Three Wishes

Pannonica asked Les Spann if he was given three wishes what they would be his answer:

  1. “That the people of the world would understand each other.”
  2. “That I could look forward to consistent growth of perception till I die.”
  3. “That I could eat chicken as often as I want.”

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

GRIOTS GALLERY

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Carol Stearns Sudhalter was born on January 5, 1943 in Newton, Massachusetts and grew up in a musical family. Her father Albert played the alto saxophone in the New England area, a brother played baritone saxophone and one brother who played trumpet, cornet and wrote award-winning books on jazz.

In the early Sixties, Sudhalter began to play the flute while majoring in biology at Smith College. She continued to study flute with private teachers in Washington DC, New York, Boston, Israel, and Italy until 1978. She studied theory and Third Stream music with Ran Blake and Phil Wilson at the New England Conservatory of Music. From the 1970s on she has been teaching piano, saxophone, and flute privately, at Mannes College, and for the New York Pops Salute to Music Program.

1975 saw Carol deciding to take up the saxophone, and by 1978 relocated from Boston to New York City to join the first all-women Latin band, Latin Fever, produced by Larry Harlow. In 1986 she founded the Astoria Big Band, and she has performed with Sarah McLawler, Etta Jones, Chico Freeman, Jimmy McGriff, Duffy Jackson, and others around the New York jazz clubs, as well as domestic, Italian and British jazz festivals.

She initiated the Jazz Monday concerts at Athens Square Park between 1989 and 2001, along with several other local festivals in Queens where she resides.

A member of the Jazz Journalists Association, Sudhalter also has a chapter in Leslie Gourse’s Madame Jazz and in W. Royal Stokes’ Growing Up With Jazz. In 2012 she was nominated for the 2012 International Down Beat Readers’ Jazz Poll, and was voted 9th place in the category “Best Jazz Flutist”. She has recorded eight albums as a leader, one as a sideman, and the tenor and baritone saxophonist, flutist and pianist Carol Sudhalter continues to perform and educate.

BRONZE LENS

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Harold “Geezil” Minerve was born in Havana, Cuba on January 3, 1922, and raised in Florida and began playing music at age 12. He played with drummer Jeff Gibson and vocalist Ida Cox early in his career, then worked as a freelance musician in New Orleans, Louisiana. Following stints with Clarence Love and Ernie Fields, Minerve served in the Army from 1943–46, then returned to play with Fields for a short time.

He worked with Buddy Johnson from 1949~1957, then with Mercer Ellington in 1960, Ray Charles from 1962 to 1964, and then worked as musical director for Arthur Prysock. In 1971 he joined the Duke Ellington Orchestra, filling Johnny Hodges’s spot after Hodges’s death. Minerve remained with the Ellington Orchestra until 1974, then returned to play with Mercer Ellington with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

Following the success of the Broadway hit Sophisticated Lady when he played with the orchestra on stage and the touring company, Harold left for a brief time, playing with Ruth Brown’s Black and Blue Review in Paris, returning to Ellington in the Eighties. He did further freelance work later in the 1970s.

He would go on to work freelance in and around New York. Alto saxophonist, flutist, and clarinetist Harold Minerve passed away on June 4, 1992.

FAN MOGULS

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Three Wishes

When the Baroness asked Jerome Richardson what three things he would wish for he responded by saying:
  1. “To play this horn.”
  2. “To be a first-class citizen.”
  3. “To make money.”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats – Complied and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
GRIOTS GALLERY

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Three Wishes

Responding to her question of three wishes Eric Dolphy gave Nica only two answers:

  1. “To continue playing music all my life.”
  2. “A home and a car in New York. That’s all.”

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

GRIOTS GALLERY

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