Daily Dose Of Jazz…

William Douglass was born on February 28, 1923 in Sherman, Texas. His extended family relocated to Los Angeles, California when he was six months old in an effort to escape Jim Crow laws. As a member of a musical family he took an early interest in music and when he heard drummer Gene Krupa performing Sing, Sing, Sing on the radio his path was set. He met and befriended Dexter Gordon while attending McKinley Junior High School in Los Angeles, at which point he first began playing drums.

At Jefferson High School, both he and Gordon began taking band under teacher Lloyd Reese, and took private keyboard instructions. Never taking private drum lessons, Bill eventually made the acquaintance of drummer Cozy Cole, who allowed him to watch him practice. What he learned by watching him and other drummers helped him evolve a style of his own.

While  still in schoo he, Dexter and Lammar Wright, Jr. he began playing in Central Avenue night clubs. Eventually he began drumming for pianist Gerald Wiggins, along with double bass and tuba player Red Callender, until he and Callender left to form a trio with blind pianist Art Tatum.

In 1941 upon graduating from high school he enlisted in the United States Army and was assigned to the Black 10th Cavalry Regiment at Camp Lockett. This led to his start to seeing the world being stationed in Casablanca, Oran, Algiers, Naples and Rome. During these travels, Bill became drum major of his 28-piece ensemble, a position he attributed to his great height.

Leaving the service he went on to a  stint with Benny Goodman, where he was at the time the only black member of the band. Bill eventually became part of the union struggle for integration and equality. Even as a working musician, Douglass expanded into teaching drums at Drum City. Among his students, were Ray Brown, Jr., Karen Carpenter, and Ella Fitzgerald.

Drummer and educator Bill Douglass, who was an active proponent of desegregation in the American Federation of Musicians, died on December 19, 1994.

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Jazz Poems

SNAKE-BLACK SOLO For Louis Armstrong, Steve Cannon, Miles Davis & Eugene Redmond with the music up high boogaloo bass down way way low up & under eye come slidin on in mojoin on in spacin on in on a riff full of rain riffin on in full of rain & pain spacin on in on a sound like coltrane my metaphor is a blues hot pain dealin blues is a blues axin guitar voices whiskey broken niggah deep in the heart is a blues in a glass filled with rain is a blues in the dark slurred voices of straight bourbon is a blues dagger stuck off in the heart of night moanin blike bessie smith is a blues filling up the wings of darkness is a blues & looking through the heart a dream can become a raindrop window to see through can become a window to see through this moment to see yourself hanging around the dark to see through can become a river catching rain feeding time can become a window to see through Quincy Troupe

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jesse Powell was born in Smithville, Bastrop County, Texas, on February 27, 1924. He received his formal music training before he began his professional career at age eighteen, when he toured with fellow Texan, Oran “Hot Lips” Page beginning at the age of eighteen during 1942–43.

During the war years he went on to play with Louis Armstrong in 1943–44, then with the Luis Russell Orchestra in 1944–45. He replaced fellow Texas tenorist Illinois Jacquet in the Count Basie Band for a tour of California in 1946. At this time Powell also worked with blues singers Champion Jack Dupree and Brownie McGhee.

1947 saw Jesse joining Curly Russell’s band, and in 1948 he formed his own band in New York City. That same year he performed with trumpeter Howard McGhee at the first international jazz festival in Paris. In 1949–50, he was a member of the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band, with whom he recorded a solo on Tally Ho. In 1953 he once again formed another jump-rhythm band, and in 1964 a Powell quintet played at Birdland in New York City.

Tenor saxophonist Jesse Powell died on October 19, 1982 in New York City.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Colin Thomas Purbrook was born February 26, 1936 in Seaford, East Sussex, England and learned piano from the age of six from his father, who was also a professional pianist. As an eleven year old, in 1947 he won three Challenge Cups at the Brighton Music Festival. He went on to study music at the Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. As well as playing piano, he also played the trombone with the Cambridge University Jazz Band.

Leaving Cambridge in 1957 he joined Sandy Brown’s quintet on double bass for a six-month period at the popular Oxford Street 100 Club. He played piano for three years with Al Fairweather’s All Stars, and also played with Kenny Ball, both as a pianist, trumpeter and double bassist. In the early 1960s he worked with Kenny Baker, Ian Carr, Tony Coe, Bert Courtley, Jimmy Deuchar, Wally Fawkes, Alan Ganley, Derek Hogg, Dudley Moore, John Picard, Don Rendell, Ronnie Ross, and Ronnie Scott.

