Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Letellier was born October 11, 1957 in the United States. After attending Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts in 1975, the following year he wrote his first compositions and arrangements. He began as a pianist playing in warm-up bands for artists such as Phil Woods, Gary Burton, and Steve Swallow. Returning to Berklee in 1983, he graduated two years later with a Superior Prix in Film Music Composition.
Moving to San Francisco, California he worked as a freelance pianist in the jazz and salsa genre from 1986 until 1990. His successful session work attracted film executives and he was hired to compose music for films and corporate videos. In 1987 George served as a music editor on the Academy Award-nominated short film Liru, and in 1988 in Oakland, California, established a film production company where he worked not only as a composer but a producer.
In 1991, Letellier moved to Portugal, accepting a job offer as a professor of composition in Porto, Portugal. There he composed two ballets and was a session musician. He collaborated with saxophonist Mario Santos and formed the George Letellier Quartet which toured all across Portugal.
By 1995 he relocated to Luxembourg and began working as a music composer, session musician and taught private lessons. With the Opus 78 Big Band, he collaborated in arranging the tunes of Frank Sinatra and turning them into large philharmonic ensembles for performing.
From 1997 until 2003, he went into education serving as Director of Jazz Studies at the Esch Conservatoire, wrote three publications on jazz theory and formed the original Consabora Salsa Orchestra with Harri Jokiharra. Since 2001, Letellier has taught jazz at L’Ecole de Musique in Echternach, Luxembourg.
Pianist, composer, and educator George Letellier continues to function as a session pianist, and has performed in hundreds of jazz concerts and theatrical productions in Luxembourg, the United States, Europe, and India.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gregory Charles Royal was born on October 10, 1961 IN Washington, D.C. As a student at Howard University he received the 1982 DownBeat Magazine Student Music Award for Jazz Vocal Group and Graduate College Outstanding Performance in the Jazz Instrumental Soloist Category. He graduated from Howard University with a Master of Music in Jazz Studies.
Royal went on to play with the Duke Ellington Orchestra for a decade beginning in 1989, then with Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, Slide Hampton and his World of Trombones, and Howard University Jazz Ensemble. He has appeared onstage as a trombonist with the Broadway shows Five Guys Named Moe and Jelly’s Last Jam.
He has written and appeared in a play God Doesn’t Mean You Get To Live Forever, which was presented at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. and at Theatre Row on 42nd Street in New York. Royal also wrote and appeared in the short film World’s Not for Me. The film won the Harlem Spotlight Best Narrative Short Award at the Harlem International Film Festival in 2016.
Trombonist, composer, writer Chuck Royal, who is the co-founder of The BeBop Channel Corporation, the former parent owner of JazzTimes, continues to pursue his career in music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Anthony K. Wright was born October 9, 1959 in London, England and began playing brass at school, before moving to clarinet at the age of 12, and later picked up the tenor saxophone. Turning professional in the early 1980s he played as a session musician and ran various rock bands in night clubs and on the gig circuit in London and South Wales. He maintained his interest in the clarinet, and in the early Nineties began playing jazz on the West Country ciecuit, whilst teaching Performing Arts at North Devon College.
Moving to Surrey late in the decade he is now widely known as a reeds teacher, with students ranging from adult beginners to advanced Grade 8 and Diploma-level specialists. His forte is improvisational jazz. leads a cool jazz band, Anthony’s AllStars, which features both clarinet and saxophone. He also plays with Riverside Shuffle Band and Vic Cracknell’s Swing Band, and other local bands.’
Tenor saxophonist Anthony Wright continues to perform and spends much of his time composing, arranging and creating his own recordings of what he has labeled intelligent pop..
Get a dose of the musicians and vocalists who were members of a global society integral in the making and preservation of jazz for over a hundred and twenty-five years…
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Aladar Pege was born on October 8, 1939 in Budapest, Hungary into a family of Gypsy musicians. He did not start playing the bass until age 15 but he quickly grabbed the attention of his teachers at the Bartók Bela Musical Training College. He studied classical music at Bartók, and worked in dance orchestras. He attended Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music and after graduating in 1969 he remained as a double bass teacher.
Forming a jazz quartet in 1963 Pege quickly gained international recognition and in 1964 saw him being named festival Virtuoso at a concert in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Reforming his jazz group in 1970 he appeared at the Montreux Jazz Festival where he was named Europe’s Best Soloist.
Between 1975 and 1978 he lived in Berlin, Germany playing bop and free jazz, but later returned home to teach. Aladar recorded with Walter Norris, and played concerts with Herbie Hancock, Art Farmer, Dexter Gordon and Mingus Dynasty. Sue Mingus, the widow of Charles Mingus, gave him one of her late husband’s instruments.
Double bassist Aladar Pege, who was called the Paganini of the bass, died at age 67 on September 23, 2006 in Budapest.
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On The Bookshelf
Fashion and Jazz: Dress, Identity and Subcultural Improvisation
Born in the late 19th century, jazz gained mainstream popularity during a volatile period of racial segregation and gender inequality. It was in these adverse conditions that jazz performers discovered the power of dress as a visual tool used to defy mainstream societal constructs, shaping a new fashion and style aesthetic. Fashion and Jazz is the first study to identify the behaviours, signs and meanings that defined this newly evolving subculture.
Drawing on fashion studies and cultural theory, the book provides an in-depth analysis of the social and political entanglements of jazz and dress, with individual chapters exploring key themes such as race, class and gender. Including a wide variety of case studies, ranging from Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald to Louis Armstrong and Chet Baker, it presents a critical and cultural analysis of jazz performers as modern icons of fashion and popular style.
Addressing a number of previously underexplored areas of jazz culture, such as modern dandyism and the link between drug use and glamorous dress, Fashion and Jazz, published by Bloomsbury, provides a fascinating history of fashion’s dialogue with African-American art and style. It is essential reading for students of fashion, cultural studies, African-American studies and history.