The Jazz Voyager
The Jazz Voyager is departing NOLA for the Mountain Time Zone of Phoenix, Arizona with the next destination being a jazz spot called The Nash. Named for internationally renowned drummer and Phoenix native Lewis Nash. As one of the reat jazz venues in the world, the club is not only a music room but an education facility that is a community of jazz enthusiasts and musicians who build on the past to create a modern musical experience.
Taking the stage for this Saturday’s performance is Beth Lederman with her group Jazz Con Alma. They feature jazz that grooves and draws from latin rhythms, taking standards and pop music and adding their own special twists. From Coltrane and Gershwin to the Beatles and Stevie Wonder, they play anything that embraces the creativity which embodies jazz is fair game. Jazz Con Alma consists of saxophonist Mary Petrich, bassist Jon Murray, Adam Clark on drums and percussionist Frank Valdes.
The Nash is located at 110 E. Roosevelt Street 85004 . For more information visit https://notoriousjazz.com/event/beth-lederman.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Haider was born January 3, 1936 in Darmstadt, Germany and performed as an amateur musician in the region Stuttgart, Germany between 1954 and 1959. He studied at Richard Strauss Conservatory in Munich, Germany from 1960 to 1965. During this period he also played in the Fritz Münzer Quintet and recorded Live in HR 1962 and Jazz For Young People.
From 1965 to 1968, he worked as a pianist and led a trio in jazz club Domicile in Munich. During his residency Joe performed with many European and American jazz musician such as Benny Bailey, Duško Gojković, Nathan Davis, Booker Ervin, Klaus Doldinger, Hans Koller, Leo Wright, Attila Zoller, George Mraz, Peter Trunk, Philly Joe Jones, Joe Nay, Kurt Bong, Klaus Weiss and Pierre Favre.
After leading the Radio Jazz Ensemble of the Bayerischer Rundfunk, he worked from 1970 with the quartet Four for Jazz with alto saxophonist Heinz Bigler, bassist Isla Eckinger and Peter Giger on percussion. He founded his own trio with Eckinger and Favre and put together a combo with Duško Gojković and led a big band together with Slide Hampton, in which Dexter Gordon also performed.
1979 saw Haider establishing his own label EGO in order to release his own records and those of his German colleagues. He recorded with his orchestra and Mel Lewis, toured with Woody Shaw, and various soloists such as Andy Scherrer, Roman Schwaller, Sandy Patton or Don Menza. From 1984 to 1995, he was the director of the Swiss Jazz School in Bern, Switzerland. In 1994, the Canton of Bern’s government awarded him the Great Cultural Prize for his contribution in the field of music.
The turn of the century had him working for the next eleven years with Brigitte Dietrich and a double quartet with bowed string instruments. In 2016, he published the album Keep It Dark. Pianist Joe Haider, at 87, is not very active in music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kevin Kraig Toney was born on January 1, 1953 in Detroit, Michigan. Graduating from Cass Technical High School, in his teens he listened to the music of John Coltrane and Art Tatum He attended Howard University where Donald Byrd, head of the jazz studies department, assembled a group of students which became the fusion band the Blackbyrds, led by Toney. The band played with Chick Corea, The Crusaders, Herbie Hancock, and Grover Washington Jr.
The band released seven albums, three were certified gold and had two hits. Rock Creek Park and Unfinished Business, the latter earned Kevin a Grammy Award nomination. He has recorded several albums as a leader, has worked with Kenny Burrell, Hubert Laws, David “Fathead” Newman, James Newton, Sonny Rollins, Frank Sinatra, Sonny Stitt, Gerald Wilson and Nancy Wilson among numerous others.
As an arranger and conductor with Patti Austin, Babyface, Gloria Gaynor, Edwin Hawkins, James Ingram, Enrique Iglesias, Michael McDonald, Brian McKnight, Freda Payne, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder, Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis Jr., and produced his daughter, Dominique Toney’s debut album.
In the same roles he worked in theater for Ain’t Misbehavin’, Five Guys Named Moe, Harlem Suite, The Magic of Motown, Sophisticated Ladies, and Wild Women Blues. He wrote the music for the film Kings of the Evening.
Pianist and composer Kevin Toney, who has recorded eleven albums as a leader, nine as a member of The Blackbyrds and eighteen as a sideman, continues to perform, tour, and record.
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Requisites
Steal Away ~ Larry Willis | By Eddie Carter
This morning’s album from the library is Steal Away (AudioQuest Music AQ-LP 1009), a little-known release by pianist Larry Willis. It’s the first of two records Willis made for the label and his seventh as a leader. He’s joined on this date by Gary Bartz (tracks: A2, B1) on alto sax and Cecil McBee (A2, B1, B2) on bass. My copy is the 1992 U.S. Stereo audiophile album.
Side One opens with Valdosta Blues by Larry Willis, the first of three solo piano performances. The title comes from the city in Georgia and begins with the pianist’s tranquil introduction that builds to a breezy melody. His ensuing solo is a superb performance that moves easily toward an exquisite ending.
