Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Travis Shook was born on March 10, 1969 in Oroville, California and started learning to play the piano at age seven. His family moved to Olympia, Washington when he was ten, spending his adolescent years in the Pacific Northwest. For a period of time he played rock guitar but soon realized jazz improvisation was his passion. At eighteen he enrolled at William Patterson College and studied under Mabern. After graduating he returned to Washington and joined bassist Buddy Catlett’s band where he learned a lot about the history of jazz.

In 1991 he won the Jacksonville Festival’s Great American Piano Competition that led to a contract with Columbia Records/Sony Music. Two years later he moved to New York City and recorded his debut with a quartet that included tony Williams and Bunky Green. Though receiving critical acclaim both in the U.S. and France for this first effort, it was a short-lived relationship when Sony purged a large percentage of the Columbia jazz roster upon acquiring the label in 1993.

After spending some time in obscurity after being attacked by New York Times critic Peter Watrous who criticized one of his performances, he entered a dark period in his life: alcoholism. A year later he got picked up by Betty Carter and went on tour through Europe, but he sunk deeper and added drugs to his plate of demons. Unemployable, he dropped out of the public eye for a number of years. Travis met, moved in with and ultimately married jazz singer Veronica Nunn who helped him overcome his demons and since 1998 he has been sober.

In 1999 Shook and his wife started their own record label, Dead Horse Records, which has released four recordings to date. Over the years he has performed with Reggie Workman, Eddie Harris, Joe Lovano, toots Thielemans, Rufus Reid, Chuck Israels, Ernestine Anderson, Branford Marsalis, Benny Golson and Clifford Jordan as well as Sonny Simmons, Michael Franks, Gino Vanelli, Bob Hope and Chris Botti among others.

His influences were Ahmad Jamal, McCoy Tyner, Duke Ellington, Harold Mabern, Herbie Hancock and Bill Evans but also John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Elvin Jones.Pianist Travis Shook continues to perform and record while building the catalogue of Dead Horse Records.

Jazz Is Global – Share

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Martin Bejerano was born in Miami, Florida on March 9th of Afro-Cuban heritage and began his professional music career at age fifteen, when he began playing George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” concerto with the Mexican-American Bi-National Symphony while still in high school. He went on to graduate from the New World School of the Arts, Florida State University and the University of Miami with a Masters in jazz performance.

In 2000 Martin moved to New York City and in less than a year joined drummer Roy Haynes’ band and two years later was a part of guitarist Russell Malone’s quartet. He released his debut album as leader, titled Evolution/Revolution in 2007, followed by Potential Energy in 2013. He has done sideman duties as well on six projects.

In 2010 he was awarded a Chamber Music America commission for a new jazz work, has had several compositions published in Ignacio Berroa’s “Groovin’ in Clave” instructional drum book and has attended the Thelonious Monk Institute Jazz Colony.

Martin has also performed with Kenny Garrett, James Moody, Lonnie Plaxico, Jimmy Heath, Ignacio Berroa, Mingus Big Band, Marcus Printup, Marcus Strickland, and even trading choruses with the legendary Chick Corea. In between performing and recording with the Haynes and Malone bands, pianist Martin Bejerano is an Assistant Professor of jazz piano at the University of Miami Frost School of Music.

Put A Dose In Your Pocket

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Frank LoCrasto was born and raised in Texas on March 7, 1983. Studying piano during his childhood, his influences include Erroll Garner, Raymond Scott, Ennio Morricone, Kraftwerk and Brian Eno. After moving to New York in 2001 to attend the New School, he went on to work as a sideman with jazz musicians such as Pat Martino, Greg Osby and Jeremy Pelt.

At twenty-three he released his debut album When You’re There on the Maxjazz label and his second release five years later, El Dorado, which he recorded in his Brooklyn basement apartment, is layered with vintage synthesizers and old timey pianos.

An accomplished composer and arranger, he is a member of the Jeremy Pelt Quartet, Frank is also a member of Rumblefoot, Breastfist, Yost, and plays regularly with Kat Edmonson and James Iha. His solos exhibit his ample technique and unfettered expressiveness. At 32, he continues to build his talent as a sideman profusely performing, recording and touring.

Give The Gift Of Knowledge

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Louis A. Levy, generally known as Lou Levy, was born on March 5, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois and started playing piano when he was twelve. His chief influences were Art Tatum and Bud Powell. A professional at age nineteen, he played with George Auld, Sarah Vaughan, Chubby Jackson, Boyd Raeburn and Woody Herman’s Second Herd during the late Forties. Still with Woody Herman by 1950, he moved on to play with Tommy Dorsey, Flip Phillips before leaving music for a few years.

Lou returned to music and gained a strong reputation as an accompanist to singers, working with Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, June Christy, tony Bennett, Anita O’Day and Pinky Winters. He would also go on to play with Shorty Rogers, Stan Getz, Sonny Stitt, Coleman Hawkins, Bob Cooper, Bennie Wallace, Terry Gibbs, Benny Goodman, Quincy Jones, Supersax, and most of the major West Coast players.

Over the course of his career he recorded as a leader for Nocturne, RCA, Jubilee, Philips, Interplay and Verve leaving behind a catalogue of fourteen albums as a leader and another eighty-one as a sideman.

Bebop and cool jazz pianist Lou Levy died of a heart attack in Dana Point, California at the age of 72 on January 23, 2001.

Dose A Day – Blues Away

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Daily Dose Of jazz…

Ralph Towner was born on March 1, 1940 in Chehalis, Washington. Born into a musical family, his mother a piano teacher and his father a trumpet player, Towner learned to improvise on the piano at the age of three. He started trumpet lessons at the age of five, but did not take up guitar until attending the University of Oregon.

Ralph first played jazz in New York City in the late 1960s as a pianist and was strongly influenced by the renowned jazz pianist Bill Evans. He began improvising on classical and 12-string guitars in the late 1960s and early 1970s; and formed alliances with musicians who had worked with Evans, including flautist Jeremy Steig, Eddie Gomez, Marc Johnson, Gary Peacock ad Jack DeJohnette.

He began his career as a conservatory-trained classical pianist, who picked up guitar in his senior year in college, then joined world music pioneer Paul Winter’s Consort ensemble in the late 1960s. Leaving Winter along with band mates Paul McCandless, Glen Moore and Colin Walcott, they formed the group Oregon, mixing folk, Indian classical, avant-garde jazz and frr improvisation.

Around the same time, Towner began a longstanding relationship with ECM Records, releasing virtually all of his non-Oregon recordings since his 1972 debut as a leader Trios / Solos.  As a sideman he has ventured int jazz fsion with Weather Report on the 1972 album I Sing The Body Electric.

Unlike most jazz guitarists, Ralph only uses 6-string nylon-string and 12-string steel-string guitars. He tends to avoid high-volume musical environments, preferring small groups of mostly acoustic instruments that emphasize dynamics and group interplay. He make significant use of overdubbing, allowing him to play piano or synthesizer and guitar on the same track. During the Eighties he used more synthesizer but has returned to the guitar in recent years.

Composer, arranger, bandleader and multi-instrumentalist Ralph Towner, who plays 12 string guitar, classical guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion and trumpet, has an impressive catalogue of some five-dozen recordings spread between his role as a leader, with Oregon, and as a sideman with Paul Winter and Weather Report among others. He continues to perform, record and tour.

Put A Dose In Your Pocket

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