Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kat Parra was born on January 13, 1962 in San Francisco, California and spent part of her teenage years in Chile. Upon her return, she move to southern California to attend University of California at Los Angeles where she studied classical flute and voice for a year. Moving to the Silicon Valley area she shifted her educational focus to jazz, studying voice at San Jose State University alongside singer Patti Cathcart of Tuck & Patti, who was a major influence.
Kat spent five years as a lead vocalist for the Bay area salsa band Charanga Nueve, and they opened for the likes of Celia Cruz and Los Van Van of Cuba. But despite all that musical activity, she still had a “day gig” working for the tech giant Cisco Systems. In 2006 she left Cisco to be a full-time singer and concentrate on music exclusively.
That very same year Parra recorded her first solo album, Birds In Flight produced by Bay Area-based trombonist Wayne Wallace on JazzMa Records. After that, she signed with Wallace’s indie label, Patois Records, releasing her second solo album, Azucar de Amor (Sugar of Love) in 2008.
Kat is a flexible and broad-minded jazz vocalist who has very strong Latin leanings but has also been affected by Middle Eastern, Arabic, and North African music as well as greatly influenced by Afro-Cuban jazz. She has also combined jazz with everything from Brazilian samba to Afro-Peruvian music. She plays flute, guitar, and piano, and continues to perform in several different languages, including English, Spanish (which she speaks fluently), Portuguese, French, and Ladino, which is the language of Sephardic Jews and is considered one of the romance languages.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Carter was born January 3, 1969 in Detroit, Michigan and learned to play under the tutelage of Donald Washington, becoming a member of his youth jazz ensemble Bird-Trane-Sco-NOW!! As a young man, he attended Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and become the youngest faculty member at the camp. He first toured Europe (Scandinavia) with the International Jazz Band in 1985 at the age of 16.
By 1988, while at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Carter was a last-minute addition for guest artist Lester Bowie, which turned into an invitation to play with his new quintet in New York that following November at the now defunct Carlos 1 jazz club. This New York invite was pivotal in his career, putting him in musical contact with the world, and he moved to the city two years later.
James has won Down Beat magazine’s Critics and Readers Choice award for baritone saxophone several years in a row. He has performed, toured and played on albums with Lester Bowie, Julius Hemphill, Frank Lowe & the Saxemble, Kathleen Battle, the World Saxophone Quartet, Cyrus Chestnut, Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater and the Mingus Big Band. On his 2000 album Chasin’ the Gypsy, he recorded with his cousin, jazz violinist Regina Carter.
An authority on vintage horns, Carter owns an extensive collection of them. He continues to be a prominent force as a performer and recording artist on the jazz scene since the late 1980s, playing saxophones, flute and clarinets.
Jazz Is Global – Share
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Farrell was born Joseph Carl Firrantello on December 16, 1937 in Chicago Heights, Illinois and learned to play saxophone and flute. During the Sixties he played with The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra and recorded with Charles Mingus, Andrew Hill, Jaki Byard, Players Association, and Elvin Jones.
In the 80s Joe released two albums with the group Fuse One, played sax and oboe on pop recordings by Hall & Oates, played with Airto and Flora Purim, his final recordings making their “Three-Way Mirror” project. He is best known for his series of albums as a leader for the CTI record label and for being an original member of Chick Corea’s Return To Forever.
Kanye West, Method Man, Redman and Common have sampled Farrell’s music “Upon This Rock”, without approval that subsequently resulted in a lawsuit by his daughter.
Tenor and soprano saxophonist and flautist Joe Farrell died of bone cancer on January 10, 1986 in Los Angeles, California at age 48.
Take A Dose On The Road
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Leo Wright was born on December 14, 1933 in Wichita Falls, Texas and studied saxophone under the tutelage of his father. His first recording was made in 1958 with vibist Dave Pike and the next year played the Newport Festival with bassist Charles Mingus’ group. He followed this joining Dizzy Gillespie’s band in 1959, remaining until 1962.
In addition to his sideman work, Wright established himself as a leader in the early ’60s, leading New York-based bands that included the likes of Ron Carter, Junior Mance, Charlie Persip and Kenny Burrell, among others. In 1960 he signed with Atlantic Records and recorded “Blues Shout” with Mance, Persip, Art Davis and Richard Williams.
After leaving Gillespie’s band, Leo went on to play and record with Lalo Schifrin, Jack McDuff, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Johnny Coles, Gloria Coleman and Jimmy Witherspoon. Moving to Europe he spent time working with George Gruntz, Carmell Jones and Lee Konitz in the group Alto Summit. Eventually he moved to Berlin playing in a studio band and freelancing.
Back in New York by 1978, Wright co-led a studio session Red Garland for Muse Records and then retired from music around 1979. He re-emerged in the mid-’80s and was playing gigs in Paris by 1986, working with Grachan Moncur, Kenny Drew Sr. and Nat Adderley. In the years before his death Leo would perform and record with his wife Elly Wright, making his final recording with her titled “Listen To My lea”.
Leo Wright, bop alto saxophonist and one of the finest flutists jazz has known, passed away on January 4, 1991 in Vienna, Austria.
Inspire A Young Mind
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Harold McNair was born on November 5, 1931 in Kingston, Jamaica and started his instrumental training at the Alpha Boys School. Recording and playing mostly Caribbean music styles in the Bahamas, the first decade of his career he was known as “Little G”. During this time he sang and played both alto and tenor saxophones.
McNair played a calypso singer in the 1958 film Island Women and by 1960 he was in Miami recording his first album as a leader “Bahama Bash”, with a mixture of jazz and calypso numbers. It was around this time that he began playing the flute, which would eventually become his signature instrument. Though he took a few lessons in New York, he was largely self-taught.
Departing for Europe later in 1960 Harold toured with Quincy Jones, worked on film and TV scores in Paris, then settled in London gaining a formidable reputation and leading a regular gig at Ronnie Scott’s nightclub
Drawing the admiration of bassist Charles Mingus, in London to shoot the 1961 motion picture All Night Long, McNair became a member of the rehearsal quartet and appeared on the soundtrack on the now famous Mingus composition “Peggy’s Blue Skylight”.
A brief return to The Bahamas produced his first all jazz album “Up in the Air with Harold McNair”, then back to permanent London residence to release his first UK album of hard swinging standards as a leader, “Affectionate Fink” on Island Records with Ornette Coleman.
He signed with RCA and released his most famous composition “The Hipster” in 1968 that has become a playlist fixture. He continued to perform and record into 1971 working and recording with the likes of Philly Joe Jones, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Blossom Dearie, Ginger Baker’s Air Force big band and John Cameron as both leader and sideman.
Harold McNair, flautist, alto and tenor saxophonist whose unique phrasing on the flute in particular also led to great demand for his services among non-jazz musicians, passed away of lung cancer in Maida Vale, North London on March 7, 1971 at age 39.
Put A Dose In Your Pocket