Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Biréli Lagrène was born September 4, 1966 in Soufflenheim, Bas-Rhin Alsace, France in a traditional manouche-Gypsy family and community. He started playing the guitar at the age of four. He grew up in the loving but tough environment of the “tzigane” or Romani Gypsies. His biggest influences came from family with a gifted violinist father. At age eight, he covered Django Reinhardt’s repertoire, at twelve won a Gypsy music festival in Strasbourg and later recorded his live performance on the double LP, “Route to Django”.
Offered the chance to leave for the U.S., Biréli met the greatest jazz musicians of the international scene such as Stephane Grappelli, Benny Goodman and Benny Carter. In 1984, he met Larry Coryell in New York, then later introduced to bassist Jaco Pastorious and ventured with him into jazz-fusion. Together, they toured Europe, which contributed a great deal to Lagrène’s musical emancipation.
Lagrène, a guitarist and bassist, came to prominence in the 1980s for his Django Reinhardt influenced style. He often performs within the swing; jazz-fusion and post bop mediums. He has also performed live with guitarist Al Di Meola, recorded “Gipsy Project” and “Gipsy Project & Friends” in 2002. He has thirty-seven albums and four film scores to date and continues to record, perform and tour.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Puma was born on August 13, 1927 in the Bronx, New York. He became known professionally playing with Joe Roland in 1949. During the ‘50s he held down a position as a studio musician working with Louis Bellson, Artie Shaw, Eddie Bert, Herbie Mann, Mat Mathews, Chris Connor and Paul Quinichette. In 1957 he won the “New Star Award for Guitar” from Metronome Magazine.
He went on to record as a leader during this time and into the Sixties working with Morgana King, Bobby Hackett, Gary Burton and Carmen McRae and between 1972 and ’77 the guitarist led an ensemble with Chuck Wayne. He continued to perform and teach into the late 90s.
The typical Puma style was filled with clean melodic lines, perfect “comping” behind the other players. He had a humorous ad lib quality that showed up as “out of tempo” playing or quoting other melodies.
Guitarist Joe Puma left the world eight albums as a leader and numerous others as a sideman, passing away on May 31, 2000 in New York City a few months shy of his 73rd birthday.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Patrick Bruce Metheny was born August 12, 1954 in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, a suburb southeast of Kansas City. At 15 he won a Down Beat scholarship to a one-week jazz camp, taken under the wing of guitarist Atilla Zoller and met Jim Hall and Ron Carter In NYC. Following high school graduation in 1972, he briefly attended the University of Miami, was quickly offered a teaching position but moved to Boston, accepting a teaching assistantship at Berklee College of Music with vibraphonist Gary Burton, making his name as a teenage prodigy.
In 1974, Metheny gained notoriety playing two sessions with Paul Bley and Carol Goss’ Improvising Artists label along with bassist Jaco Pastorius. He entered the wider jazz scene in 1975 when he joined Gary Burton’s band and his musical momentum carried him rapidly to the point that he had soon written enough material to record his debut album “Bright Size Life” with Pastorius and drummer Bob Moses.
One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz and New Age musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and ’80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group, is involved in side projects, and has released notable solo, trio, quartet and duet recordings. He has worked with musicians such as Jim Hall, Dave Holland, Roy Haynes, Toninho Horta, Gary Burton, Joni Mitchell, Chick Corea, Pedro Aznar, Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Haden, John Scofield, Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, Bill Stewart, Ornette Coleman, Brad Mehldau and many others.
His style incorporates elements of progressive and contemporary jazz, post-bop, new age, Latin jazz and jazz-fusion. He has been voted Guitarist of the Year by the Down Beat Magazine Readers Poll several times, was granted the Miles Davis Award by the Montreal International Jazz Festival, has amassed an impressive catalogue of 97 albums as a leader, collaborator or sideman, has three gold albums and has received 20 Grammy Awards.
Guitarist Pat Metheny has been touring for more than 30 years, playing between 120-240 concerts a year.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kenneth Earl Burrell was born July 31, 1931 in Detroit, Michigan and began playing guitar at age 12. He cites his influences as Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt and Wes Montgomery. He made his debut recording with Dizzy Gillespie’s Sextet while still matriculating Wayne State University in 1951.
After graduating Kenny went on the road with Oscar Peterson in 1955 and a year later moved to New York City. During this decade and forward Burrell has led his own groups and recorded some 40 albums and CDs, many of them well-received albums, such as, Midnight Blue, Blue Lights, Sunup to Sundown, Soft Winds, and his 75th Birthday Bash.
A consummate sideman, Burrell recorded with a wide range of prominent musicians. A highly popular performer, he has won several jazz polls in Japan, United Kingdom and the United States.
In the 1970s he began leading seminars about music, particularly “Ellingtonia”, examining the life and accomplishments of Duke Ellington. As of 1996 he has served as Director of Jazz Studies at UCLA, mentoring such notable alumni as Gretchen Parlato and Kali Wilson.
Guitarist Kenny Burrell has amassed over sixty albums as a leader and another 58 as a sideman with the likes of Jimmy smith, Lalo Schifrin, Charlie Rouse, Sonny Rollins, Ike Quebec, Wynton Kelly, Etta Jones, Milt Jackson, Coleman Hawkins and Red Garland among numerous others. He continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
William Clarence Eckstine was born on July 8, 1914 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania but grew up in Washington, DC of Prussian and African American heritage. He began singing at the age of seven, entering amateur talent shows while dreaming of a football career that was sidelined when he broke his collarbone. Focusing on music he worked his way west to Chicago, joining Earl Hines’ Grand Terrace Orchestra as vocalist and occasionally trumpeter from1939 – 1943. During his tenure he made a name for himself through the Hines band’s radio shows with such jukebox hits as “Stormy Monday Blues” and his own “Jelly Jelly”.
Eckstine formed the first bop big band in 1944 making it a fountainhead for young musicians who would reshape jazz by the end of the decade, including Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Charlie Parker, Fats Navarro and Sarah Vaughn, with Tadd Dameron and Gil Fuller were among the band’s arrangers. Billy hit the charts often during the mid-’40s, with Top Ten entries including “A Cottage For Sale” and “Prisoner of Love”.
Breaking down barriers throughout the Forties as a leader of the original bop big band and as the first romantic black male in popular music, Mr. B, as he was affectionately known, went solo in 1947. His seamless transition to string-filled balladry saw him recording more than a dozen hits by the end of the decade and winning numerous awards from Esquire, Down Beat and Metronome magazines. His 1950 appearance at New York’s Paramount Theatre greatly surpassed Sinatra’s audience draw at the same venue.
Over the course of the next two decades Billy appeared on every major television variety show from Ed Sullivan to Nat King Cole, Jack Paar, Steve Allen, Joey Bishop, Flip Wilson and Playboy After Dark. After a long series of hit tunes and recordings by the 70’s Billy’s recordings came sparingly although he still performed before adoring audiences throughout the world. He made his final Grammy-nominated recording singing with Benny Carter in 1986.
Billy Eckstine, vocalist, bandleader, trumpeter, valve trombonist and guitarist passed away on March 8, 1993, at age 78, in his hometown of Pittsburgh.
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