Daily Dose Of Jazz…
William John Evans was born August 16, 1929 in Plainfield, New Jersey and grew up in a turbulent household of abuse. While staying with his aunt family somewhere between age 3 and five he soon began to play what he had heard during his brother’s class and soon he would also receiving piano lessons. At age 7, Bill began violin lessons and also flute and piccolo but eventually dropped those instruments, though it is believed they later influenced his keyboard style.
From age 6 to 13 Evans would only play classical music scores of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. During high school he was exposed to Stravinsky and Milhaud but also the jazz of Tommy Dorsey and Harry James. At 13 he stood in for a sick pianist in Buddy Valentino’s rehearsal band where he got his first deviation from the written music, in an arrangement of Tuxedo Junction, leading him to listen to Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins, Bud Powell, George Shearing, Stan Getz and Nat King Cole among others.
Bill was soon playing dances and weddings throughout New Jersey and then formed his own trio, met Don Elliott, and bassist George Platt who taught him the harmonic principles of music. He would go on to study at Southeastern Louisiana University and in 1955 he moved to New York City where he worked with bandleader and theorist George Russell. In 1958, he joined the Miles Davis Sextet, where he was to have a profound influence. In 1959, the band, then immersed in modal jazz recorded Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz album of all time.
In late 1959, Evans left the Miles Davis band and began his career as a leader with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian, a group now regarded as a seminal modern jazz trio. In 1961, ten days after recording the highly acclaimed Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby, LaFaro died in a car accident. After months of seclusion he re-emerged with bassist Chuck Israel. In 1963, Evans recorded his first innovative solo project Conversations with Myself, and in ’66 met bassist Eddie Gomez who he would work with for eleven years.
He would work with Don Elliott, Tony Scott, Mundell Lowe, Jerry Wald, Lucy Reed, George Russell, Dick Garcia, Art Farmer, Barry Galbraith, Milt Hinton, Joe Puma, Charles Mingus, Oliver Nelson, Eddie Costa, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, Sam Jones, Marc Johnson, Tony Bennett, Marty Morell, Joe LaBarbera and the list goes on.
Despite his success as a jazz artist, Bill suffered personal loss and struggled with drug abuse. Both his girlfriend Elaine and his brother Harry committed suicide, and he was a long time user of heroin and later cocaine. As a result, his financial stability, personal relationships and musical creativity all steadily declined during his later years.
On September 15, 1980 pianist, compose and arranger Bill Evans who played in the modal, third stream cool and post-bop genres, passed away at age 51in New York City from complications due to peptic ulcer, cirrhosis, bronchial pneumonia and untreated hepatitis. His recordings for Riverside, Fantasy and Verve record labels left a seminal collection for the avid and casual listener, he was inducted in the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame, was nominated for 31 Grammys, winning seven awards, and was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ben Hirsh Sidran was born in Chicago, Illinois on August 14, 1943 and raised in Racine, Wisconsin. Attending the University fo Wisconsin he became a member of The Ardells along with Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs. When Miller and Scaggs left Wisconsin for the West Coast and stardom, he stayed behind to earn a degree in English literature. After graduating in 1966, he enrolled in the University of Sussex, England to pursue a PhD degree in American Studies.
Sidran rejoined Miller in an English recording studio the next year, playing on the album Children of the Future and while in England, he was a session musician for Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Peter Frampton and Charlie Watts. When Scaggs and Jim Peterman departedfrom Miller’s band in 1969, he joined as a full-time keyboardist. After a brief stint in Los Angeles, where he began his career as a recording artist, he returned to Madison in 1971 and has kept the university town as a home-base ever since, playing often with such Madison-based talents as drummer Clyde Stubblefield and his keyboardist-composer son, Leo.
Over the years, while continuing to travel, perform and produce, he taught the business of music courses at the University and, beginning in 1981, hosted a variety of jazz programs for NPR, including the Peabody Award Winning “Jazz Alive” series and for VH1 television where his “New Visions” series in the early 1990s won the Ace Award.
As a musician and a producer Ben has released thirty-four solo recordings and collaborated with jazz and pop artists that include Mose Allison, Van Morrison, Diana Ross and Rickie Lee Jones. His written works include the book “Black Talk,” (on the sociology of black music in America), the memoir “A Life in the Music,” “Talking Jazz,” a collection of his historic interviews with jazz musicians.
He authored “There Was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream,” a cultural history of the Jewish contribution to American popular music during the 20th century and a finalist for the 2012 National Jewish Book Award. He has recorded 33 albums for Capitol, Blue Thumb, Arista, Bluebird/RCA, Horizon, Polystar, Island, Go Jazz, Nardis and Bonsai record labels. Pianist, organist, vocalist, writer and educator Ben Sidran continues to expand his legacy or performance and education.
