Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dimitar Bodurov was born on September 17, 1979 in Bulgaria and studied at the Conservatory of Sofia and the Rotterdam Conservatory, where he graduated in 2004 jazz piano and in 2006 jazz composition.
In 2000 Dimitar moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands and began performing throughout the country and Europe. He recorded his debut recording as a leader in 2004 titled Melatonic on the Acoustic Records label followed by his live sophomore release the same year titled Resumption Suite. He would go on to record solo and trio albums on both Dutch and Norwegian labels.
Bodurov ventured into composing for theater, opera, and orchestra. He has received several jazz awards, receiving a mention at the Martial Solal Jazz Solo Piano Competition in Paris. He has released a number of CD and digital albums as a leader, producer, and guest for Dutch and Norwegian labels. In 2012 he founded his own label Optomusic.
As an active event organizer, Dimitar has initiated several events: Jazz and Vino ~ a series of concerts with charity purpose in Varna, Bulgaria; Keys and Stix Festival ~ celebrating duets of piano and drums in collaboration with Bimhuis, Amsterdam & Unterfahrt, Münich; and since 2013, he has been the artistic leader of Radar Festival, Varna, Bulgaria.
Pianist and composer Dimitar Bodurov, who has worked with Randy Brecker, Didier Lockwood, Theodosii Spassov, Claron Mcfadden and Svetlin Rouseev, continues to compose, perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Israel López Valdés was born into a family of musicians on September 14, 1918 in Havana, Cuba. Better known as Cachao, a nickname and stage name given to him by his grandfather, as an 8-year-old bongo player, he joined a children’s son Cubano septet directed by a 14-year old Roberto Faz. A year later, already on double bass, he provided music for silent movies in his neighborhood theater, in the company of a pianist who would become a true superstar, the great cabaret performer Ignacio Villa, known as Bola de Nieve.
His parents made sure he was classically trained, first at home and then at a conservatory. In his early teens, Lopez was already playing contrabass with the Orquesta Filarmónica de La Habana, of which Orestes was a founding member. Under the baton of guest conductors such as Herbert von Karajan, Igor Stravinsky, and Heitor Villa-Lobos, he played with the orchestra from 1930 to 1960.
He and his older brother Orestes were the driving force behind one of Cuba’s most prolific charangas, Arcaño y sus Maravillas. As members of the Maravillas, Cachao and Orestes pioneered a new form of ballroom music derived from the danzón, the danzón-mambo, which subsequently developed into an international genre, mambo.
In the 1950s, Cachao became famous for popularizing improvised jam sessions known as descargas. In 1961, Cachao went into exile. He crossed the Atlantic by boat, reaching Madrid thanks to Ernesto Duarte, who demanded him to play with his orchestra–Orquesta Sabor Cubano–and where he spent a few years touring the country until the orchestra finally broke up in 1963. Moving to the United States that same year, Cachao became a session musician and was one of the most in-demand bassists in New York City, along with Alfonso “El Panameño” Joseph and Bobby “Big Daddy” Rodríguez.
Joseph and López substituted for each other over a span of five years, performing at New York City clubs and venues such as the Palladium Ballroom, The Roseland, The Birdland, Havana San Juan and Havana Madrid. While Cachao was performing with Machito’s orchestra in New York, Joseph was recording and performing with Cuban conga player Cándido Camero. When Joseph left Cándido’s band to work with Charlie Rodríguez and Johnny Pacheco, it was Cachao who took his place in Cándido’s band. In the 1970s, Cachao fell into obscurity after moving to Las Vegas, Nevada and then later Miami, Florida releasing albums sporadically as a leader.
The 1990s saw his re-discovery by actor Andy García, who brought him back to the forefront of the Latin music scene with the release of a documentary and several albums. Throughout his career, he performed and recorded in a variety of music styles ranging from classical music to salsa.
Double bassist and composer Cachao Lopez, who rose to prominence during the boogaloo years, who recorded sixteen albums as a leader and another twenty as singles, collaborator, and sideman, passed away in Coral Gables, Florida at age 89 on March 22, 2008.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cat Anderson was born William Alonzo Anderson on September 12, 1916 in Greenville, South Carolina. Losing both parents when he was four years old, he was sent to live at the Jenkins Orphanage in Charleston, South Carolina where he learned to play the trumpet. It was his classmates that gave him the nickname “Cat” based on his fighting style.
He toured and made his first recording with the Carolina Cotton Pickers, a small group based at the orphanage. After leaving the Cotton Pickers, Anderson played with guitarist Hartley Toots, the Claude Hopkins Big Band, Lucky Millinder, the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra, the Sabby Lewis Orchestra, the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, with whom he recorded the classic Flying Home No. 2, and the Doc Wheeler Sunset Orchestra with whom he also recorded from 1938–1942.