The title tune, Steal Away, is an American Negro spiritual by Wallace Willis. It has been with Larry since age three and was a favorite song of his Mother’s to sing. Willis opens with a delicately gentle introduction to Bartz and McBee’s very pretty melody. Gary’s opening solo is imaginative and confident. Larry follows with sweet notes that shine like the rays of the sun, and Cecil breezes blissfully through the closing statement into a gentle climax. Fallen Hero is Larry’s tribute to his brother Victor. He tells an intimate story that reveals his love and affection for his brother with reflective inspiration and tenderness.
“D” Bass-ic Blues by Cecil McBee starts with the bassist’s bowed introduction, setting up Bartz and Willis to join him in a medium-tempo theme. Larry eases into the first solo with joyful vitality. Gary keeps the ball rolling with a remarkable reading of melodic lines. Cecil lets his bass do the talking in the finale preceding the theme’s reprise and conclusion. Ethiopia is a hauntingly beautiful song by Larry Willis that’s presented as a duet with Cecil McBee. The duo starts with a tender melody, and then Larry’s opening statement is as gentle as a light summer rain. Cecil comes in next with a graceful interpretation ahead of the duo’s delicately pretty ending.
The Meaning of The Blues by Bobby Troup and Leah Worth is given a tasteful treatment by Willis. He makes the song his own in a solo showcase that’s warm and nostalgic, thoughtful and heartfelt into a serene finale of haunting dreaminess. Joe Harley produced Steal Away, Pierre M. Sprey was the recording engineer, and Bernie Grundman mastered the album. It’s a pure analog recording with a stunning soundstage that was pressed on 180 grams of audiophile vinyl and is a perfect demonstration record for any quality audio system. Larry Willis recorded twenty-one albums as a leader and many more as a sideman. If you’re a fan of piano jazz, I invite you to consider Steal Away by Larry Willis on your next record-shopping trip. It’s an excellent place to start your discovery of his music and a welcome addition to any jazz fan’s library!
~ Fallen Hero, Ethiopia, “D” Bass-ic Blues – Source: Album Liner Notes by Bill Kohihasse
~ American Negro Spirituals were songs that contained hidden codes and messages for enslaved people to escape on their own or through the Underground Railroad – Source: Wikipedia.org
© 2023 by Edward Thomas Carter
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Stanley William Tracey was born on December 30, 1926 in Denmark Hill, South London, England. The Second World War disrupted his formal education, and he became a professional musician at the age of sixteen as a member of an Entertainments National Service Association touring group playing the accordion, his first instrument. He joined Ralph Reader’s Gang Shows at the age of nineteen, while in the RAF and formed a brief acquaintance with the comedian Tony Hancock.
Later, in the early 1950s, he worked in groups on the transatlantic liners Queen Mary and Caronia and toured the UK with Cab Calloway. By the mid-1950s, he had also taken up the vibraphone, but later ceased playing it. During the decade he worked widely with leading British modernists, including drummer Tony Crombie, clarinettist Vic Ash, the saxophonist-arranger Kenny Graham and trumpeter Dizzy Reece.
1957 saw Tracey touring the United States with Ronnie Scott’s group, and then became the pianist with Ted Heath’s Orchestra for two years at the end of the Fifties, including a US tour with singer Carmen McRae. Although he disliked Heath’s music, he gained a regular income and was well featured as a soloist on both piano and vibes. He contributed compositions and arrangements that stayed in the Heath book for many years.
He first recorded in 1952 with the trumpeter Kenny Baker, then recorded his first album as leader in 1958, Showcase, for English Decca label and Little Klunk in 1959. From 1960 until about 1967 Stan was the house pianist at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho, London, which gave him the opportunity to accompany many of the leading musicians from the US who visited the club. It is Tracey on piano that film viewers hear behind Rollins on the soundtrack of the Michael Caine version of Alfie. At the same time, he became active in Michael Horovitz’s New Departures project, mixing poetry performances with jazz, where the musicians interacted spontaneously with the words.
The early 1970s were a bleak time for Tracey. He began to work with musicians of a later generation, who worked in a free or avant-garde style. He continued to work in this idiom with Evan Parker at the UK’s Appleby Jazz Festival for several years, but this was always more of a sideline for Tracey, lasting 18 years that the festival existed. Stan formed his own label In the mid-1970s titled Steam, and a number of commissioned suites. These included The Salisbury Suite, The Crompton Suite and The Poets Suite.
He led his own octet from 1976 to 1985 and formed a sextet in 1979 and toured widely in the Middle East and India. He had a longstanding performance partnership from 1978 with saxophonist Art Themen, and his own son, drummer Clark Tracey. He shared the billing with arranger Gil Evans, Sal Nistico and Charlie Rouse. He went on to record over four dozen albums as a leader or co~leader, thirty as a sideman and on two soundtracks over the course of his career.
Pianist and composer Stan Tracey, who received the honor of the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), transitioned from cancer on December 6,
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