Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Pass was born Joseph Anthony Jacobi Passalaqua on January 13, 1929 in Brunswick, New Jersey but was raised in Johnston, Pennsylvania. Inspired by Gene Autry’s portrayal of a guitar-playing cowboy. His father gave him his first guitar on his 9th birthday and encouraged him to pick up tunes by ear, play pieces not specifically written for guitar and practice scales leaving no spaces between the notes of the melody.
As early as 14, Joe started gigging with bands fronted by Tony Pastor and Charlie Barnet as he honed his guitar skills and learned the music business. He began traveling with small jazz groups, eventually ending up in New York City. Unfortunately, he fell victim to drug abuse spending a good portion of the 1950s in relative obscurity, reappearing only after a two-and-a –half year stay in rehab at Synanon that resulted in the 1962 album “The Sounds of Synanon”.
Throughout the sixties Pass recorded a series of albums for the Pacific Jazz label, received Downbeat magazine’s “New Star Award” in ’63, toured with George Shearing, was a sideman with Louis Bellson, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, Della Reese and Johnny Mathis, and worked on TV shows including The Tonight Show with Carson, Merv Griffin, Steve Allen and others.
By the early 1970s, Pass and guitarist Herb Ellis were performing together regularly at Donte’s in Los Angeles, a collaboration that led to the recording of Jazz/Concord with Ray Brown and Jake Hanna in tow. During this time he also collaborated on a series of music books, and his Joe Pass Guitar Style is considered a leading improvisation textbook for students of jazz.
In 1970 Norman Granz signed pass to his Pablo records in which he released as a leader and worked with Benny Carter, Milt Jackson, Herb Ellis, Zoot Sims, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie and many, many others. In 1974, along with Oscar Peterson and Niels-Henning Orsted Pederson they won a Grammy with their album “The Trio” for Best Jazz Performance by a group. Throughout the late 70sto mid 80s, Joe and Ella Fitzgerald would record six albums together as her career was nearing its end. In 1994, guitarist Joe Pass died from liver cancer in Los Angeles on May 23rd at the age of 65.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bulee “Slim” Gaillard was born on January 4, 1916 in Santa Clara, Cuba. His childhood in Cuba was spent cutting sugarcane and picking bananas, as well as occasionally going to sea with his father. At age 12, he made his way to America settling in Detroit. A move to New York City in the late 1930s saw Gaillard’s rise to prominence as part of Slim & Slam, a jazz novelty act he formed with bassist Slam Stewart. Their hits included “Flat Foot Floogie”, “Cement Mixer” and the hipster anthem, “The Groove Juice Special”.
Gaillard’s appeal was that he presented a hip style with broad appeal, was a master improviser whose stream of consciousness vocals ranged far afield from the original lyrics along with wild interpolations of nonsense syllables. Gaillard could play several instruments, such as guitar and piano and always managed to turn the performance from hip jazz to comedy.
In the late forties and early fifties, Gaillard frequently opened at Birdland for such greats as Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips and Coleman Hawkins. Slim composed theme songs for radio shows, appeared in several shows in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Charlie’s Angels, Mission Impossible, Along Came Bronson and Roots: The Next Generation. By the early 1980s he was touring the European jazz festival circuit, playing with such musicians as Arnett Cobb.
Slim Gaillard, singer, songwriter, pianist, guitarist and actor noted for his vocalese, spoke 9 languages including “Vout”, a language he constructed out of word play and created a dictionary, passed away on February 26, 1991 in London, England at the age of 75.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Scofield was born on December 26, 1951 in Dayton, Ohio but early in his life the family moved to Wilton, Connecticut and it was here that he discovered his interest in music. He attended Berklee College of Music but left to record with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan followed by joining the Billy Cobham/George Duke Band touring and recording for two years.
Affectionately known as “Sco”, he went on to record with Charles Mingus, replace Pat Metheny in Gary Burton’s band and in 1976 signed with Enja Records releasing his first album “John Scofield” the next year. He formed his own band with Steve Swallow and Adam Nussbaum in ’70 and joined Miles Davis for three and half years in 1982. Leaving Miles he formed the Blue Matter Band and released three albums, in the nineties he put together a quartet that included Joe Lovano, Charlie Haden and Jack DeJohnette and recorded several albums for Blue Note. Towards the end of his tenure with Blue Note, Scofield returned to a more funk and soul jazz-oriented sound, a direction that has dominated much of his subsequent output to the present.
Scofield has played and collaborated with Joe Henderson, Joey DeFrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Pat Martino, Mavis Staples, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Jaco Pastorious, John Mayer, Hal Galper and the Metropole Orchestra along with many other well-known artists.
Guitarist John Scofield is at ease in the bebop idiom as well as he is versed in Jazz-fusion, funk, blues, soul, rock and other forms of modern American music and currently is an adjunct professor at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mark Elf was born in Queens, New York on December 13, 1949 and started playing guitar at the age of 11. He attended Berklee College of Music from 1969-71 when his first professional jazz gig came as a sideman with Gloria Coleman and Etta Jones at the Club Barron in Harlem, New York that was double billed with the George Benson Quintet.
During the 1970’s he toured with Lou Donaldson, Jimmy McGriff, Richard “Groove” Holmes and Charles Earland and recorded a number of albums with them, his first with McGriff and Holmes in 1973 on the Giants of the Organ Come Together. In the late 1970’s Mark worked and recorded with Junior Cook and Bill Hardman. By the 80’s he was touring Europe with Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry and other jazz luminaries. In 1986 he recorded his first album as a called the Mark Elf Trio Volume 1.
He continued to record as a leader over the next two decades with Hank Jones, Jimmy Heath, Ray Drummond and Ben Riley, Jon Hendricks, Wynton Marsalis, Benny Golson, Al Grey and Red Holloway. He also inked his first overseas record deal. In 1995 Mark established Jen Bay Records and stunned the record industry with hit recordings. From 1996 to 2004 all 10 of his recordings had finished in the top ten on national jazz radio with eight of them going to #1 consecutively from 1997 to 2004.
From 1970 to the present, guitarist, clinician and educator Mark Elf has taught guitar and theory at independent studios, colleges and universities across the United States and abroad, and his clinics are recognized as some of the finest in the world. He is sought after for his lectures on “How To Succeed As An Indie”. He owns his own successful record label and publishing company. He continues touring with his trio at festivals, colleges and clubs.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Albert Edwin Condon was born November 16, 1905 in Goodland, Indiana and started playing music on the ukulele before switching to guitar. By the time he was sixteen he was in Chicago playing professionally with Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden and Frank Teschmacher.
In 1928 Condon moved to New York City frequently arranging jazz sessions for various labels, sometimes playing with the artists he brought like Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. He organized racially integrated recording sessions – when these were still rare – with Waller, Armstrong and Henry “Red” Allen. He played with the Red Nichols band, later forming a long association with Milt Gabler’s Commodore Records in 1938.
From the late 1930s on Eddie was a regular at Nick’s in Manhattan with Pee Wee Russell, Wild Bill Davison and Bobby Hackett. He went on to appear in a short film with Hackett, produced a series of jazz broadcasts from Town Hall during the last years of WWII that gave him national popularity.
From 1945 through 1967 he ran his own New York jazz club, Eddie Condon’s. In the 50s he recorded a sequence of classic albums for Columbia Records, toured Britain, Australia, Japan, the U. S. and performed at jazz festivals throughout the world until 1971. Two years later, Eddie Condon, jazz banjoist, guitarist, bandleader and arranger passed away on August 4, 1973 in New York City.
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