Three Wishes

While hanging out one evening during the conversation with Al Dreares, the Baroness asked him his three wishes. He told her this:

    1. “I wish that I may become a great musician.”
    2. “And I also wish that I can be successful with my fellow musicians.”
    3. “And I wish my son grows up to be a fine young man. He’s four and a half months old.”

*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter

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JOHNATHAN BLAKE

Johnathan Blake, one of the most accomplished drummers of his generation, has also proven himself a complete and endlessly versatile musician. Blake’s gift for composition and band leading reflects years of live and studio experience across the aesthetic spectrum. Heralded by NPR Music as “the ultimate modernist,” he has collaborated with Pharoah Sanders, Ravi Coltrane, Tom Harrell, Hans Glawischnig, Avishai Cohen, Donny McCaslin, Linda May Han Oh, Jaleel Shaw, Chris Potter, Maria Schneider, Alex Sipiagin, Kris Davis and countless other distinctive voices. DownBeat once wrote, “It’s a testament to Blake’s abilities that he makes his presence felt in any context.” A frequent presence on Blue Note records over the past several years, Blake has contributed his strong, limber pulse and airy precision to multiple leader releases from Blue Note artists including Dr. Lonnie Smith’s Breathe (2021), All in My Mind (2018) and Evolution (2016) and Kenny Barron’s Concentric Circles (2018), the latter whose trio Blake has been a vital member for nearly 15 years.

Born in Philadelphia in 1976, Blake is the son of renowned jazz violinist John Blake, Jr. — himself a stylistic chameleon and an important ongoing influence. After beginning on drums at age 10, Johnathan gained his first performing experience with the Lovett Hines Youth Ensemble, led by the renowned Philly jazz educator. It was during this period, at Hines’s urging, that Blake began to compose his own music. Later he worked with saxophonist Robert Landham in a youth jazz ensemble at Settlement Music School. Blake graduated from George Washington High School and went on to attend the highly respected jazz program at William Paterson University, where he studied with Rufus Reid, John Riley, Steve Wilson and Horace Arnold. At this time Blake also began working professionally with the Oliver Lake Big Band, Roy Hargrove and David Sanchez. In 2006 he was recognized with an ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award, and in 2007 he earned his Masters from Rutgers University, focusing on composition. He studied with the likes of Ralph Bowen, Conrad Herwig and Stanley Cowell. Deeply aware of Philadelphia’s role as a historical nerve center of American music, Blake has immersed himself in the city’s storied legacy — not just jazz but also soul, R&B and hip-hop. In many ways he’s an heir to Philadelphia drum masters such as Philly Joe Jones, Bobby Durham, Mickey Roker and Edgar Bateman, not to mention younger mentors including Byron Landham, Leon Jordan and Ralph Peterson, Jr..

Fridays at 7pm & 8:30pm – Running time for each set is 90 minutes

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Clark Tracey was born February 5, 1961 in London, England and began his music journey playing piano and vibraphone before switching to drums at age 13, studying under Bryan Spring. He played in several ensembles with his father Stan Tracey including a quartet called Fathers and Sons with John and Alec Dankworth in the 1990s. In addition to his work with his father, which took him around the world, he has played with numerous visiting American musicians, notably Bud Shank, Johnny Griffin, Red Rodney, Sal Nistico, Conte Candoli, Barney Kessell, John Hicks and Pharoah Sanders throughout his career.

Through the 1980s Clark performed and recorded with Buddy DeFranco, Martin Taylor, Charlie Rouse, Alan Skidmore and Tommy Smith. The Nineties saw him with Claire Martin into the new century. During the decade and beyond he led his own ensembles with a host of recognized names like Django Bates, Nigel Hitchcock and Jamie Talbot. Concentrating on promoting the music of his late father, his final group under his own name included Mark Armstrong, Tom Ridout, James Wade Sired, Gareth Williams and James Owston.

Drummer, band leader, and composer Clark Tracey, has received several honors and was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to music and the promotion of jazz. He continues to pursue excellence in the genre.

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Bobby Durham was born on February 3, 1937 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and learned to play drums while a child. He played with The Orioles at age 16, and was in a military band between 1956 and 1959. After his discharge, he played with King James and Stan Hunter.

1960 saw Durham moving to New York City, where he played with Lloyd Price, Wild Bill Davis, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Slide Hampton, Grant Green, Sweets Edison, Tommy Flanagan, Jimmy Rowles, and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, in which he played for five months. While working with Basie, he met Al Grey, and was a member of several of Grey’s small ensembles.

He accompanied Ella Fitzgerald for more than a decade, and worked with Oscar Peterson in a trio setting. Bobby played in trios with organists such as Charles Earland and Shirley Scott, and there was a resurgence in interest in his work during the acid jazz upswing in the 1990s. Many of his projects, both as sideman and as leader, came about because of his association with producer Norman Granz, who used him in performances with Fitzgerald, Basie, Edison, Flanagan, and Joe Pass.

He led his own combos, is noted for scat singing along with his drum solos. He recorded with Monty Alexander, Shawn Monteiro, Red Holloway, Milt Jackson, Clifford Jordan, and Jay McShann. He also performed often with pop and soul musicians such as Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Ray Charles, and Marvin Gaye.

Drummer Bobby Durham, who recorded five albums as a leader and twenty~three as a sideman, transitioned from lung cancer in Genoa, Italy at 71 on July 6, 2008.

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James Norbert Black was born on February 1, 1940 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He played piano and trumpet during his youth and studied music at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He first started working in R&B ensembles as a drummer in the late 1950s, but took a job drumming with Ellis Marsalis in the New Orleans Playboy Club, leading to further work in jazz idioms.

A move to New York City in the mid-Sixties and worked in jazz idioms during the decade with Nat Perrilliat, Roy Montrell, Ellis Marsalis, Nat Adderley and Cannonball Adderley, Joe Jones, Horace Silver, Lionel Hampton, Yusef Lateef, Freddie Hubbard, and Eric Gale.

Returning to New Orleans near the end of the 1960s, playing there with Dr. John, James Booker, Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, Charles Neville, James Rivers, Earl Turbinton and the Dukes of Dixieland. Scram Records brought James on as a session musician, and can be heard on Eddie Bo’s single Hook and Sling. In the 1980s he worked with Cassandra Wilson, Wynton Marsalis, and Germaine Bazzle.

Black was a composer and received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Among his works are Monkey Puzzle and Dee Wee, both of which were recorded by Ellis Marsalis’s ensemble in the early 1960s. Recordings under his name were compiled by Night Train Records and released on CD as I Need Altitude: Rare and Unreleased New Orleans Jazz and Funk, 1968-1978.

Drummer James Black, closely associated with the New Orleans jazz scene, transitioned on August 30, 1988.

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