Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Horace Tapscott was born Horace Elva Tapscott in Houston, Texas, the son of a jazz musician mother on April 6, 1934. When he turned nine his family moved first to Fresno, California, eventually settling in Los Angeles. Reaching maturity at a critical time in the history of L.A. jazz, he was privy to the like of Dexter Gordon, Art Tatum and Coleman Hawkins who were playing the Central Avenue clubs in the late ‘40s.
In 1961 Horace formed the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, also known as P.A.P.A., or The Ark in 1961 and led the ensemble that included at one time or another Arthur Blythe, Stanley Crouch, Butch Morris, Wilbur Morris, David Murray and Jimmy Woods through the 1990s. In 1968 he composed and arranged saxophonist Sonny Criss’ critically acclaimed “The Birth of the New Cool”. He followed this with a decade long performance of his own works, a succession of recordings for the Nimbus label and a growing reputation and flourishing creativity that eventually leading to the recognition he deserved.
His powerful and percussive approach to playing coupled with a highly individual bop-tinged style with avant-garde leanings became somewhat of an inspiration to a new generation of L.A. based free jazz players. Horace Tapscott and his work are the subjects of the UCLA Horace Tapscott Jazz Collection. The composer and pianist passed away of lung cancer on February 27, 1999 in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Orrin Evans was born on March 28, 1976 in Trenton, New Jersey but was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Nurtured in a household filled with music due to his classical singer mother who surrounded him with the melodies of Puccini to the pulsating rhythms of Basie and Ellington.
Evans graduated from high school in the early 90s and studied at Rutgers University before going on to study piano privately with Kenny Barron and be employed as a sideman by Bobby Watson, Ralph Peterson, Duane Eubanks, Lenora Zenzalai-Helms and others.
Evans recorded his first session as a leader, The Orrin Evans Trio, for his own Black Entertainment label in 1994. After that, he signed with Criss Cross and between 1997-99 he recorded Justin Time, Captain Black and Grown Folks Bizness. Into the new millennium Orrin recorded prolifically releasing “Listen to the Band”, “Blessed Ones” and “Meant to Shine”, continuing his yearly release schedule up to his latest “Flip The Script”.
Influenced greatly by McCoy Tyner, Horace Silver, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk among others, he remains in the hard bop genre but occasionally detours into soul-jazz and R&B when backing vocalists Denise King and Dawn Warren. In 2010 he was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. He continues to perform, record and tour.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cecil Percival Taylor was born March 25, 1929 in New York City and began playing piano and classical training at age six. He studied at the New York College of Music and New England Conservatory. After first steps in R&B and swing-styled small groups in the early 1950s, he formed his own band with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy in 1956, in which he release his first recording Jazz Advance.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Taylor’s music grew more complex and moved away from existing jazz styles. Gigs were often hard to come by, and club owners found Taylor’s approach to performance (long pieces) unhelpful in conducting business. Forming his group The Unit in 1961 with Jimmy Lyons, Sunny Murray and later Andrew Cyrille produced landmark recordings, like “Unit Structures” in 1966, they continued to record although sporadically and many of his recording sessions remained unreleased for sometimes decades.
By the 70s he was performing solo concerts and Taylor’s work began to be released for the next two decades, garnering critical if not popular acclaim. He began lecturing at universities, was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship, performed a White House lawn concert for President Jimmy Carter, was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, returned to the trio setting, collaborated with ballet companies and as an accomplished poet often incorporates his poems into his musical performances.
He is the co-founder of the Jazz Composers Guild to enhance the working possibilities of avant-garde musicians. Acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz, his music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. His piano technique has been likened to percussion, described as “eighty-eight tuned drums” referring to the number of keys on a standard piano. He continues to perform, compose and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Renee Rosnes was born Irene Louise Rosnes on March 24, 1962 in Regina, Saskatchewan but grew up in North Vancouver, B.C. where she attended Handsworth Secondary School. She was three when she began taking classical piano lessons and became interested in jazz in high school. She went on to the University of Toronto pursuing classical performance, was awarded a Canada Council of the Arts grant in 1985 and moved to New York City to further her studies.
Saxophonist Joe Henderson hired her to play with his quartet that kick-started her international career. Since then, Rosnes has worked with many of the top names in jazz including J.J. Johnson, Wayne Shorter, James Moody, Bobby Hutcherson and Jon Faddis among others.
Renee is a founding member of the San Francisco Jazz Collective, whose members have included the likes of Joshua Redman, Brian Blade, Bobby Hutcherson, Dave Douglas, Eric Harland, Nicholas Payton, Joe Lovano, Stefon Harris and others.
The pianist, composer and arranger performs and records in the hard bop and post-bop mediums, has nearly two dozen albums as a leader and several more as a sidewoman with her latest project “Double Portrait” recorded with her husband Bill Charlap. Renee Rosnes continues to perform, tour and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marian McPartland was born Margaret Marian Turner on March 20, 1920 in Windsor, England. A musical prodigy from the time she could sit at a piano at age three, she pursued classical studies on piano and violin at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. However, much to the dismay of her family, she developed a love for American jazz and musicians such as Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, and Mary Lou Williams among many others.
By 1938, despite her family’s efforts to keep her at Guildhall, Marian left to join Billy Mayerl’s Claviers, a four-piano vaudeville act, performing under the stage name of Marian Page. The group toured throughout Europe during WWII entertaining Allied troops where she met and performed with Jimmy McPartland, and later married, moving to the United States.
1944 saw the McPartlands in New York with Marian forming her own trio and enjoying an 8-year engagement at the Hickory House bringing drummer Joe Morello into the fold. After many years of recording for labels such as Capitol, Savoy, Argo, Sesac, Time, and Dot, in 1969 she founded her own record label, Halcyon Records, before having a long association with the Concord Jazz label.
Marian launched a weekly radio program that featured recordings and interviews with guests in 1964 on WBAI-FM in New York City. This series paved the way for the NPR program Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz that began on June 4, 1978 and is the longest-running cultural program on NPR as well as being one of the longest-running jazz programs ever produced on public radio.
A master at adapting to her guest’s musical styles and having a well-known affinity for beautiful and harmonically rich ballads, McPartland also has recorded many tunes of her own. Her compositions include “Ambiance”, “There’ll Be Other Times”, “With You In Mind”, “Twilight World”, and “In the Days of Our Love”.
Marian a participated in 60 years of jazz evolution, was awarded a Trustees’ Lifetime Achievement Award Grammy for her work as an educator, writer, and host of Piano Jazz, and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2010. Pianist and composer Marian McPartland passed away on August 20, 2013 of natural causes at her home in Port Washington, New York. She was 95 years old.
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