Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tommy Vig was born on July 14, 1938 in Budapest, Hungary. Internationally recognized as a child prodigy by the age of 6, he played drums with his father, clarinetist Gyorgy Vig and performed concerts on Budapest State Radio, at the City Theatre, the Academy of Music, and the National Circus. By age 8, he made the album The World Champion Kid Drummer with Austrian jazz players in Vienna, Austria including Hans Koller, Ernst Landl, and the Hot Club of Vienna for Elite Special. The following year his drumming won him the 1947 MGM-Jazz Competition in Budapest and as a result made several recordings with the Chappy’s Mopex Big Band for His Master’s Voice.
Completing his studies at the Bartók Conservatory in 1955 and the Ferenc Erkel Music High School in 1956, due to the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he fled to Vienna, where he played concerts with Fatty George and Joe Zawinul. A move to the United States saw him on scholarship at Juilliard School of Music. Since then he has been writing and conducting concerts.
In 1970 Vig relocated to Los Angeles, California where he worked in the studios of Warner Bros., Fox, Universal, CBS, Columbia, ABC, Disney, Goldwyn, MGM, and Paramount. He played on 1500 studio sessions in Hollywood, two Academy Awards, and produced, directed, and conducted the official 1984 Olympic Jazz Festival for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee. He wrote the music for 30 films and television shows, and added percussion on the recording of Quincy Jones’s soundtrack to Roots.
Vig has worked with Red Rodney, Don Ellis, Cat Anderson, Terry Gibbs, Art Pepper, Milcho Leviev, Joe Pass, the Miles Davis-Gil Evans Big Band. Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Curtis, Woody Allen, Judy Garland, Tony Bennett and Rod Stewart.
Since 2006, vibraharpist, drummer, percussionist, xylophonist and marimba player Tommy Vig, who has won several awards, has been performing concerts with his wife, appearing on radio and television, and recording albums.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jerry Tachoir was born August 7, 1955 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. A chance meeting with Gary Burton led to him matriculating through Berklee College of Music, studying with Burton and graduating summa cum laude in 1976.
Tachoir has been nominated for a Grammy, released several albums with his band, the Group Tachoir, and as an educator he has taught privately for over a quarter of a century, held clinics and master classes and authored A Contemporary Mallet Method: An Approach to the Vibraphone and Marimba,
He has released an instructional vibraphone video titled Master Study Series and the Vibraphone Vol. I and II. Vibraphone and marimba player Jerry Tachoir has led his quartet for twenty-five years throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe, and continues to compose, record and tour.
#preserving genius
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Daily Dose OF Jazz…
Red Norvo was born Kenneth Norville on March 31, 1908 in Beardstown, Illinois. It is said that he sold his pet pony to help pay for his first marimba. He began his career in 1925 in Chicago playing with a band called “The Collegians”, in 1925. He played with many other bands, including an all-marimba band on the vaudeville circuit along with the bands of Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnet and Woody Herman.
By 1933 he had recorded two sessions for Brunswick under his own name including two of the earliest, most modern pieces of chamber jazz: Bix Beiderbecke’s “In A Mist” and his own “Dance of the Octopus”. For these he put aside the xylophone for the marimba yet outraged the label’s head that tore up his contract and threw him out, though the album remained in print throughout the 30s.
From 1934-35 Red recorded 8 modern swing sides for Columbia followed by 15 sides of Decca and their short-lived Champion label series in 1936. From there he formed a Swing Orchestra and recorded for ARC, Vocalion and Columbia featuring brilliant arrangements by Eddie Sauter and often vocals by Mildred Bailey.
In 1938, Red Norvo and His Orchestra reached number one with their recordings of “Please Be Kind” and “Says My Heart”. He went on to record with Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie in 1945, hit the West Coast in ’47, helped Charles Mingus rise to prominence in his trio, recorded for Savoy, recorded with Sinatra in Australia and released by Blue Note, appeared on the Dinah Shore Chevy Show and appeared in the movie Screaming Mimi as himself.
Red Norvo, helped to establish the xylophone, marimba and vibraphone as a viable jazz instrument continued to record and tour throughout his career until a stroke in the mid-1980s forced him into retirement. He died at a convalescent home on April 6, 1999 in Santa Monica, California at the age of 91.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Stefon Harris was born March 23, 1973 in Albany, New York and started playing the piano at age 6 and learned to read music by the time he began elementary school. By the time he reached 8th grade Stefon played nearly twenty different instruments from string bass to trombone. After seeing the Empire State Youth Orchestra on television, he auditioned for the ensemble and was accepted as the principal percussionist.
A few years later, he earned a full merit scholarship to attend Eastman School of Music in Rochester, where his roommate introduced him to jazz via Charlie Parker records. Smitten by the music, Harris moved to New York City and began gigging on the jazz scene as a vibraphone player while finishing his B.A. and Master’s degrees at the Manhattan School of Music.
Harris has released several critically acclaimed albums, composed numerous works and is one of the foremost young artists in demand today having played with such luminaries as Kenny Barron, Steve Turre, Kurt Elling, Charlie Hunter, Joe Henderson, Steve Coleman, Cassandra Wilson, Buster Williams, Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society. In 2011 he ventured to Havana, Cuba with saxophonist David Sanchez and trumpeter Christian Scott to record their critically acclaimed Ninety Miles. Having performed worldwide, vibraphonist Stefon Harris sits at the forefront of New York music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bobby Hutcherson was born January 27, 1941 in Los Angeles, California and studied piano with his aunt as a child. Not enjoying the formality of the training he tinkered with it on his own, especially since he was already connected to jazz through a brother’s high school friendship with Dexter Gordon and a singing sister who later dated Eric Dolphy. But it was hearing Milt Jackson that made everything clicked for Hutcherson during his teen years, working until he saved up enough money to buy his own set of vibes.
He began studying with Dave Pike and playing local dances in a group led by his friend, bassist Herbie Lewis. Parlaying his local reputation into gigs with Curtis Amy and Charles Lloyd in 1960. And joined an ensemble led by Al Grey and Billy Mitchell. A year later he’s in New York at Birdland and ends up staying on the east coast as his reputation of his inventive four mallet playing spread.
Attracted foremost to more experimental free jazz and post-bop, he made early recordings in this style for Blue Note with Jackie McLean, Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill, Granchan Moncur, but ironically his debut recording for the label in 1963, The Kicker, not released until 1999, demonstrated his background in hard bop and the blues.
His vibraphone playing is suggestive of the style of Milt Jackson in its free-flowing melodic nature, but his sense of harmony and group interaction is thoroughly modern. Easily one of jazz’s greatest vibraphonists, Bobby Hutcherson helped modernize the vibes by redefining what could be done with it — sonically, technically, melodically, and emotionally. In the process, he became one of the defining voices in the “new thing” portion of Blue Note’s glorious ’60s roster.
Throughout his career Hutcherson has performed or recorded with a who’s who list of avant-garde, free improvisation, modernist post-bop, straight-ahead, mainstream, fusion and bop jazz players on the scene, staying ever current in his message. As a leader he has recorded nearly four-dozen albums for Blue Note, Landmark, Columbia, Cadet, Timeless, Evidence, Atlantic and Verve. Vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson maintained his reputation as one of the most advanced masters of his instrument until he passed away on August 15, 2016 in Montara, California.
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