The Jazz Voyager
Staying on the east coast and heading back down to the city to the lower westside of Greenwich Village to the iconic jazz spote called the Village Vanguard. The 130 seat venue has been around since 1935 and has brought hundreds of legendary musicians to this New York stage. Their 16 musician Vanguard Jazz Orchestra which began as the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra in 1966, plays every Monday night.
This week I’ll be having the privilege of hearing Joe Lovano & the Dave Douglas Quintet, who will be inresidence for a week. They have been playing together for some years, and when Lovano brings his tenor saxophone and pairs it with Douglas’ trumpet which creates an exciting performance.
The Village Vanguard is located at 178 7th Avenue S, New York City, NY 10014. For more information visit https://villagevanguard.com.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bobby Carcassés was born on August 29, 1938 in Kingston Jamaica where his Cuban grandfather worked as a diplomat. Upon moving to Villa Clara, Cuba at the age of four he grew up surrounded by Cuban rhythms, listening to Benny Moré, Conjunto Casino & Roberto Faz. He acquired a love for an eclectic spectrum of music from the opera star Enrico Carusso and Mexico’s Jorge Negrete to jazz royalty Sarah Vaughan, Buddy Rich and Stan Getz.
By the 1950’s he was involved with some of the best vocal quartets in Cuba and while playing for many years at The Tropicana the center of Cuban Jazz, he began to experiment with bebop and scat vocals. During the Sixties he traveled to Europe, spending a year in Paris where he played with Kenny Clarke and Bud Powell.
Returning to Cuba he worked in the Teatro Musical where he met three of the future founders of Irakere: Chucho Valdes, Carlos Emilio Morales and Paquito D’ Rivera. Over the next ten years he played in the best night clubs in Havana, Cuba as well as acting in Cuban cinema, Tv and essentially starting to form his own Jazz group.
In 1980 he organized the first Jazz Plaza Festival in Havana, inviting Dizzy Gillespie, Ronnie Scott, Charlie Haden, Airto Moreira, Tania Maria, Steve Coleman and many others. After his own group played these festivals. he traveled to Canada, England, France and the USA where he performed with Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Patato Valdés and many others on the Latin Jazz scene.
Trumpeter Bobby Carcassés, who also plays piano, bass, percussion, and flugelhorn, as well as writing his own pieces, continues to perform, record and create art that has been exhibited globally.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mike Metheny was born August 28, 1949 in Lee’s Summit, Missouri and studied music education at the University of Missouri School of Music and Northeast Missouri State University, then played trumpet in the U.S. Army Field Band, Washington D.C. from 1971 to 1974. After his discharge he went to Boston, Massachusetts and became an adjunct lecturer and assistant to the head of the trumpet department at the Berklee College of Music for seven years beginning in 1976.
From 1978 to 1989 Metheny led his own quartet in Boston, and in 1988 he was named Outstanding Brass Player at the annual Boston Music Awards. His debut album was released in 1982 and followed that with eleven more and produced two records with major labels to mixed reviews. Since 2000, his albums have been produced on his own record label, 3 Valve Music.
Mike’s career in music journalism has seen him as editor for Kansas City’s Jazz Ambassador Magazine (JAM) from 1994 to 2003 and has contributed to KC Magazine, Jazziz, and The DaCapo Jazz & Blues Lover’s Guide to the U.S.
He continues to perform primarily in Kansas and Missouri, playing a trumpet synthesizern electronic valve instrument (EVI). With his brother Pat they set up the Metheny Music Foundation with Mike serving as the chairman.
Flugelhornist and trumpeter Mike Metheny, who published the anthology Old Friends Are the Best Friends: the Letters of John McKee and Mike Metheny, continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Richard Hawdon was born in Leeds, England on August 27, 1927 and first studied cello before moving to trumpet in his mid-teens. After a stint with the Yorkshire Jazz Band he relocated to London, England in 1951, signing on with Chris Barber’s famed New Orleans Jazz Band.
Hawdon replaced trumpeter Ken Colyer in the Christie Brothers Stompers in 1952, remaining with the group for close to two years. While his Louis Armstrong-inspired approach earned favor among traditional jazz purists, he developed a modernist sensibility influenced by Clifford Brown.
Bop and progressive jazz followed in 1954 as a member of Don Rendell’s group in addition to a stint as trumpeter and arranger with Tubby Hayes. He joined his first big band in mid-1956 with Basil and Ivor Kirchin and the next year he joined John Dankworth in 1957. This would be his longest and most rewarding career collaboration.
Beyond recordings with Dankworth, the group performed with Louis Armstrong, teamed with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, he wrote and arranged a number of Dankworth staples including Cool Kate and One for Janet. Hawdon went on to freelance with bandleaders Sid Phillips, Harry Gold, Oscar Rabin, Terry Lightfoot, and backed singers Tony Bennett and Eartha Kitt during a stint with the house band at the London cabaret Talk of the Town.
On the eve of the demise of jazz as the leading music of the era, Dick relocated to Yorkshire, England in 1967 and led the Batley Variety Club’s house band. A year later, he developed a jazz course at the new City of Leeds College of Music, and became head of the school’s Light Music Department in 1972. Hawdon also led his own jazz quintet throughout the 1980s, and after retiring from academia in 1993 he turned his attention to the bass, playing in a series of local groups.
Trumpeter and bassist Dick Hawdon died June 24, 2009.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frances Wayne was born Chiarina Francesca Bartocci or Clara Bertocci on August 26, 1924 in Boston, Massachusetts. She graduated from Somerville High School. Moving to New York City in her teens she sang in an ensemble led by her brother, saxophonist Nick Jerret.
In the early 1940s she recorded with Charlie Barnet’s big band, and in 1943 sang with Woody Herman’s band. Marrying Neal Hefti in 1945, Frances soloed in her husband’s big band formed in 1947. In addition to her solo career she sang with Hefti into the 1950s.
She later sang with smaller ensembles featuring Hank Jones, Milt Hinton, Jerome Richardson, Richie Kamuca, John LaPorta, Billy Bauer and Al Cohn. On The Woody Herman Show broadcasted on the radio, Wayne was his female vocalist.
On February 6, 1978, vocalist Frances Wayne, who received the 1946 Esquire Award as Best New Female Vocalist, died after suffering from cancer over an extended period in her hometown at age 58.
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