JORGE GARCIA BAND
Guitarist Jorge Garcia brings all the richness and melodic soul of Latin rhythms from his birthplace of Cuba. His intense passion for his instrument is immediately visible and colorfully audible through his unique original compositions, impeccable solos and supportive, rhythmic guitar. He has performed across the globe with the renowned and impressive talents of Tony Bennett, Richie Cole, Patti Page, Andrea Bocelli, Bucky Pizzarelli, Joel Grey, Enrique Iglesias, Trini Lopez, The Drifters, and Bobby Riddell.
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Daily Dose of Jazz…
Nappy Lamare was born Joseph Hilton Lamare on June 14, 1905 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He got his nickname from his friend, Eddie Miller, because he had curly hair. He started playing trumpet but picked up the banjo when he was thirteen and weeks later he was a member of the Midnight Serenaders. During his teen years he worked with Sharkey Bonano, Monk Hazel, and Johnny Wiggs. In 1925 he toured in California with Johnny Bayersdorffer, then recorded for the first time two years later with the New Orleans Owls.
A move to New York City had him playing mostly guitar instead of banjo and he became a member of the Ben Pollack Orchestra and sang on Two Tickets to Georgia. Lamare remained with the band until 1942, performing on records and films, sometimes as a vocalist. He moved to California and spent the rest of his career playing Dixieland as leader of the Louisiana Levee Loungers, then the Straw Hat Strutters in the 1940s and 1950s. The Strutters appeared in the movie Hollywood Rhythm and on the weekly TV variety show Dixie Showboat.
The latter part of his career he spent in reunions with Bob Crosby, performing at Disneyland, and touring with the World’s Greatest Jazz Band. He played guitar, banjo, and sang until his transition at the age of 82 on May 8, 1988.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Attila Cornelius Zoller was born on June 13, 1927 in Visegrád, Hungary. As a child, he learned violin from his father, a professional violinist. While in school, he played flugelhorn and bass before landing on the guitar. Dropping out of school he played in jazz clubs in Budapest while Russia occupied Hungary. He fled Hungary on foot through the Austrian mountains with his guitar in 1948 as the Soviet Union was establishing communist military rule. Settling in Vienna, he became an Austrian citizen and started a jazz group with accordionist Vera Auer.
The mid-1950s saw Zoller moving to Germany and playing with Jutta Hipp and Hans Koller. When American jazz musicians passed through, such as Oscar Pettiford and Lee Konitz, they persuaded him to move to the United States. He moved to the states after receiving a scholarship to the Lenox School of Jazz. One of his teachers was guitarist Jim Hall and his roommate was Ornette Coleman, who got him interested in free jazz.
From 1962–1965, Zoller performed in a group with flautist Herbie Mann, then Lee Konitz and Albert Mangelsdorff. Over the years, he played and recorded with Benny Goodman, Stan Getz, Red Norvo, Jimmy Raney, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Shirley Scott, Cal Tjader, Jimi Hendrix, and in New York City jazz clubs in the 1960s with pianist Don Friedman.
During the Seventies he started the Attila Zoller Jazz Clinics in Vermont, later named the Vermont Jazz Center, where he taught until 1998. He invented a bi-directional pickup, designed strings and a signature guitar series. Between the years 1989 and 1998, he played more and more with the German vibraphonist Wolfgang Lackerschmid. They also did recordings together. He performed with Tommy Flanagan and George Mraz in New York City three weeks before his transition in Townshend, Vermont on January 25, 1998.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Pasco Gourley, Jr. was born June 9, 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri. He met saxophonist Lee Konitz in Chicago when both were members of the same high school band and credits Konitz with encouraging him to become a serious musician.
His father started the Monarch Conservatory of Music in Hammond, Indiana, though he didn’t teach and bought his son his first guitar. Jimmy took his first guitar classes at the school and became interested in jazz while listening to the radio, enjoying in particular Nat King Cole. For his first professional experience as a performer, he dropped out of high school to play with a jazz band in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
From 1944 to 1946 Gourley served in the U.S. Navy. Upon his return to Chicago, Illinois he met guitarist Jimmy Raney and wanted to play like him. He worked in bars and clubs with Jackie Cain & Roy Kral, Anita O’Day, Sonny Stitt, and Gene Ammons. Through the G.I. Bill he received tuition for three years to any college in the world.
Beginning in 1951, Jimmy spent the rest of his life in France, working with Henri Renaud, Lou Bennett, Kenny Clarke, Richard Galliano, Stéphane Grappelli, Bobby Jaspar, Eddy Louiss, Martial Solal, and Barney Wilen. He played with American musicians who were passing through, including Bob Brookmeyer, Clifford Brown, Stan Getz, Gigi Gryce, Roy Haynes, Lee Konitz, Bud Powell, Zoot Sims, Lucky Thompson, and Lester Young.
Guitarist Jimmy Gourley, who spent the better part of his life in Paris, France transitioned at the age of 82 on December 7, 2008 in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, France.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
William Charles “Diz” Disley was born on May 27, 1931 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, where his parents worked. When he was four, they moved back to Llandyssil in Montgomeryshire, Wales and then five years later to Ingleton, North Yorkshire, England where his mother worked as school teacher. During his childhood he learned to play the banjo, but took up jazz guitar at the age of 15, after being exposed to the playing of Django Reinhardt. His neighbour Norry Greenwood taught him the chords to Miss Annabel Lee and Try a Little Tenderness in the summer of 1946.
Showing an early gift for drawing, he left school to enroll at Leeds College of Art, which had a reputation for student music making, in particular trad jazz. Soon he was playing in the Vernon City Ramblers and the Yorkshire Jazz Band with trumpeter Dick Hawdon and clarinettist Alan Cooper.
Post National Service in 1953, he resumed his studies in Leeds, and began selling cartoons to national newspapers and periodicals. A move to London, England saw him joining Mick Mulligan’s band with George Melly. He worked with most of the trad jazz bands of the day, including Ken Colyer, Cy Laurie, Sandy Brown, Kenny Ball, and Alex Welsh. In 1958, he formed a quintet to replicate that sound, employing violinist Dick Powell, guitarists Danny Pursford and Nevil Skrimshire, and a range of double bassists including Tim Mahn.
Disley started working as guitarist with a number of skiffle groups as it took over from trad jazz working and recording with Ken Colyer, Lonnie Donegan, Bob Cort, Nancy Whiskey. He would go on to persuade Stephane Grappelli to return to public performances using an all-strings acoustic line-up, recreating the spirit of the Quintette for a new generation of listeners. This began a collaboration between Grappelli and the Diz Disley Trio, sometimes billed The Hot Club of London, and after twenty years he broke his wrist when he was knocked down by a motorcycle. In 1978 Grappelli, Disley, and others were invited by David Grisman to contribute the score to the film King of the Gypsies. Grappelli and Disley had walk-on parts as gypsy musicians and were suitably attired for the occasion, but the soundtrack to the movie was never released.
In the 1980s Disley formed a working partnership with gypsy jazz guitar prodigy Bireli Lagrene, then put together a club quintet for Nigel Kennedy, and the Soho String Quintette that recorded Zing Went The Strings for Waterfront Records.
In the 1990s, he spent several years in Los Angeles, California and delved into blues and country-rockabilly. He moved to Spain in the 2000s and painted several portraits of jazz musicians in the cubist style. In early 2010 his health took a turn for the worse, and he was admitted to the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, England on February 2nd. Guitarist Diz Disley transitioned on March 21, 2010.
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