Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Zorn was born September 2, 1953 in New York City, New York and attended the United Nations International School, where he studied piano, guitar and flute from an early age. Exposed by his families musical tastes in classical, world, jazz, French chansons, country doo-wop and rock and roll records, he spent his teenage years exploring classical and film music, listening to The Doors and playing bass in a surf band. He explored experimental and avant-garde music as well as cartoon soundtracks and film scores. He went on to teach himself orchestration and counterpoint by transcribing scores and studied composition under Leonardo Balada.
After discovering Anthony Braxton’s album For Alto when he was studying composition at Webster College in St. Louis, Missouri, Zorn began playing saxophone and attended classes taught by Oliver Lake. While at Webster, he incorporated elements of free jazz, avant-garde and experimental music, film scores, performance art and the cartoon scores of Carl Stalling into his first recordings.
Leaving Webster after three semesters, John lived on the West Coast before returning to Manhattan where he gave concerts in his apartment and other small NY venues, playing saxophone and a variety of reeds, duck calls, tapes, and other instruments. He immersed himself in the underground art scene, assisting Jack Smith with his performances and attending plays by Richard Foreman
Zorn entered New York City’s downtown music scene in the mid-1970s, collaborating with improvising artists while developing new methods of composing experimental music. Over the next decade he performed throughout Europe and Japan and recorded on independent US and European labels. In 1986 he received acclaim with the release of his radical reworking of the film scores of Ennio Morricone, The Big Gundown, followed by Spillane, an album featuring his collage-like experimental compositions. Spy vs Spy and Naked City both demonstrated his ability to merge and blend musical styles in new and challenging formats.
Having spent time in Japan in the late 1980s and early ’90s John returned to Lower East Side Manhattan to establish the Tzadik record label in 1995, enabling him to establish independence, maintain creative control, and ensure the availability of his growing catalog of recordings. He prolifically recorded and released new material for the label, issuing several new albums each year, along with recordings by many other artists.
He performs on saxophone with the groups Naked City, Painkiller, and Masada but more often conducts bands like Moonchild, Simulacrum and several of his Masada-related ensembles. He composes concert music for classical ensembles and orchestras, produces music for opera, sound installations, film and documentary, and tours Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer John Zorn continues his exploration of music and adds to his diverse repertoire.
Bestow upon an inquiring mind a dose of a New York City composer to motivate the perusal of the genius of jazz musicians worldwide whose gifts contribute to the canon…
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Claude Barthélemy was born on August 22, 1956 in St. Denis, France and started playing guitar when he was fourteen years old. He began playing professionally with Michel Portal’s Ensemble Unit in 1978 and worked with Aldo Romano, Stu Martin, and Gérard Marais.
In the early 1980s he assembled a trio with Jacques Mahieux and Jean-Luc Ponthieux. Additionally he worked with Jean-Marc Padovani and Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique. By the mid-1980s he concentrated on composition, writing for mixed ensembles. Several of his pieces incorporated video and dance.
Barthélemy co-founded the group Zhivaro in 1987 and from 1989 to 1991 was the director of Orchestre National de Jazz. The 1990s saw him leading the octet La Nouvelle-Orleans, the quartet Monsieur Claude, and accompanying Elise Caron and Sylvie Cobo.
Guitarist Claude Barthélemy continues to perform as a director and leader of various ensemble configurations
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Adam Makowicz was born Adam Matyszkowic on August 18, 1940 into a family of ethnic Poles in Hnojník, Poland now the Czech Republic. After World War II he was raised in Poland and went on to study classical music at the Chopin Conservatory of Music in Kraków, Poland. Overcoming cultural restrictions under the communist government he developed a passion for modern jazz. At the time, political freedom and improvisation were disapproved of by the pro-Soviet authorities.
He embarked on a new professional life as a touring jazz pianist and after years of hardship, Makowicz gained a regular gig at a small jazz club in a cellar of a house in Kraków. He was named the Best Jazz Pianist by the readers of Poland’s Jazz Forum magazine, and was awarded a gold medal for his contribution to the arts.
1977 saw Adam on a 10-week concert tour of the United States, produced by John Hammond. At that time he settled in New York City and recorded a solo album titled Adam on the CBS record label, having been banned from Poland during the 1980s after the Polish regime imposed martial law to crush the Solidarity movement.
Moving to Toronto, Canada in the 2000s he continued his career as a concert pianist and recording artist. In the course of his career, Makowicz has performed with major symphony orchestras and major concert halls in the Americas and in Europe. He has recorded over 30 albums of jazz, popular, and classical music, with his own arrangements and recorded his own compositions for piano. Pianist Adam Makowicz continues to compose, arrange, record and perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sam Butera was born on August 17, 1927 and raised in an Italian-American family in New Orleans, Louisiana where his father ran a butcher shop and played guitar in his spare time. Hearing the saxophone at seven for the first time at a wedding, with his father’s encouragement he began to play.
His professional career blossomed early, beginning with a stint in big band drummer Ray McKinley’s orchestra directly after high school. At eighteen Butera was named one of America’s top upcoming jazzmen by Look magazine and by his early twenties, he had landed positions in the orchestras of Tommy Dorsey, Joe Reichman, and Paul Gayten.
As the big band era wound down Sam re-settled in New Orleans, where he played regularly at the 500 Club for four years. The club, owned by Louis Prima’s brother, was the connection that led him to his Las Vegas, Nevada collaborations with Prima and Keely Smith.
Prima transitioned from big band to Vegas and the Sahara and called Butera to assemble a band posthaste. They drove from New Orleans to Las Vegas and without a name on opening night in 1954 when Prima asked Butera before a live audience he responded spontaneously, “The Witnesses”, and the name stuck, remaining the bandleader for more than twenty years.
Noted for his raucous playing style, his off-color humor, and the innuendo in his lyrics, he also wrote arrangements, composed music. Sam is widely regarded as the inspiration for the vocal style of fellow New Orleans-born jazz singer Harry Connick, Jr. He went on to appear on television and in movies. Tenor saxophonist Sam Butera transitioned from pneumonia in Las Vegas on June 3, 2009 at the age of 81.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph Copeland Garland was born on August 15, 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia and studied music at Shaw University and the Aeolian Conservatory. He started by playing classical music but joined a jazz band, Graham Jackson’s Seminole Syncopators, in 1924, where he first recorded.
He had a long run of associations as a sideman on saxophone and clarinet from 1925 to the end of the decade with Elmer Snowden, Joe Steele, Henri Saparo, Leon Abbey Charlie Skeete and Jelly Roll Morton. By the 1930s he was playing and arranging with Bobby Neal and the Mills Blue Rhythm Band from 1932 to 1936. When Lucky Millinder replaced him, he joined Edgar Hayes in 1937, then Don Redman the following year, and Louis Armstrong from 1939 to 1942.
In the 1940s, he played with Claude Hopkins and others, and then returned to Armstrong’s band mid decade for two years. Following this he played with Herbie Fields, Hopkins again, and Earl Hines. In the 1950s, he went into semi-retirement.
Garland wrote a number of well-known swing jazz hits, including Serenade To A Savage and Leap Frog. He is credited as the composer with lyricist Andy Razaf for In the Mood which became a Glenn Miller hit. Saxophonist, composer, and arranger Joe Garland transitioned on April 21, 1977 in Teaneck, New Jersey.
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