Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Pete Levin was born on December 20, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts and started his musical journey on the French horn under the direction John Corley, director of the MIT concert band. Inspired by his teacher, he enrolled at Julliard School of Music in New York City.
Moving to New York in the 70s, Pete began a 15-year association with the Gil Evans Orchestra as both a French horn and electric keyboardist, receiving two Grammy awards during his tenure. This he followed with eight years with Jimmy Giuffre.
As a bandleader, he signed his first record deal with Grammavision Records in 1990, releasing his solo jazz project “Party In The Basement” followed by “Solitary Man” the following year. He went on to release four new age albums and produced the album Deacon Blues in 2007.
He plays Hammond organ, clavinet and Moog synthesizer, has performed, composed or arranged for such film and television scores as Missing In Action, Lean On Me, The Color of Money, The Guiding Light, Spin City, America’s Most Wanted, Star Trek and the Discovery Channel’s Secret of the Humpback Whales among others.
As a sideman Levin has performed with Carla Bley, The Brubeck Brothers, Jimmy Cobb, Hiram Bullock, Rachelle Ferrell, Chuck Mangione, Gregory Hines, Wayne Shorter, David Sanborn, Miles Davis, Vanessa Williams, Lenny White, Lew Soloff and Gerry Mulligan on the short list. He continues to perform, record, arrange and tour.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Larry Young was born on October 7, 1940 in Newark, New Jersey. He played the organ with various R&B bands in the 1950s before gaining jazz experience with Jimmy Forrest, Lou Donaldson, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley and Tommy Turrentine. He began recording as a leader for Prestige from 1960, making a number of soul-jazz discs, Testifying, Young Blues and Groove Street.
Larry moved to Blue Note in 1964, his music began to show the marked influence of John Coltrane and during this period, he produced his most enduring work. He recorded many times as part of a trio with guitarist Grant Green and drummer Elvin Jones. Into Somethin’ with saxophonist Sam Rivers became Young’s Blue Note debut, though 1965’s Unity remains his best-known album featuring Joe Henderson and a young Woody Shaw.
Young’s subsequent Blue Note albums like Contrasts, Of Love and Peace, Heaven On Earth and Mother Ship drew on elements of the ’60s avant-garde, and utilized local Newark musicians. He then became a part of some of the earliest fusion experiments: first in “Lifetime”, then “Emergency!” with Tony Williams and John McLaughlin, and also on Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew. Branching out, Larry was also known to rock fans for a jam he recorded with Jimi Hendrix on the album Nine to the Universe.
Organist Larry Young, also known as Khalid Yasin (Abdul Aziz), who pioneered a modal approach and whose characteristic sound involved management of the stops on the Hammond organ, producing overtone series that caused an ethereal, drifting effect; a sound that is simultaneously lead and background, passed away on March 30, 1978 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Larry Goldings was born on August 28, 1968 in Boston, Massachusetts and Larry studied classical piano until the age of twelve. While in high school he attended a program at the Eastman School of Music and during this period Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson, Dave McKenna, Red Garland and Bill Evans were prime influences. As a young teenager, Larry studied privately with Ran Blake and Keith Jarrett.
Goldings moved to New York in 1986 to attend The New School and while in college he studied piano with Jaki Byard and Fred Hersch. As a freshman he traveled to Copenhagen with Sir Roland Hanna and played piano with Sarah Vaughan, Harry Sweets Edison and Al Cohn. His later college years saw him touring worldwide with Jon Hendricks and subsequent collaboration with guitarist Jim Hall.
In 1988, Larry started developing his organ style while gigging at Augie’s (now Smoke) in New York City. His 1991 debut release was Intimacy Of The Blues and since then has performed and/or recorded with Charlie Haden, Jack Dejohnette, Carla Bley, Pat Metheny, Madeleine Peyroux, Michael Brecker, Luciana Souza, Steve Gadd, Melody Gardot, David Sanborn, Al Jarreau, Sia, John Scofield and India.Arie to name a few.
Pianist, organist, producer/arranger and composer Larry Goldings has 16 albums as a leader, eighty-four as a sideman, half dozen film and tv credits, has been nominated for a “Best Jazz Album of the Year” Grammy, has twice been a Jazz Journalist Association Winner “Best Organist/Keyboardist of the Year”, has won The New Yorker Magazine Best Jazz Albums for “Awareness” and “Big Stuff” and continues to compose, perform, tour and record.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dr. Lonnie Smith was born July 3, 1942 in Lackawanna, New York into a family with a vocal group and radio program and a mother who introduced him to gospel, classical and jazz music. He learned to play piano as a child and was part of several vocal ensembles in the 1950s, including the Teen Kings. Local music storeowner Art Kubera gave Smith his first Hammond B3 organ.
Smith’s affinity for R&B melded with his own personal style as he became active in the local music scene. Moving to New York City he met and connected with George Benson, and the two formed the George Benson Quartet, featuring Lonnie Smith, in 1966.
Lonnie recorded his first solo album ”Finger Lickin’ Good” in 1967, with Benson, Melvin Sparks and Ronnie Cuber and Marion Booker. After recording several albums with Benson, Smith became a solo recording artist. In 1967, Smith meeting Lou Donaldson led to a Blue Note introduction, a record date for Alligator Boogaloo and subsequent signing to a four-album deal.
He has since recorded over 30 albums under his own name. He has performed and recorded with among others Lee Morgan, David “Fathead” Newman, Blue Mitchell, King Curtis, Esther Phillips, Bennie Maupin, Idris Muhammad, Joey DeFrancesco and Joe Lovano, however the list inside and out of jazz is too long to enumerate.
He has been named “Organ Keyboardist of the Year” in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, and 2009 by the Jazz Journalist Association and continues to tour, perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Fats Waller was born Thomas Wright Waller on May 21, 1904 in New York City. He started playing the piano when he was six and graduated to the organ in his father’s church four years later. At the age of fourteen he was playing the organ at the Lincoln Theater in Harlem. Within twelve months he had composed his first rag, and recorded his first piano solos “Muscle Shoals Blues” and “Birmingham Blues” in 1922 when he was 18 years old.
The prize pupil, friend and colleague of stride pianist James P. Johnson, he became one of the most popular performers of his era, finding critical and commercial success at home and Europe. Waller was a prolific songwriter, composing hundreds with his closest collaborator Andy Razaf and many became standards such as Honeysuckle Rose, Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Squeeze Me. He recorded profusely for RCA, Victor and EMI and performed and recorded with Gene Austin, Billy Banks, Adelaide Hall, Erskine Tate, Bill Coleman, Al Casey, Rudy Powell and Jack Teagarden among others.
Waller was kidnapped in Chicago leaving a performance in 1926, taken to the Hawthorne Inn, and upon insistence at gunpoint became the surprise guest at Al Capone’s birthday. Rumored he played three nights but when he left he was drunk, tired and thousands of dollars richer. He appeared on one of the first BBC radio broadcasts, influenced many pre-bop pianists such as Count Basie and Erroll Garner and was first to play syncopated jazz compositions were performed on a full sized church organ.
He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Gennett Records Walk of Fame, Jazz At Lincoln Center: Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall Of Fame, Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Pianist, organist, composer, singer and comedic entertainer Fats Waller, passed away of pneumonia in Kansas City, Missouri on December 15, 1943.
