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. His father was a violinist and singer who worked as a teacher at the Jaffna College of Music. The young boy learned to play the violin and first performed in public in a Ceylonese temple at the age of seven.
In 1969 he traveled to the United States where he studied ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. While attending college at Wesleyan University, he met jazz musicians like Ornette Coleman, Jimmy Garrison, and John McLaughlin. With McLaughlin, Shankar founded the group Shakti in 1975, one of the early groups in which Eastern and Western musical traditions met. They released three albums between 1975 and 1977 titled Shakti, A Handful of Beauty, and Natural Elements.
Post performing with various Indian singers for several years, Shankar founded a trio with his brothers, L. Vaidyanathan and L. Subramaniam and they performed throughout India. After the band dissolved, Shankar was a violinist with Frank Zappa for a short time, and then founded the group The Epidemics and released a number of albums as a band leader.
Collaborating with Peter Gabriel, he wrote the soundtrack for the film The Last Temptation of Christ, for which he received a Grammy Award. In the following years, Shankar worked on several of Gabriel’s albums. Since 1996, he has been working with his niece, the violinist Gingger Shankar as the duo Shankar & Gingger.
He has performed in trio with trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg and saxophonist Jan Garbarek and has stretched with Elton John, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Yoko Ono, Stewart Copeland, John Waite, Charly García, Steve Vai, Ginger Baker, Nils Lofgren, Jonathan Davis, The SFA, and Sting.
Better known as L. Shankar, Shankar and Shenkar, violinist, singer and composer Lakshminarayana Shankar continues to perform among other endeavors.
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Three Wishes
Carmell Jones and the Baroness Pannonica were talking one night and she asked him if he was given three wishes what would he ask for. His reply was:
- “I would like, first of all, to be at peace with myself, you know? And that would enable me to be at peace with my instrument.”
- “That I wouldn’t have to worry about money and all that it takes to make a living, but that I would be able to look – be free to look – for something other than money. A spiritual thing, you know?”
- “I’d like to have a home. A home is very important for me, because a home is where you make up everything you want to do.”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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