His career took off in 1944 when he joined Duke Ellington’s orchestra at the Earle Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He quickly became a central part of Ellington’s sound. Although Anderson was a very versatile musician, capable of playing in a number of jazz styles, he is most renowned for his abilities in the extreme high or “altissimo” range. He had a big sound in all registers but could play up to a “triple C” with great power, able to perform his high-note solos without a microphone.
A master of half valve and plunger mute playing, Cat was capable of filling in for anyone else who was not there. He led and fronted his own big band and in addition, he was a very skilled arranger and composer. He performed his own compositions El Gato and Bluejean Beguine with Ellington, and others of his compositions and arrangements with his own band, for example on his 1959 Mercury recording, Cat on a Hot Tin Horn.
After 1971, he settled in the Los Angeles, California area, where he continued to play studio sessions, perform with local small and big bands, and to tour Europe. He recorded seven albums as a leader, and as a sideman recorded sixty-four with Johnny Hodges, Quincy Jones, Rosemary Clooney, Frances Faye, Mel Torme, Earl Hines, Bell Berry, Benny Carter, Claude Bolling, Gene Ammons, Louis Bellson, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lionel Hampton. Trumpeter Cat Anderson passed away from cancer on April 29, 1981.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Harry Percy South was born on September 7, 1929 in Fulham, London, England. Coming into prominence in the 1950s, he subsequently performed with Joe Harriott, Dizzy Reece, Tony Crombie, and Tubby Hayes. In 1954, he was in the Tony Crombie Orchestra, together with Dizzy Reece, Les Condon, Joe Temperley, Sammy Walker, Lennie Dawes, and Ashley Kozak.
After returning from a nine-month stint in Calcutta, India, with the Ashley Kozak Quartet, he spent four years with the Dick Morrissey Quartet, where he both wrote and arranged material for their subsequent four albums.
Forming his own jazz big band in 1966, featuring UK musicians Hayes, Dick Morrissey, Phil Seamen, Keith Christie, Ronnie Scott, and Ian Carr, and recorded an album for Mercury Records. In the mid-1960s, he began working with British rhythm & blues singer and organist Georgie Fame, with whom he recorded the album Sound Venture. At that time he was also composing and arranging for Humphrey Lyttelton, Buddy Rich, Sarah Vaughan, and Jimmy Witherspoon.
Working for a time as the musical director to Annie Ross, Harry later branched out into session work, writing themes for television and music libraries, and having written the scores for the Pete Walker films, he is also credited with the arrangements for Emerson, Lake & Palmer, again arranged for Annie Ross and Georgie Fame in collaboration on what was to be Hoagy Carmichael’s last recording, In Hoagland.
Pianist, composer, and arranger Harry South, who was honored with the CD Portraits ~ The Music of Harry South released by the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, passed away on March 12, 1990 in Lambeth, London at age 60.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tony Crombie was born Anthony John Kronenberg on August 27, 1925 in Bishopsgate, London, England. He was a self-taught musician who began playing the drums at the age of fourteen. He was one of a group of young men from the East End of London who ultimately formed the co-operative Club Eleven, bringing modern jazz to Britain.
In 1947 traveling to New York City with his friend Ronnie Scott, he witnessed the playing of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, then took it back to the UK along with Scott, Johnny Dankworth, and Dennis Rose. 1948 saw Crombie touring Britain and Europe with Duke Ellington, who only brought Ray Nance and Kay Davis with him. Picking up a rhythm section in London, Ellington chose him on the recommendation of Lena Horne, with whom he had worked when she appeared at the Palladium.
Tony would go on to depart from jazz and set up a rock and roll band in 1956 he called The Rockets. Modelled after Bill Haley’s Comets and Freddie Bell & the Bellboys, he released several singles for Decca and Columbia record labels. By 1958 the Rockets had become a jazz group with Scott and Tubby Hayes. During the following year Crombie started Jazz Inc. with pianist Stan Tracey.
In 1960, he composed the score for the film The Tell-Tale Heart and established residency at a hotel in Monte Carlo. In May 1960 he toured the UK with Conway Twitty, Freddy Cannon, Johnny Preston, and Wee Willie Harris.
During the next thirty years he performed with Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Joe Pass, Mark Murphy and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis. In the mid-1990s, after breaking his arm in a fall, he stopped playing the drums but continued composing until his death in 1999. Drummer, pianist, vibraphonist bandleader, and composer Tony Crombie, who was an energizing influence on the British jazz scene for over six decades, passed away on October 18, 1999 in Hampsead, London at the age of 74.
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