Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Joseph Armand Castro was born on August 15, 1927 in Miami, Arizona and went to school in Pittsburg, north of Oakland, California in the Bay area where he began playing professionally at the age of 15. After graduation he enrolled at San Jose State University but his matriculation was interrupted not once but twice by Army service and then with the forming of a working trio.

Moving to New York City in 1956 Castro hit the ground working at Basin Street, The Embers, Hickory House and Birdland. During this period in his career, Leonard Feather and Dave Brubeck critically lauded his talent.

Two years later Joe moved back to the West Coast landing in L.A. playing with Teddy Edwards, Billy Higgins and Leroy Vinnegar. The bebop pianist recorded and performed extensively with The Teddy Edwards Quartet while also making two of his own recordings as a leader for Atlantic Records.  His debut album in 1956 “Mood Jazz” utilized three different ensembles: a large orchestra with strings and voices, another string orchestra without voices and a regular jazz combo of piano, trumpet, alto saxophone, bass, and drums. His sophomore album titled “Groove Funk Soul” was recorded on July 18, 1958 and included tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards, bassist Leroy Vinnegar and Billy Higgins on drums.

In the early 1960’s, tobacco heiress/jazz enthusiast Doris Duke and then long-term boyfriend Castro, along with silent partner and friend Duke Ellington, formed record company Clover Records and music publishing company Jo-Do. Castro’s third album as a leader titled “Lush Life” was the only album released on Clover Records. But by 1966, Jo-Do, Clover, and the Castro-Duke relationship had failed, and all three were shortly dissolved.

From 1959 to 1960, Castro backed vocalists Anita O’Day and June Christy; was music director for Tony Martin from 1961 to 1963. He performed with sidemen Chico Hamilton, Red Mitchell, Ed Shonk and Howard Roberts in his trios and quartets. Castro moved to Las Vegas in the 70s and continued to accompany vocalists and play in Las Vegas pit bands until he became the musical director for the Tropicana’s Folies Bergere. Pianist Joe Castro passed away on December 13, 2009.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Marcus Roberts, born on August 7, 1963 in Jacksonville, Florida achieved fame as a stride pianist committed to celebrating classic standards and jazz traditions. Blind since his youth, he attended the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine, also the alma mater of Ray Charles.

Playing piano at an early age, he studied the instrument with world-renown pianist Leonidas Lipovetsky while attending Florida State University. In 1985, he got his big break when Wynton Marsalis chose him as his new sideman. He became a close friend and disciple of Marsalis, and collaborated with him on many projects during the ensuing years.

With Marsalis’ support and soon after joining him, Roberts began cutting his own records. His albums tend to be homage to past jazz giants. However, his ability and technique as a pianist have always been highly regarded and his music has added to the vocabulary of modern jazz piano and the piano trio.

Roberts has provided the soundtrack to the 1999 film Guinevere serves as Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies in the music program at Florida State University and is a Steinway Artist. He has amassed a catalogue of nearly two-dozen albums as a leader with several more as a sideman.

He excels as an improviser and interpreter in his solo performances and creates interesting and daring arrangements as a large band leader, but his chamber work will endure as his true contribution to American music.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Josh Nelson was born August 1, 1978 in Long Beach, California. His talent was discovered from a very young age, but it was during his high school years that he received the Louis Armstrong Award, the John Phillip Sousa Award, as well as numerous “Outstanding Soloist Awards” at music competitions from around the country. He attended summer camps at Berklee College of Music and mentored by Bill Cunliffe and Benny Green.

Nelson produced his 1998 independent debut album “First Stories” at age nineteen. He went on to receive his degree in Jazz Studies from Long Beach University. His sophomore project three years later titled “Emergence” was followed by “The Leadwell Project” in 2002 and “Anticipation” in 2004. Five years later he released “I Hear A Rhapsody” featuring a host of young west coast players, with his latest “Discoveries” landing on shelves in 2011.

