Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ojārs Raimonds Pauls was born January 12, 1936 in Iļģuciems, Riga, Latvia  and is the second child of a glass blowing factory worker and a seamstress. His father played drums and his grandfather played the violin, and following in his grandfather’s footsteps he is enrolled into Riga’s institute of Music kindergarten branch. Being too young and his fingers unfit for playing violin, he started on the piano.

By 1943 he was studying at Riga’s 7th Elementary school while continuing piano lessons with professor Valerijs Zosts and teachers Emma Eglīte and Juta Daugule. 1946 saw Raimonds admitted to the Secondary Musical School of Emīls Dārziņš, combining his studies at the elementary school for three years.

When he turns 14, Pauls was playing piano at restaurants and clubs with a violin and saxophone virtuoso Gunārs Kušķis. Five years later he completed his studies at the Riga’s 7th Elementary school, however, during this time, he independently developed a liking for playing jazz by studying and imitating various jazz records.

He would go on to compose for musicals, ballets, theater performances, puppet shows, films, choirs, and instrumentals, He has received several honors from his home country, the USSR, Sweden, Japan and Armenia.

Composer, arranger and pianist Raimonds Pauls, who was the Minister of Culture of Latvia from 1988 to 1993, continues to record and perform.

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CURTIS LUNDY PRESENTS ERIC LEWIS

Curtis Lundy an American double bass player, composer, producer, choir director and arranger. Lundy is best known for his work as part of jazz vocalist Betty Carter band.  Over the years, he has brought some of the most legendary jazz legacies to The Velvet Note, including Bobby Watson and, most recently, Cyrus Chestnut.  This month, he travels in with pianist Eric Lewis and Terreon Gully.

Popularly known as ELEW, jazz pianist Eric Lewis has found cross-over success playing rock and pop music. He is known for his unconventional and physical playing style, which eschews a piano bench and includes reaching inside the piano lid to pull at the strings directly, as well as the creation that he calls “Rockjazz”, a genre that takes the improvisational aspect of jazz and threads it through the eye of the needle of rock.

His distinctive style has helped him to amass a large following of celebrity fans, including Barack and Michelle Obama (for whom he has played at the White House), Leonardo DiCaprio, Donna Karan, Téa Leoni, David Duchovny, Hugh Jackman, Forest Whitaker, and Gerard Butler. Throughout his career, he has performed with musicians such as Sting, The Roots, Natalie Cole, and Esperanza Spalding. In the spring of 2011, he joined singer-songwriter Josh Groban as the opening act on the American leg of the singer’s Straight to You Tour.

Hailing from East St. Louis, Illinois, Terreon Gully has performed with various musicians and genres, including the Christian McBride Band, saxophonist Ron Blake, vibraphonist Stefon Harris, vocalist Dianne Reeves and Latin band Yerba Buena among numerous others. He was the Professor of Drumset at University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada from 2008 until 2010

Showtimes: Friday & Saturday ~ 7:30pm | 9:30pm

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bob Zurke came into the world as Boguslaw Albert Zukowski on January 7, 1912 in Hamtramck, Michigan. By the age of 16 he was already using the name Bob Zurke professionally when he first recorded with a group led by pioneering female jazz bassist Thelma Terry. At that time, Zurke also began to work as a copyist for the Detroit-based booking agency run by Jean Goldkette.

Through the end of 1936, he worked in various Detroit, Michigan clubs, mostly as a band pianist, but he occasionally went on tour with other groups. During this period he developed a long friendship with pianist Marvin Ash, who would later go on to record some of Zurke’s compositions.

1937 saw Bob was hired by bandleader Bob Crosby to fill in for Joe Sullivan, then ailing with tuberculosis and it was here that he gained notice, contributing arrangements to the band’s book and as a featured soloist.

As an arranger his arrangement of Meade Lux Lewis’ Honky Tonk Train Blues, became a hit. In 1938 he was named the winner in the piano category in the  DownBeat Reader’s Poll. By 1939 Sullivan was back with the Bob Crosby Orchestra and Zurke subsequently worked with the William Morris Agency to form his own band. They debuted at an RCA Victor recording session that same year as Bob Zurke and his Delta Rhythm Orchestra. His alcohol dependency, alleged drug use and unreliability and volatility led to the group disbanding.

After a period of wandering from job to job Zurke settled in Los Angeles, California in mid-1942 and began an engagement at the Hangover Club in Los Angeles that he held until the end of his days. In 1943, he made one final recording, synchronizing an original piano part to the Walter Lantz cartoon Jungle Jive (in the Swing Symphony series), one of his most difficult and challenging solos.

He published two folios of jazz piano solos and several sheet music editions of single pieces; in addition to that, 14 original compositions from Zurke are known to exist.

Pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader Bob Zurke, who was considered one of the finest boogie~woogie pianists of the time, collapsed at the Hangover Club and was taken to the hospital where he transitioned on February 16, 1944 from complications of pneumonia, aggravated by acute alcohol poisoning. He was 32.

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JOHNNY O’NEAL: TRIBUTE TO THE CROONERS

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DAAHOUD SALIM QUINTET

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