Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gene Harris was born on September 1, 1933 in Benton Harbor, Michigan where he was first drawn to music at the age of four. He was attracted to the music of local bandleader Charles Metcalf’s group and was inspired to try to pick out songs on the piano. He also enjoyed the music he heard in church and the boogie-woogie records of his parents.
Gene quickly developed as a pianist, having many opportunities to play music while serving in the Army from 1951 – 54. Following his discharge, he originally formed The Four Sounds, but by 1956 abandoned their original plan to include a tenor-saxophonist and renamed themselves The Three Sounds. Joining Harris in the original line up of the band was bassist Andy Simpkins and drummer Bill Dowdy.
For the next 15 years, the trio made many notable recordings for Blue Note and other labels as well as supporting such musicians as Lester Young, Lou Donaldson, Nat Adderley, Johnny Griffin, Anita O’Day, Stanley Turrentine and Sonny Stitt, among others. In 1973, The Three Sounds disbanded, leaving Harris to pursue a solo career until he semi-retired in 1977, playing sometimes only in Boise, Idaho.
In the early eighties Ray Brown convinced Gene to tour with his trio and then led his own groups once again, recording mostly on Concord. Gene Harris was one of the most accessible jazz pianists and his soulful sound was immediately likable as he returned to the spotlight. He was widely associated with the Philip Morris Super Band for many years. The Grammy winning artist, whose music was infused with blues and gospel, left a legacy of sixty albums as a leader, 34 as a sideman and nine compilations before his passing away on January 16, 2000 of kidney failure at the age of 66.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kenneth Sidney Drew was born on August 28, 1928 in New York City. He first recorded with Howard McGhee in 1949, and over the next two years recorded with Buddy DeFranco, Coleman Hawkins, Milt Jackson, Charlie Parker, and Dinah Washington. He then led many recording sessions throughout the 1950s, and appeared on John Coltrane’s “Blue Train”.
Along with several other American jazz musicians who went to Europe, in 1961 Kenny moved to Copenhagen, Denmark. While he sacrificed much of the interest of the American jazz audience, he gained a wide following across Europe. He became a well-known figure on the Copenhagen jazz scene, recording many sessions with the Danish bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pederson.
Drew along with Dexter Gordon appeared on screen in Ole Ege’s theatrically released hardcore pornographic film Pornografi – en musical in 1971), for which they composed and performed the score. He recorded for Blue Note, Xanadu, Steeplechase, Riverside, Verve, Soul and Storyville record labels leaving a catalogue of forty albums as a leader and another 34 as a sideman performing with the likes of Toots Thielmans, Sonny Rollins, Ben Webster, Chet Baker, Grant Green, Dizzy Gillespie and Dexter Gordon among others.
His touch has been described as “precise” and his playing a combination of bebop-influenced melodic improvisation and block chords, including “refreshingly subtle harmonizations”. Pianist Kenny Drew He passed away on August 4, 1993 in Copenhagen, leaving his son Kenny Jr. to carry on the family’s jazz piano legacy.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alice Coltrane, née McLeod, was born on August 27, 1937 in Detroit, Michigan. She studied classical music and also jazz with Bud Powell and began playing professionally in Detroit, with her own jazz trio and as a duo with vibist Terry Pollard. It was while playing with the Terry Gibbs Quartet in 1962 that she met John Coltrane. Replacing McCoy Tyner as pianist with Trane’s group in 1965, the two married the following year and continued playing together until his death in 1967. She is the mother of daughter Michelle, drummer John Jr., and saxophonists Oran and Ravi.
After her husband’s death she continued to play with her own groups, later including her children, moving into more and more meditative music. Alice was one of the few harpists in the history of jazz and her essential recordings were made in the late Sixties and early 1970s for Impulse Records.
Coltrane became a devotee of the Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba in 1972, moved to California and established the Vendantic Center in 1975. By the late Seventies she had changed her name to Turiyasangitananda, became the swamini or spiritual director of Shanti Anantam Ashram established in 1983 near Malibu, California. Only on rare occasions would she perform publicly under the name Alice Coltrane.
The 1990s saw renewed interest in her work, which led to the release of the compilation Astral Meditations, and in 2004 she released her comeback album Translinear Light. Following a twenty-five-year break from major public performances, she returned to the stage for three U.S. appearances in the fall of 2006, culminating on November 4 with a concert in San Francisco with her son Ravi, drummer Roy Haynes and bassist Charlie Haden.
Alice Coltrane, pianist, organist, harpist and composer, passed away of respiratory failure on January 12, 2007 in Los Angeles, California.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Claude Driskett Hopkins was born on August 24, 1903 in Alexandria, Virginia to Howard University faculty parents. A highly talented stride piano player and arranger, he left home at 21 as a sideman with the Wilbur Sweatman Orchestra but stayed less than a year. In 1925, he left for Europe as the musical director of The Revue Negre that starred Josephine Baker with Sidney Bechet in the band.
Returning to the USA in 1927, Hopkins based himself in Washington, toured the TOBA circuit with The Ginger Snaps Revue before heading once again to NYC where he took over the band of Charlie Skeets. Between 1932-36 he led a fairly successful Harlem band employing many jazz musicians who were later to become famous in their own right such as Edmond Hall, Jabbo Smith and Vic Dickerson. This was his most successful period with long residencies at the Savoy and Rosewood ballrooms, and at the Cotton Club. In 1937 he took his band on the road with a great deal of success but by 1940 dissolved the band.
Using his arranging talents, Claude began working for several non-jazz bandleaders and for CBS. In 1948/9 he led a “novelty” band briefly but took a jazz band into The Cafe Society in 1950. From 1951 up until his death, he remained in NYC working mostly as a sideman with Dixieland bands playing at festivals and various New York clubs and recording. Often under-rated in later years, he was one of jazz’s most important bandleaders and has yet to be given full recognition for his achievements. Claude Hopkins passed away on February 19, 1984 a disillusioned and dispirited man.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Rowles was born James G. Rowles on August 19, 1918 in Spokane, Washington and studied at Gonzaga College. After moving to Los Angeles in 1942, he joined Lester Young’s group and also worked with Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Les Brown, Tommy Dorsey, Tony Bennett and as a studio musician.
In the 1950s and 1960s, he frequently played behind Billie Holiday and Peggy Lee and in 1973, Rowles settled in New York City, where he performed and/or recorded with Zoot Sims and Stan Getz among others. He joined Ella Fitzgerald for nearly three years in 1981 succeeding Paul Smith as her accompanist first performing with her at the Mocambo nightclub in L.A.’s Hollywood district in late 1956. Jimmy appeared on several recording sessions with her in the 1960s and played on Fitzgerald’s final collaboration with Nelson Riddle, The Best Is Yet To Come in 1982.
In 1983, Jimmy worked with Diana Krall in Los Angeles, developing her playing abilities and encouraged her to add singing to her repertoire. He composed several jazz pieces, the best known being “The Peacocks”; accompanied jazz singer Jeri Brown in 1994 on the only album containing only his own compositions, A Timeless Place.
Pianist Jimmy Rowles, who released a number of albums under his own name and explored various idioms including swing and cool jazz, died from cardiovascular disease in Burbank, Los Angeles County, California, at the age of 78 on May 28, 1996.
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