Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Randy Bernsen was born on July 15, 1954 in Needham, Massachusetts. He began his professional career in the mid-1970s , playing guitar with local groups. He collaborated with the rock band Blood, Sweat & Tears on their 1977 tour, where he was second guitarist alongside Mike Stern until he left the band.
Randy went on to work with Jaco Pastorius, Herbie Hancock, Bob James and Peter Erskine. His debut album as a leader came in the form of Music for Planets, People & Washing Machines on the MCA , label in 1986, that received critical acclaim from Down Beat and Guitar Player.
1987 saw Bernsen releasing his sophomore project Mo ‘Wasabi with Wayne Shorter, Michael Brecker, Marcus Miller, Steve Gadd, Toots Thielemans and Bobby Economou supporting his effort. Once again he received great praise from among others, JazzIn and USA Today. His third MCA project however did not hold up to the standard.
Spending some time touring Asia and composing TV music, he settled in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and then joined Joe Zawinul’s band in 1992, replacing Scott Henderson. This move gave him the opportunity to record of Zawinul Syndicate’s Lost Tribes album.
Picking up a house gig at a Fort Lauderdale club resulted in Bernsen’s next CD in 1997 titled Live at Tavern 213, that featured excellent improvisation by the guitarist, bassist Pete Sebastian and drummer John Yarling. This led to a Mexico tour in 1998 with violinist/vocalist Nicole Yarling, saxophonist Richard Brookens, bassist Javier Carrion, and drummer Archie Pena that ultimately yielded Bernsen’s 2001 CD Live in San Miguel de Allande. Performing with his own band, recording 6 albums as a bandleader, guitarist Randy Bernsen continues to pursue his music career.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ray Biondi was born Remo Biondi on July 5, 1905 in Cicero, Illinois. As a child he started with violin and his early training was classical under the supervision of several teachers from the American Conservatory of Chicago. Mandolin followed at age 12 and it became his gateway into the world of string bands, and added guitar and then trumpet into his musical arsenal.
In 1926 he began playing professionally with the Blanche Jaros Orchestra, based out of Cicero, and the next year he started an eight-year period of heavy freelancing in Chicago, enjoying new contacts such as trumpeter Wingy Manone, reedman Bud Freeman, and Earl Burtnett put Biondi in his lineup as a violin and trumpet double. This band took him on a series of tours Kansas City, Cincinnati and New York. this led to a gig with clarinetist and saxophonist Joe Marsala and playing guitar whenever Eddie Condon double booked himself.
In 1938, Gene Krupa hired Ray solely as a guitarist except on an orchestra project where he double as a violinist. A year later he left the band and formed a series of small groups as a leader and one band had a long residency at Chicago’s 606 Club. He then opened a short-lived club himself, and Krupa took him back on the road in the early ’50s. He then began to get session guitar and mandolin work in some genres outside of straight jazz. With Pat Boone and the Crew Cuts as doo wop became a new musical style.
By 1961, he had begun a serious shift to teaching all of his instruments except the trumpet, but continued gigging with groups both large and small, including the orchestra of Dick Schory in the former case and stride pianist Art Hodes in the latter. Violinist Ray Biondi passed away on January 28, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dave Cliff was born David John Cliff on June 25, 1944 in Hexham, Northumberland, United Kingdom. He began his music career playing rhythm and blues in the Newcastle area. In 1967 he matriculated through Leeds College of Music with a degree in jazz studies, while studying with bassist Peter Ind and Bernie Cash.
Moving to London, England in 1971 Cliff established himself on the local scene and during 1976-1977 he toured Holland, Denmark, Italy and the UK with the Lee Konitz/Warne Marsh Quintet. The following year he toured the UK with the Soprano Summit alongside Kenny Davern and Bob Wilber. From the 1980s on he worked increasingly as a freelance.
