Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John “Jack” Purvis was born in Kokomo, Indiana on December 11, 1906 and became uncontrollable after his mother’s death in 1912. This resulted in being sent to a reform school, but while there, he discovered that he had an uncanny musical ability, and soon became proficient enough to play both the trombone and trumpet professionally. Leaving the reformatory he continued his high school education, while playing paying gigs on the side. One of the earliest jobs he had as a musician was with a band led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Not long afterward, he worked with the dance band of Hal Denman.
After high school he worked in Indiana for a time then went to Lexington, Kentucky where he played with the Original Kentucky NightHawks. Around this time he learned to fly planes. In 1926 he was with Bud Rice and toured New England. The remainder of 1926 and the beginning of 1927 was with Whitey Kaufman’s Original Pennsylvanians. For a short time he played trumpet with Arnold Johnson’s orchestra, and by July 1928 he traveled to France with George Carhart’s band. A brush with the law forced him to return to New York City in 1928.
From 1929 on he joined Hal Kemp’s band and recorded with Kemp, Smith Ballew, Ted Wallace, Rube Bloom, the California Ramblers, and Roy Wilson’s Georgia Crackers. He led a couple of racially mixed recording sessions including the likes of J.C. Higginbotham, and Adrian Rollini. He worked with the Dorsey Brothers, Fletcher Henderson, Fred Waring, Charlie Barnet. the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra.
Moving to Los Angeles, California he found success with radio broadcasting, worked with the George Stoll Orchestra as a writer, and arranged for Warner Bros. Studios. He composed Legends of Haiti for a one hundred and ten piece orchestra.
Arrested in Texas in 1937, he spent a total of nine years in prison for robbery and breaking parole. After his final release he worked at non-musical careers which included working as a chef, aviator, carpenter, radio repairman and a mercenary. One of the earliest trumpeters to incorporate the innovations pioneered by Louis Armstrong in the late 1920s.
His mental stability was always in question, having attempted suicide on several occasions. Trumpeter Jack Purvis, who played trombone, harp, andcomposed Dismal Dan and Down Georgia Way, passed away on March 30, 1962.
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Requisites
Journey In Satchidananda is the fourth solo album by Alice Coltrane recorded on November 8, 1970. Avant-garde in its jazz direction and released in 1971, its title and title track reflects Coltrane’s inspiration by Swami Satchidananda whom John Coltrane had become close to while being his disciple.
Shiva-Loka or realm of Shiva references the realm of the third member of the Hindu trinity, the dissolver of creation. Stopover Bombay refers to a five-week stay in India and Sri Lanka on which Coltrane was due to go in December 1970. Something About John Coltrane is based on themes by her late husband, John Coltrane. Isis and Osiris, on which Charlie Haden replaces Cecil McBee on bass, and Vishnu Wood plays oud, indicates Coltrane’s interest in Middle Eastern and North African music and culture. The presence of the tamboura, played by Tulsi, reflects Coltrane’s interest in Indian classical music and religion.
Side A- Journey in Satchidananda ~ 6:39
- Shiva-Loka ~ 6:37
- Stopover Bombay ~ 2:54
- Something About John Coltrane ~ 9:44
- Isis and Osiris ~ 11:49
Tracks A1–B1 were recorded at the Coltrane home studio in Dix Hills, New York on November 8, 1970. Track B2 was a live recording at The Village Gate in New York City on July 4, 1970. Tracks A1 to B1
- Alice Coltrane – piano, harp
- Pharoah Sanders – soprano saxophone, percussion
- Cecil McBee – double bass
- Rashied Ali – drums
- Tulsi – tanpura
- Majid Shabazz – bells, tambourine
- Alice Coltrane – harp
- Pharoah Sanders – soprano saxophone, percussion
- Rashied Ali – drums
- Charlie Haden – bass
- Vishnu Wood – oud
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Casper Reardon was born on April 15, 1907 in New York City. He studied classical harp at the Curtis Institute of Music before going on to play for the Philadelphia Orchestra and then the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Before Reardon the harp had been used in dance music for the occasional flourish, but he is considered the first for using harp as a jazz instrument for solos and performances. By 1936 he was hailed as the World’s Hottest Harpist, and the following year he played Cousin Caspar in the film You’re a Sweetheart.