In 1961 he worked alongside composer and musician Charles Mingus on the music score for the film All Night Long which was eventually released in 1962. Later in the decade he continued working with Brown and Coe, as well as with Brian Lemon, Humphrey Lyttelton, and Phil Seamen on drums. He played piano for the BBC 2’s music programme Jazz 625 with Dakota Staton and the Keith Christie All Stars respectively and was a member of Benny Goodman’s sextet when the clarinetist recorded a special gala performance for BBC2 in 1964.

He often played with drummer Phil Seamen, joining his trio during the late 1960s and early ’70s. Colin was a frequent sideman for Americans touring the UK, and worked over the course of his career with Chet Baker, Ruby Braff, Benny Carter, Doc Cheatham, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Art Farmer, Dexter Gordon, Barney Kessel, Howard McGhee, James Moody, Annie Ross, Zoot Sims, and Buddy Tate. He was involved with the production of a number of stage plays from the 1970s through the 1990s. He led trios and quartets into the 1990s, took up a couple of residencies as a solo pianist, and continued to tour and appear on radio and television and, despite the fact that he began to suffer from rheumatoid arthritis in 1995.

Pianist, double bassist, trumpeter and songwriter Colin Purbrook, who also led his own smaller and larger ensembles, died in London, England of cancer on February 5, 1999.

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Requisites

Free For All ~ Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers | By Eddie Carter

A few years ago, in a discussion of Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall, I stated that every record collector has a few titles in their library that mean the world to them. Free For All (Blue Note BLP 4170/BST 84170) by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers is one of those for me. I’ve listened to it countless times over the years whenever I was down or feeling sad, and it always makes me happy. Art Blakey was not only one of the most energetic drummers in jazz but also the leader of one of the best ensembles for over three decades. His group on this date had been together for three years: Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, Cedar Walton on piano, and Reginald Workman on bass. Free For All initially hit the stores in 1965, and my copy is the 1984 Pathé Marconi French Stereo reissue, sharing the original catalog number.

The title tune, Free For All by Wayne Shorter, starts briskly with the rhythm section’s introduction to the sextet’s aggressive theme. Wayne is up first and swings fiercely in a heated interpretation; then Curtis follows with a vigorously energetic solo. Lee takes over to give a high-octane reading, and Art adds an explosively swinging finale preceding the group’s rousing climax. Wayne Shorter’s Hammer Head slows the beat down to mid-tempo for the ensemble’s leisurely-paced melody. Shorter starts things off with a relaxing interpretation, and then Hubbard treats the listener to an exquisitely beautiful solo. Fuller follows with an excellent reading next, and Walton has the final say before the sextet returns to take the song out.

The Core by Freddie Hubbard is his tribute to the organization CORE (Congress of Racial Equality). It opens with the trio’s introduction ahead of the ensemble’s spirited melody. Wayne launches the first solo like a rocket soaring skyward. Freddie turns up the heat next; then Curtis seamlessly weaves his way through the third interpretation like a flow of electricity. Cedar offers the final adrenaline rush into the sextet’s theme reprise and the trio’s fadeout. Clare Fisher’s Pensativa is a beautiful ballad that Freddie arranged for this date. The group begins in a relaxed groove, setting the stage for Hubbard’s gorgeous opening solo. Shorter expresses so many feelings in the second statement; then Walton’s reading is a delight to hear until the theme returns and the rhythm section dissolves slowly into nothingness.

Alfred Lion produced Free For All, and Rudy Van Gelder was the recording engineer. The front cover displays a Mono catalog number, but this album is a Stereo release. The sound quality on this Pathé Marconi reissue has an amazing soundstage that brings the sextet to your listening room with stunning fidelity. Art Blakey worked with some of the best musicians during his lifetime, and The Jazz Messengers were the springboard for dozens of careers. He was one of the great teachers, and the music his groups made still brings pleasure to jazz fans worldwide. If you’re in the mood for an album that still sounds as fresh as the day it was released, I invite you to check out Free For All by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers the next time you’re out record shopping. It’s a great starting point to explore their comprehensive discography and an album filled with energy and fire that’s as good as it gets for those who enjoy hard bop!

~ Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall (Columbia CL 1612/CS 8612) – Source: Discogs.com © 2024 by Edward Thomas Carter

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