Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Robert Roland “Rob” Schneiderman was born in Boston, Massachusetts on June 21, 1957. He began professional jazz career in San Diego, California around the age of 16, when he played piano for visiting soloists such as Eddie Harris, Sonny Stitt, Harold Land, Charles McPherson and Peter Sprague. He continued to collaborate intermittently with Harris, until the latter’s death in 1996, and with McPherson.
In 1982, Rob moved to New York City, where he performed and toured with J.J. Johnson, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Clifford Jordan, James Moody and Zoot Sims. A performance fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1987 featured him with George Coleman, Jimmy Heath, Claudio Roditi, and Slide Hampton. The collaboration with Slide Hampton resulted in his debut album New Outlook, the first of ten recordings to date as a leader for the Reservoir label.
Schneiderman has played as sidemen for Billy Higgins, Rufus Reid, Brian Lynch, Ralph Moore, Peter Washington, Lewis Nash, Akira Tana, Billy Hart, Gary Smulyan and Ben Riley.
As a jazz educator, he has been in residence at the Stanford Jazz Workshop. He was an adjunct professor in the jazz departments of William Paterson University with Rufus Reid and Queens College with Jimmy Heath. He has also been on the faculty of the Jazzschool in Berkeley, California.
Pianist Rob Schneiderman, who also works as a professor and chair of mathematics at Lehman College of the City University of New York, continues to perform and record.
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The Jazz Voyager
The Jazz Voyager is on the way cross-country to Northern California to the major port of the region, a city that sits across the bay from San Francisco known as Oakland. Within the confines of the city resides one of the world’s most respected jazz venues, Yoshi’s. In 1972 what started as a 27 seat restaurant has evolved into a 310 seat venue that has earned a reputation as the Bay Area’s premier location for great Japanese cuisine and jazz music.
Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, who was formerly known as Christian Scott, is a two-time Edison Award winning, six-time Grammy Award nominated, Doris Duke Award in the Arts awardee, and will be taking the stage this evening for one night only. He is a trumpeter, sonic architect, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, designer of innovative technologies and musical instruments. This voyager will be in the audience to witness what new he has to bring.
The venue is located at 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland, CA 94607. For more information you are invited to visit https://notoriousjazz.com/event/chief-adjuah.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Stevenson was born into a musical family on June 20, 1906 in Baltimore, Maryland. His brother Cyrus and his father both played piano. At 15 he studied saxophone and trombone with A. J. Thomas eventually joined his Baltimore Concert Band. His trombone style was greatly influenced by Tricky Sam Nanton.
By 19 he joined pianist Harold Stepteau and his Melody Boys, before organizing his own 11-piece Baltimore Melody Boys. They disbanded in 1928 and he moved to New York City. He would go on to play with Sammy Price and His Texas Blusicians and Hot Lips Page and His Band. Through the 1930s and 1940s he worked with various other bands including the Savoy Bearcats, Charlie Johnson, Fletcher Henderson, Claude Hopkins, Jack Carter’s Orchestra, Lucky Millinder, Cootie Williams and Roy Eldridge, and Cat Anderson.
From 1948 he went on to freelance with several leaders, continuing to perform through the 1960s. He briefly led his own band in 1959 and his last performances were with Max Kaminsky a year before his death.
Trombonist George Stevenson died on September 21, 1970.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph Vankert Thomas was born on June 19, 1909 in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. His first band job was with the Earl Hood Orchestra and after eight months Horace Henderson offered him a job. Heplayed alto saxophone under Hood and Henderson, but took up the tenor saxophone when he joined Stuff Smith’s band in 1932.
He played with Jimmie Lunceford’s band from 1933 until the leader’s death in 1947, often soloing and occasionally singing. After Lunceford died, Thomas and Ed Wilcox co-led his ghost band until he left to form his own septet. This band members were trumpeter Johnny Grimes, trombonist Dicky Harris, baritone saxophonist Ben Kynard, pianist George Rhodes, bassist George Duvivier, and drummer Joe Marshall. They recorded between 1949 and 1951.
When Joe left the music industry he went to work for his family’s undertaking business. He played occasionally, accepting an invitation to the 1970 Newport Jazz Festival, and recorded again under his own name in 1979. Three years later he recorded with a septet that included Grimes, Harris, and Duvivier from his band three decades earlier.
Tenor saxophonist and vocalist Joe Thomas died on August 3, 1986 in Kansas City, Missouri. Material from his career is held by the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dennis Dotson was born on June 18, 1946 in Jacksonville, Florida and grew up in Rusk, Texas where he first picked up the trumpet. While attending Sam Houston State College in Huntsville, Texas and studying trumpet with Kit Reid and Fisher Tull and composition with John Butler, he began his professional career playing around Houston, Texas.
For over fifty years Dotson has played in the house bands in Las Vegas, free- lanced in New York City and Houston, and was trumpet soloist in the Woody Herman and Buddy Rich big bands. As a small group player he has performed with Joe Lovano, Joe Henderson, Marvin Stamm and David Liebman, among others. His other big band experience saw him performing alongside Carl Fontana, Bobby Shew, Tom Harrell, and Kenny Wheeler.
As an educator Dennis is jazz trumpet instructor at the University of Texas at Austin and was on the faculty at Houston Community College and the University of Houston. He has led several All-Region high school jazz bands and has been a guest soloist/ adjudicator/clinician at over forty high schools and colleges.
Trumpeter Dennis Dotson continues to be very active in jazz and commercial circles throughout the state of Texas and has been a sideman on numerous jazz recordings.
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