With an innate sense of swing and rhythm, Josh has established himself as a strong voice on the local and international jazz scene, performing with some of the most respected names in jazz, including Natalie Cole, Ralph Moore, Christian McBride, Anthony Wilson, Albert “Tootie” Heath, Ernie Watts, Tom Scott, Alex Acuna, Seamus Blake, Matt Wilson, Jack Sheldon, Peter Erskine, Bob Hurst, Queen Latifah and Erin Bode.

Josh Nelson pianist, composer, arranger, and recording artist is a strong advocate for music education, and spends a good deal of his time maintaining a private studio of jazz students, as well as teaching for Soka University of America as Adjunct Jazz Faculty.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Joanne Brackeen was born Joanne Grogan on July 26, 1938 in Ventura, California but has used her married name throughout her career. The pianist and music educator attended the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, but devoted her talents to jazz by imitating Frankie Carle albums. She was greatly influenced by Charlie Parker and bebop.

Her career began in the late 1950s while working with names like Dexter Gordon, Teddy Edwards, Harold Land, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Charles Lloyd. In 1969 Brackeen began to “take off” as she became the first woman to join Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.

In the 70s Joanne he played with Joe Henderson (1972-75) and Stan Getz (1975-1977) before leading her own trio and quartet. Brackeen established herself as a cutting edge pianist and composer through her appearances around the world, and her solo performances also cemented her reputation as one of the most innovative and dynamic of pianists. Her trios featured such noted players as Clint Houston, Eddie Gomez, John Patitucci, Jack DeJohnette, Cecil McBee and Billy Hart.

She has served on the grant panel for the National Endowment for the Arts, toured the Middle East with the US State Department as sponsor, had solo performances at Carnegie Hall and is a professor at the Berklee College of Music. With 25 albums to her credit, pianist Joanne Brackeen continues to perform and record.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Callen Radcliffe Tjader, Jr. a.k.a. Cal Tjader was born July 16, 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri to touring Swedish-American vaudevillians, a tap dancing father and pianist mother. At two, his parents settled in San Mateo, California, opened a dance studio where he received piano and tap instruction from his parents. Tapping alongside his father in the Bay area he landed a role in the film “The White of the Dark Cloud of Joy” tapping with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.

Playing in a Dixieland band around the Bay area, at sixteen Cal entered and won a Gene Krupa solo contest but the win was dampened by Pearl Harbor. After serving in the Army, he enrolled at San Jose State College and under the G.I. Bill majoring in education. He later transferred to San Francisco State College, took timpani lessons, met Dave Brubeck who introduced him to Paul Desmond. The three formed the Dave Brubeck Octet with Tjader on drums and recorded one album.

Disbanding the octet, Tjader and Brubeck formed a trio that became a fixture in the San Francisco jazz scene. During this period he taught himself the vibraphone, alternating between it and the drums depending on the song. A diving accident in 1951 forced Brubeck’s trio to dissolve, however, Tjader continued trio work with bassist Jack Weeks and pianists John Marabuto or Vince Guaraldi, recording his first 10″ LP as a leader with them for Fantasy. He went on to work with George Shearing and continued recording for Fantasy.

After a gig at the Blackhawk Cal quit Shearing and in 1954 formed The Cal Tjader Modern Mambo Quintet that produced Mambo with Tjader. The Mambo craze reached its peak in the late 1950s, and his band opened the second Monterey Jazz Festival in 1959. The Sixties was his most prolific period and his biggest success was the 1964 album Soul Sauce, the title track, a Dizzy Gillespie composition.

The 70s were lean years suffering like most jazz artists due to rock and roll’s explosive growth. During his later years he cut what most consider his seminal work “Onda Va Bien”, roughly translated as The Good Life, earning him a Grammy for Best Latin Recording.

Just as he was born on tour, he died touring on the road with his band in Manila, succumbing from a heart attack on May 5, 1982. Cal Tjader, who 40 year career playing vibraphone, drums, bongos, congas, timpani and piano stands alongside Lionel Hampton and Milt Jackson as a vital influence and is linked with swinging freely between jazz and Latin music.

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