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Daly Dose Of Jazz…
Mulgrew Miller was born August 13, 1955 in Greenwood, Mississippi. Growing up in a home with a piano he played tunes on the piano from the age of six, playing by ear. He had piano lessons from the age of eight and during his childhood he played blues and R&B for dances, and gospel music in a church. His principal influence on piano at this stage of his life was Ramsey Lewis.
While in high school, Miller formed a trio that played at cocktail parties and around the age of fourteen after hearing Oscar Peterson on the Joey Bishop Show he decided to become a jazz pianist. After graduating from Greenwood High School, he attended Memphis State in 1973 on a band scholarship. He played euphonium and met pianists Donald Brown and James Williams who introduced him to the music of well-known players such as Wynton Kelly, Bud Powell, and McCoy Tyner.
He would go on to study with Madame Margaret Chaloff but left her tutelage to play with Ricky Ford and Bill Pierce. By 1976 he was the substitute for the regular pianist in the Duke Ellington Orchestra but left in in 1980 after being recruited by vocalist Betty Carter, then joined Woody Shaw’s band from 1981 to 1983, with whom he made his 1981 he made his studio recording debut, on Shaw’s United. During the early 1980s he also accompanied vocalist Carmen Lundy and played and recorded with saxophonist Johnny Griffin.
Mulgrew joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in 1983 under the recommendation of Terence Blanchard and Donald Harrison. Although struggling to fit in with the dominating rhythm section his playing matured during his tenure. His recording career as a leader began in 1985, with Keys to the City, the first of Miller’s several Landmark Records recordings. He left Blakey to become Tony Williams’ pianist in 1986 and remained busy forming his own bands Wingspan and later Trio Transition with Reggie Workman and Freddie Waits
He would go on to work with Wallace Roney, Frank Morgan, Benny Golson, Steve Nelson and Donald Byrd, and toured internationally and domestically with the New York Jazz Giants with Jon Faddis, Tom Harrell, Lew Tabackin, Bobby Watson, Ray Drummond and Carl Allen. He continued to accompany and record with vocalists including Dianne Reeves and Cassandra Wilson, and played and recorded with saxophonist Joe Lovano.
For several years after he had turned 40, Miller concentrated on composing and playing his own music. In 1997 he toured Japan with 100 Golden Fingers, a troupe of 10 pianists, then joined bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pederson in 1999 to record duets based on 1940s performances by Duke Ellington and Jimmy Blanton. He signed with Maxjazz producing albums as a leader with Derrick Hodge, Rodney Green, Karriem Riggins, as well as trio projects and touring with bassist Ron Carter and guitarist Russell Malone, and as sideman with John Scofield, Kluvers Big Band, Yusef Lateef and Archie Shepp.
As an educator Mulgrew became heavily involved in music education as the Director of Jazz Studies at William Patterson University from 2005, and was the Artist in Residence at Lafayette College, from which he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Performing Arts. Pianist Mulgrew Miller’s list of accomplishments continued with his recording as a leader, working with his own trio and quintet until his passing on May 29, 2013 in Allentown, Pennsylvania from a stroke at the age of 57.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bill Heid was born August 11, 1948 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and came of age hanging out in the clubs that proliferated the Hill District like the Hurricane Bar and the Crawford Grill. With all the jazz greats regularly playing in town during the Sixties he took every opportunity to sit in on piano and learn from these masters. In addition he had hometown natives Ahmad Jamal, Art Blakey, Errol Garner, George Benson, Eddie Jefferson, Mary Lou Williams and Stanley Turrentine to learn from.
Bill took these lessons and experiences and headed West to Detroit and on to Chicago, building a solid blues resume, touring and recording as a pianist with Jimmy Witherspoon, Koko Taylor, Alberta Adams and Fenton Robinson amongst many others. He also played jazz piano on two major Impulse/MCA recordings for Chicago guitarist Henry Johnson.
As an organist Heid has produced several jazz albums as a leader during the mid to late Nineties for Muse/Westside and Savant labels. He spent a number of years in Japan and has toured all over the world as a Jazz Ambassador for the U.S. State Department. Soul jazz and hard bop pianist and organist Bill Heid currently performs at different venues in the Washington, DC area.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ellyn Rucker was born in Des Moines, Iowa of July 29, 1937 and she started playing piano when she was eight, discovered jazz at 13, and studied classical piano at Drake University. However, it wasn’t until 1979 that she decided to become a full-time musician.
Rucker toured Europe several times both with and without Spike Robinson, recorded a small catalogue of several albums for Capri Records, has a full-length video Live In New Orleans on Leisure Jazz label, and has performed at festivals and clubs around the U.S. and Europe.
Though she is not a household name to jazz fans around the globe Ellyn Rucker is a fixture on the Denver, Colorado jazz scene. The Bill Evans influenced hard bop and bop-based pianist and vocalist continues to perform, record and tour.
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