Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Fay Victor was born on July 26, 1965 in Brooklyn, New York City. After spending her early childhood years in New York, Zambia, and Trinidad & Tobago, her mother settled in Long Island, New York where she spent her teenage years. After her mother’s sudden death, she re-discovered music and singing, and after a three-month stint at a club in Fukui City, Japan with pianist Bertha Hope, she decided to start a career as a jazz singer.
In 1996, Fay settled in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and performed and toured through the country, as well as Spain, Germany, the UK, Sweden, Russia, and India. While living in the Netherlands, Victor branched out into blues, songwriting, and forms of improvising outside the standard jazz canon.
Returning to the States in 2003, Victor has made her home in New York City. She has worked with the likes of Randy Weston, Roswell Rudd, Anthony Braxton, Misha Mengelberg, Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorey, Wadada Leo Smith, Nicole Mitchell, Marc Ribot, Martine Syms, Daniel Carter, William Parker, Darius Jones, Wolter Wierbos, Ab Baars, Joe Morris, Sam Newsome, and Reggie Nicholson.
Victor has coined the term “freesong” to describe her vocal approach. In her jazz repertoire, he has specialized in the work of Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, and Herbie Nichols.
Vocalist, composer, lyricist, and educator Fay Victor, who originally sang in the traditional jazz field, has expanded her repertoire to include blues, opera, free improvising, avant-garde, modern classical music, and occasional acting, continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Wiggs, was born John Wigginton Hyman on July 25, 1899 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He started his music career on the violin but soon adopted the cornet. His main stylistic influences were Bix Beiderbecke and King Oliver, who Wiggs insisted did his best work in New Orleans in the years before he moved up North to New York City and was recorded.
Returning to New Orleans in the late 1920s, he took a job as a teacher in Louisiana and at night played in New Orleans jazz clubs. During this period in his life, he made his first recordings as John Hyman’s Bayou Stompers.
In the 1940s he returned to being a full-time musician, leading several bands and recording many songs. He used the pseudonym Johnny Wiggs, as jazz was still looked down on in some circles. He went on to be an important figure in the local traditional jazz revival.
The 1960s saw Wiggs performing part-time, remaining active until the Seventies. He mentored George Finola and Pete Fountain was one of his more famous pupils. He helped found the New Orleans Jazz Club and was a force behind the jazz revival in the 1940s.
Cornetist and bandleader Johnny Wiggs passed away on October 10, 1977 in his hometown of New Orleans.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rudy Collins was born on July 24, 1934 in New York City, New York. He played trombone in high school and started on drums at that time as well. From 1953 to 1057 he studied with drummer Sam Ulano.
He began gigging in New York City, playing with Hot Lips Page, Cootie Williams, Eddie Bonnemere, Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Smith, Carmen McRae, Cab Calloway, and Roy Eldridge. At the Newport Jazz Festival, Rudy performed with J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding.
Later in the 1950s, Collins became increasingly interested in the budding free jazz scene, in addition to playing with more traditional ensembles. He worked with Herbie Mann from 1959 and later with Cecil Taylor, Quincy Jones, Dave Pike, and Lalo Schifrin.
He recorded with Ahmed Abdul-Malik, Gene Ammons, Ray Bryant, Billy Butler, Junior Mance, James Moody, the Jimmy Owens-Kenny Barron Quintet, Randy Weston, and Leo Wright. Drummer Rudy Collins, whose last recordings were in 1981, passed away on August 15, 1988.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tony Lee, born Anthony Leedham Lee on July 23, 1934 in Whitechapel, London, England. He learned the rudiments of the piano from his elder brother, Arthur, who was self-taught and preferred to use the black keys rather than the white. As a consequence, he became fluent in keys such as G flat and B natural, before moving on to more standard keys, leaving him with the ability to transpose effortlessly his entire repertoire into any key.
He played as a regular for many years with his trio comprising bassist Tony Archer and drummer Martin Drew or Terry Jenkins at The Bull’s Head in Barnes, South West London, a few miles from his home in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey.
During a visit by tenor saxophonist Billy Mitchell who came to play at the Bull’s Head, both Mitchell and Lee got on so well together that the Bull’s Dan Fleming organized for both of them a 1984 U.S. tour. Despite his sketchy knowledge of musical theory, he was a complete master of his instrument, and blessed with large hands, stretching an 11th with ease, all played in a lyrical style, and swinging like a garden gate. He was arguably the greatest British exponent of the Erroll Garner piano style, though his playing embraced a much wider compass.
He appeared on at least two recordings with Phil Seamen, a live recording featuring U.S. bassist Eddie Gómez, and a solo debut, Electric Piano, earned many comparisons to the works of Burt Bacharach. Lee led at least four other album sessions, including Tony Lee Trio, probably the quintessential album of his career.
His 40-year association with bassist Tony Archer in the Tony Lee Trio, also had them playing together in the sextet The Best of British Jazz formed in the early 1970s with drummer Jack Parnell, trumpeter Kenny Baker, trombonist Don Lusher and tenor saxophonist Betty Smith.
Pianist Tony Lee, influenced by Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson, and Art Tatum, passed away on March 2, 2004 in Esher, Surrey, England.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paul Moer was born Paul Moerschbacher on July 22, 1916 in Meadville, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Miami, graduating in 1951, and following this moved to the West Coast. There he frequently played on the jazz scene with Benny Carter, Vido Musso, Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, Bill Holman, and Shorty Rogers.
He did extensive work in Los Angeles, California studios as a pianist and an arranger. In the late 1950s, Paul led his own trio with Jimmy Bond and Frank Butler. In 1960 he toured Australia with Benny Carter and also recorded with Charles Mingus, Jack Montrose, John Graas, Paul Horn from 1960 to ‘63, then with Ruth Price, and Buddy DeFranco.
As a sideman he recorded with Jack Montrose, John Graas, Paul Horn, Jimmy Witherspoon, Dave Pell, Jack Sheldon, Emil Richards, Paul Whiteman, Rosemary Clooney, and Maynard Ferguson. Playing little after the 1960s, he made a comeback with a release in 1991 of Elmo Hope tunes and released his final album, Get Swinging, in 2005. Pianist Paul Moer passed away on June 9, 2010.
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