Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Earl Henderson was born on July 7, 1951 in Yazoo City, Mississippi. He moved to Detroit, Michigan with his parents when he was young, his mother, Rose Williams sang in church. During his childhood, he played cello and then switched to bass guitar, teaching himself to play. When he was 10 or 11, he saved enough money to take a bus to see a bill of Motown artists at the Fox Theater. Precociously talented, he was performing with local bands before his 12th birthday.
Beginning his career early around the age of 14, he was on tour with the Detroit Emeralds when he met Stevie Wonder at a Chicago theater. In the dressing room was a piano, Stevie was playing and he sat down next to him with his bass and the meeting was fortuitous. Stevie hired Michael and they toured together for five years while working as a Motown session musician.
In 1970 at the Copacabana in Manhattan, Miles Davis heard him playing with Wonder. At that time Davis was entering his electric and rock rhythms and hired Henderson away. Over the next few years from 1970 to 1977 he recorded a string of albums with Davis, including Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, Live-Evil, On the Corner, In Concert: Live at Philharmonic Hall, Get Up with It, Agharta, Pangaea, and Dark Magus.
With Norman Connors he invited him to write and record Valentine Love with Jean Carne, We Both Need Each Other with Phyllis Hyman and You Are My Starship. As a solo artist he recorded Take Me I’m Yours, Wide Receiver, and Can’t We Fall in Love Again, again with Hyman.
In 2002 Henderson returned to the music of Miles Davis and with several other Davis alumni, saxophonist Sonny Fortune and drummer Ndugu Chancler, formed the group Children on the Corner. A year later, they released the album Rebirth, which reinterpreted and recreated Davis’s electric music from the 1970s. He remained in the music industry until his death.
Bass guitarist and vocalist Michael Henderson died of cancer on July 19, 2022 at his home in Dallas, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta. He was 71.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chris White was born Christopher Wesley White on July 6, 1936 in Harlem, New York and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. In 1956 he graduated from City College of New York, and in 1968 from the Manhattan School of Music. Continuing his education six years later he earned his Master of Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 1994, he did postgraduate Advanced Computer Study at Berklee College of Music.
An occasional member of Cecil Taylor’s band in the 1950s, he was credited on the 1959 Love for Sale album. From 1960 to 1961 he accompanied Nina Simone and subsequently he was a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s ensemble until 1966.
He founded the band The Jazz Survivors and was a member of the band Prism. Throughout his career he collaborated with Billy Taylor, Eubie Blake, Earl Hines, Chick Corea, Teddy Wilson, Kenny Barron, Mary Lou Williams, Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae and Billy Cobham.
Bassist, arranger, producer and educator Chris White, who was on the creative arts and technology faculty at Bloomfield College in New Jersey, died on November 2, 2014.
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NICOLE YARLING & MARTIN BEJERANO
Tribute to Prince.
The music of Prince is iconic and timeless. Latin Grammy-nominated pianist Martin Bejerano and renowned vocalist and violinist Nicole Yarling present a modern, funky jazz-fusion that reimagines Prince’s “golden period.”
After the concert is an open jam. Bring your instrument!
Students be sure to score one of the limited free student tickets!
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Richard Simon was born in Kansas City, Kansas on July 5, 1949 and left a comfortable position as a college English professor to take up the upright bass at age 30. He apprenticed with the elder elite of the Los Angeles, California jazz scene, including Red Callender and John Clayton, and soon began working with Buddy Collette, Teddy Edwards, Plas Johnson and Art Hillery, as well as LA Philharmonic’s Abe Luboff.
Richard has played traditional jazz with Pete Fountain, swing with Ken Peplowski, and be-bop with Richie Cole. He has recorded with Al Viola, Houston Person, Rebecca Kilgore, Gerald Wiggins and Chico Hamilton, toured Japan three times and performed twice with the King of Thailand. He worked frequently with vocalists Sue Raney, Maria Muldaur, Maxine Weldon, as well as the late vocalists Ernie Andrews, Lorez Alexandria and Keely Smith, and Rosemary Clooney.
Deeply involved in jazz education, Simonhe is the program director for JazzAmerica, a non-profit organization that provides tuition-free jazz instruction after school and in summer WorkChops.
Bassist Richard Simon continues to perform, record and educate.
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DELFEAYO MARSALIS SEXTET
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