Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chuck Flores was born Charles Walter Flores on January 5, 1935 in Orange, California, and grew up in Santa Ana, California. Best known for his work with saxophonist Bud Shank in the 1950s, he also had a two-year stint with Woody Herman from 1954 to 1955.
Throughout his career Chuck performed and recorded with, among others, Carmen McRae, Art Pepper, Maynard Ferguson, Al Cohn, and Shelly Manne. His drum teacher Manne and others considered him an underrated drummer.
In his later years, Flores became a highly sought after and renowned educator who was a longtime faculty member at Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, California.
A few of his students were Danny Seraphine, Chad Wackerman, John Wackerman, Brooks Wackerman, Ray Mehlbaum, Pete Parada, Jamie Wollam, Jose Ruiz and Zack Stewart.
Drummer Chuck Flores, who was one of the relatively small number of musicians associated with West Coast jazz who were actually from the West Coast, transitioned on November 24, 2016.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Henry “Boots” Mussulli was born in Milford, Massachusetts on November 18, 1915. His first instrument was clarinet, which he first played at age 12.
By the Forties he was playing with Mal Hallett in Massachusetts and joined Teddy Powell’s group in 1943-44. He played with Stan Kenton from 1944 to 1947, then returned to play with Kenton again on tour in 1952 and 1954.
He played with Vido Musso, Gene Krupa, Charlie Ventura, Serge Chaloff, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Herb Pomeroy.
In 1949, Boots opened a jazz club in his hometown, called The Crystal Room and from the mid-1950s, he concentrated more on music education, leading a local youth orchestra, the Milford Youth Band. They performed at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1967.
Saxophonist Boots Mussulli, based chiefly out of Boston, Massachusetts, passed away from cancer on September 23, 1967 in Norfolk, Massachusetts.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tord Gustavsen was born on October 5, 1970 in Oslo, Norway and raised in rural Hurdal, Akershus where he grew up playing church music. He attended the University of Oslo with a degree in psychology before going to the Trondheim Musikkonsevatorium studying jazz for three years. Graduate school saw him with a degree in musicology at the University of Oslo, where he was a guest teacher of jazz piano and theory.
Signed to ECM Records, between 2003 and 2007 the Tord Gustavsen Trio released three albums and in 2005 won the Nattjazz prize. A later ensemble released the album Restored, Returned was recorded in 2009, which was awarded with Spellemannsprisen, the Norwegian Grammy. The quartet went on to release The Well, Extended Circle and play the Montreal Jazz Festival in several different configurations.
He has recorded as a session musician, and guested on friends’ albums, as well as collaborative projects. Pianist Tord Gustavsen continues to be highly interested in psychology and has written a lengthy thesis on the paradoxes of improvisation. He continues to express his music through performance and recordings.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Judy Bailey was born on October 3, 1953 in Auckland, New Zealand and raised in Whangarei, a town in the north country. As a young child she learned ballet, followed by piano and theory when she was 10 years old. She graduated from Trinity College London in the United Kingdom when she was 16.
Moving to Australia in 1960, Judy has spent most of her time in Sydney. She performed live on television, live music venues like the legendary El Rocco and on many recordings.
As an eductor Bailey is a senior lecturer in jazz composition and jazz piano at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music since 1973 and is also musical director of the Sydney Youth Jazz Ensemble. In 1973, Bailey became the pianist on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation children’s radio show Kindergarten, which often featured presenters from Play School.
She has received the Order of Australia, was inducted into the Graeme Bell Jazz Hall of Fame by Jazz Australia, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Sydney. Pianist and composer Judy Bailey, who has lived in Australia since the 1960s, seldom performs.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Django Bates was born Leon Bates on October 2, 1960 in Beckenham, Kent, England where he attended Sedgehill School. While at this school, for six years he also attended the Centre for Young Musicians in London, England, where he learned trumpet, piano, and violin. In 1977 he studied at Morley College. The following year he enrolled at the Royal College of Music to study composition but left after two weeks.
He founded Human Chain in 1979 and, in the 1980s, he rose to prominence in a jazz orchestra called Loose Tubes. In 1991, Django started the 19-piece jazz orchestra Delightful Precipice. He also assembled the Powder Room Collapse Orchestra and created Circus Umbilicus, a musical circus show. As a sideman he was a member of Dudu Pukwana’s Zila, Tim Whitehead’s Borderline, Ken Stubbs’s First House, Bill Bruford’s Earthworks, Sidsel Endresen, and in the bands of George Russell and George Gruntz.
As an educator, he has tutored at the Banff Centre jazz program, and was appointed Professor of Rhythmic Music at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen. Bates was appointed visiting professor of jazz in 2010 at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and the next year was appointed Professor of Jazz at HKB Bern Switzerland.
He has performed with Michael Brecker, Tim Berne, Christian Jarvi, Vince Mendoza, David Sanborn, Kate Rusby, and Don Alias. Pianist, keyboardist, tenor hornist Django Bates continues to perform and record.
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