1938 saw him playing harp for the Broadway musical I Married An Angel. As a jazz musician Reardon can be heard performing on albums by Jack Teagarden and Paul Whiteman. As a leader Casper recorded a handful of records for Liberty Music Shops and Schirmer.
Classical and jazz harpist Casper Reardon passed away in New York City on March 9, 1941 at the age of 33.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alice Coltrane, née McLeod, was born on August 27, 1937 in Detroit, Michigan. She studied classical music and also jazz with Bud Powell and began playing professionally in Detroit, with her own jazz trio and as a duo with vibist Terry Pollard. It was while playing with the Terry Gibbs Quartet in 1962 that she met John Coltrane. Replacing McCoy Tyner as pianist with Trane’s group in 1965, the two married the following year and continued playing together until his death in 1967. She is the mother of daughter Michelle, drummer John Jr., and saxophonists Oran and Ravi.
After her husband’s death she continued to play with her own groups, later including her children, moving into more and more meditative music. Alice was one of the few harpists in the history of jazz and her essential recordings were made in the late Sixties and early 1970s for Impulse Records.
Coltrane became a devotee of the Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba in 1972, moved to California and established the Vendantic Center in 1975. By the late Seventies she had changed her name to Turiyasangitananda, became the swamini or spiritual director of Shanti Anantam Ashram established in 1983 near Malibu, California. Only on rare occasions would she perform publicly under the name Alice Coltrane.
The 1990s saw renewed interest in her work, which led to the release of the compilation Astral Meditations, and in 2004 she released her comeback album Translinear Light. Following a twenty-five-year break from major public performances, she returned to the stage for three U.S. appearances in the fall of 2006, culminating on November 4 with a concert in San Francisco with her son Ravi, drummer Roy Haynes and bassist Charlie Haden.
Alice Coltrane, pianist, organist, harpist and composer, passed away of respiratory failure on January 12, 2007 in Los Angeles, California.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dorothy Ashby was born Dorothy Jeanne Thompson on August 6, 1932 in Detroit, Michigan growing up around music where her father, guitarist Wiley Thompson, often brought home fellow jazz musicians. As a young girl, Dorothy would provide support and background to their music by playing the piano. She attended Cass Technical High with fellow students Donald Byrd, Gerald Wilson and Kenny Burrell. While in high school she played a number of instruments including the saxophone and string bass before coming upon the harp.
Attending Wayne State University in Detroit, Ashby studied piano and music education; graduated and began playing piano around the Detroit jazz scene. By 1952 she had made the harp her main instrument, and at first her fellow jazz musicians were resistant to the idea of adding the harp into jazz performances. Overcoming their initial resistance and perception of it being an instrument of classical music and also somewhat ethereal in sound, she built support for the jazz harp by organizing free shows and playing at dances and weddings with her trio.
She recorded with Ed Thigpen, Richard Davis, Jimmy Cobb, Frank Wess and others in the late 1950s and early 1960s and had her own radio show in Detroit. Ashby played with Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman, was included in Down Beat magazine’s Best Jazz Performances, and produced Black theater in Detroit by starting a theatrical group with her husband John Ashby providing a training ground for actors like Ernie Hudson,
By the late 1960s, the harpist settled in California breaking into the studio recording system with the help of the soul singer Bill Withers who recommended her to Stevie Wonder playing on the former’s +’Justments and the latter’s “If It’s Magic” in the Seventies. As a result, Dorothy played studio sessions for Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Barry Manilow. She was featured in the song “Come Live With Me” on the soundtrack for the 1967 movie Valley of the Dolls.
Along with Alice Coltrane, Ashby extended the popularization of jazz harp past a novelty, showing how the instrument can be utilized seamlessly as much a bebop instrument as the saxophone. Her skill and creativity is recognized today and her musical legacy is enduring as numerous hip-hop musicians have sampled her music.
Dorothy Ashby, harpist and composer, passed away from cancer on April 13, 1986 in Santa Monica, California.
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