His debut album as a leader was The Right Time, recorded in 1987, featured alto saxophonist Geoff Simkins and was the first of a number of albums with Simkins, with whom he has collaborated extensively.Dave has also recorded with Warne Marsh, Allan Ganley, Phil DeGreg and Bruce Adams.
Cliff has appeared frequently at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in varied settings including Georgie Fame’s Blue Flames, Mike Carr Trio, Irene Reid and the Dick Pearce Sextet. He has worked extensively with visiting American musicians, including Slide Hampton, Nina Simone, George Masso, Spike Robinson, Herb Geller, Lanny Morgan, Harry Allen, Buddy Childers, Lew Tabackin, Mundell Lowe, Bucky Pizzarelli, Jack McDuff, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Richie Cole, and Ken Peplowski.
As an educator he has been teaching jazz guitar at London Trinity College of Music, The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, the Birmingham Conservatoire, as well as at the Original UK Jazz Summer School, and has taught at the Jamie Aebersold Summer School in London and at the Christiansand jazz course in Norway.
Guitarist and educator Dave Cliff, whose influences from Charlie Christian and Wes Montgomery can be heard in his playing, continues to perform, record and teach.
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Koby Hayon was born June 5, 1972 in Jerusalem, Israel and studied guitar at the Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in Tel Aviv. While there he gained experience as a guitarist with the DGK Trio, Hulon Big Band, and many other notable groups.
Moving to the United States in 2001, he earned his BFA in Jazz Performance at SUNY Purchase, was a recipient of the Ullendorff Memorial Foundation Scholarship, and studied with John Abercrombie, Hal Galper, Todd Coolman, and Jon Faddis. In 2009, Hayon formed the Koby Hayon Jazz Trio. With bandmates Kermit Driscoll and Jerome Morris, he fuses his heritage with his vast musical training by performing classic Israeli songs in a jazz setting, as well as his own compositions. In addition he is part of Trio Shalva with pianist Assaf Gleizner and percussionist Nadav Snir-Zelniker.
As a sideman, Hayon has performed and toured throughout Western New York and Canada, playing and recording with countless bands, from Dixie/Swing Band, led by the legendary Sol Yaged, to playing alongside bassist Bill Crow and with various bands playing traditional Israeli music.
In addition to playing live music where he can be heard regularly at the 55bar, Cornelia St. Cafe, Watercolor Cafe, Birdland and other reputable New York clubs. Hayon is the musical director of “Nigunim – A Festival of New Improvised Jewish Music” and through his efforts, the festival became a recipient of the Arts Project Grant from Westchester Arts Council.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kyle Eastwood was born on May 19, 1968 in Los Angeles, California and is the son of actor Clint Eastwood. Growing up with a father’s love of jazz for the music of Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk and the Stan Kenton Big Band, he developed a similar love for jazz that was prominent in the home. This was coupled with a father and mother who played piano and a and grandmother who taught music at Northwestern University. Attending several Monterey Jazz Festivals in his youth with his dad, got him access backstage to meet people who a great influence on him like Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughan.
Eastwood began playing electric bass in high school, learning R&B, Motown, and reggae tunes by ear. After studying with French bassist Bunny Brunel, he began playing gigs around the New York and Los Angeles areas, eventually forming the Kyle Eastwood Quartet. In 1996 he contributed to Eastwood After Hours: Live at Carnegie Hall performance and ultimate recording, then two years later released his debut CD as a leader, From There to Here, on the Sony label. He moved on to record with the UK’s Candid Records and then to Rendezvous.
He has contributed music to nine films The Rookie, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Changeling, Gran Torino, Invictus and J. Edgar and has been nominated for a Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Original Score for the film Letters from Iwo Jima. He has also contributed to the score of the documentary Homme Less about homeless photographer Mark Reay. Bassist and bass guitarist Kyle Eastwood currently has eight albums released, tours around the world playing clubs and festivals and continues to write, compose, arrange and perform.
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