Daily Dose Of Jazz…

B.J. Papa was born on February 9, 1936 in Mobile, Alabama and as a child in the 1940s he was listening to all kinds of jazz and blues on the radio. Drafted into the Army in 1954 he became a medic and was stationed in San Francisco, California at Letterman Hospital in the Presidio. However, he ended up spending much of his service time playing on Army ball teams. By the time he turned 19 he found himself intrigued with the jazz bands booked into the Army noncommissioned officers clubs.

After his discharge from the service in 1956 Papa stayed in town and began saxophone lessons. He also made his first forays into the heart of the bustling Fillmore Street jazz community and would show up to listen and learn at the famous after-hours jams at Jimbo’s Bop City.

Over the course of his fifty year career Papa became a North Beach institution mentoring dozens of young cats making their transition from student to professional musician. He played with the biggest names in jazz to come through the city as well as passionate laymen sans pedigree.

Settling in at Jazz At Pearl’s, one of the few remaining jazz clubs that still possessed an air of authenticity before closing its doors, for thirteen years he shared the stage with an eclectic, enthusiastic audience nightly.

Pianist B.J. Papa, who always fed on and drew from the energy of the audience but has no recordings on line, transitioned on August 31, 2008.

More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Wally Cirillo was born Wallace Joseph Cirillo on February 4, 1927 in Huntington, New York. He studied at the New York Conservatory of Modern Music and the Manhattan School of Music, and played with Chubby Jackson and Bill Harris in the early 1950s.

In 1954 he began working with John LaPorta, Teo Macero and Charles Mingus as part of the New York Jazz Composers Workshop. The following year, he led a session with Mingus, Macero, and Kenny Clarke, which was later reissued under Mingus’s name as Jazz Composers Workshop. The piece Transeason on this album was composed by Cirillo, makes use of serialism, one of the earliest manifestations of this compositional technique in jazz. He also recorded with LaPorta and with Johnny Mathis in the 1950s.

Cirillo relocated to Florida in 1961, where he led his own band and worked with Phil Napoleon, Flip Phillips, Ira Sullivan, and Joe Diorio. He recorded sparsely throughout his career.

Pianist and composer Wally Cirillo transitioned on May 5, 1977 in Boca Raton, Florida.

More Posts: bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano

Three Wishes

Jaki Byard was given the opportunity by Nica to express his three wishes  and his response was:

1. “If I could be financially able to do anything I wanted to, I’d have two or three clubs. I wouldn’t want three wishes, I’d only need one. Gee, that’s the only wish I ever had! To have three or four clubs, in the same New York vicinity, and let the clubs run themselves. That’d take care of all the different types of music. Does that make sense? That’s my only wish and I think that’s good enough.

More Posts: baroness,history,instrumental,jazz,music,pannonica,piano,saxophone,three,wishes

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bob Harrington was born Robert Maxon Harrington in Marshfield, Wisconsin on  January 30, 1912. He played piano with Charlie Barnet in the early 1950s and worked with both Red Nichols and Bud Freeman during that decade as a drummer.

On vibraphone, he played with Georgie Auld, Buddy DeFranco, Vido Musso, Ben Webster, Ann Richards, and Harry Babasin’s Jazzpickers. He released one solo album, Vibraphone Fantasy in Jazz, on Imperial Records in 1957, which is now a collector’s item.

Vibraphonist Bob Harrington, who was adept on drums and piano, transitioned on August 20, 1983 in Kona, Hawaii.

More Posts: bandleader,drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano,vibraphone

CHUCHO VALDES & PAQUITO D’RIVERA

Pianist Chucho Valdes and clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera come together for one night only of Afro-Cuban and Latin Jazz at The Town Hall.

More Posts: adventure,album,clarinet,club,festival,genius,jazz,museum,music,piano,preserving,restaurant,travel