Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ron Blake was born on September 7, 1965 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was eight when he began studying the guitar, and at the age of ten, he started learning to play the saxophone after being exposed to the record collection of his father, who was seriously into hard bop, soul-jazz and organ combos.His first saxophone was an alto, but eventually, he learned the tenor, soprano, and baritone saxes, as well as the flute.

After leaving home for the Midwest, Ron graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan before moving to the Chicago area and attending Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Though studying classical saxophone with Dr. Frederick Hemke, jazz ultimately won out. By the late Eighties he was playing a lot of bop gigs in Chi-Town, crossing paths with tenor man Von Freeman and pianist Jodie Christian.

Blake moved to Florida in 1991 to accept a teaching position at the University of South Florida. Then it was off to New York City the following year where he spent five years in trumpeter Roy Hargrove’s quintet and seven years in flugelhornist Art Farmer’s group. By the early 2000s, he was leading his own quartet, which included pianist Shedrick Mitchell, bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Greg Hutchinson.

Releasing his first album as a leader, Up Front & Personal on the Tahmun label in 2000, was followed in 2003 with a Christian McBride-produced Lest We Forget on the  Mack Avenue release that found Ron paying tribute to three soul-jazz greats who had died: saxophonists Grover Washington, Jr. and Stanley Turrentine, and organist Charles Earland.

He is a member of the Saturday Night Live Band, Dion Parson & 21st Century Band and the Grammy-winning Christian McBride Big Band. As an educator he holds a position as professor of Jazz studies at The Juilliard School. His discography has four albums as a leader/co-leader and has more than fifty credits as a sideman for Roy Hargrove, Art Farmer, Reuben Rogers, Joey DeFrancesco, Razor & Tie, Ropeadope, Gerald Wilson, Latin pop group, Yerba Buena, Jack DeJohnette,  Michael Cain, Regina Carter,  among others.

Saxophonist Ron Blake is also a band leader, composer and music educator who continues to compose, record, and perform.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ernie Henry was born on September 3, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. He played in the late 1940s with Tadd Dameron, Fats Navarro, Charlie Ventura, Max Roach, and Dizzy Gillespie. From 1950 to 1952 he was in the band of Illinois Jacquet.

After a few years in the shadows, in the 1950s he returned to play with Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Kenny Dorham, Kenny Drew, Wynton Kelly, Wilbur Ware, Matthew Gee, Art Taylor, Philly Joe Jones and Gillespie again in 1956.

He recorded four albums as a leader for the Riverside label shortly before his death Presenting Ernie Henry, Seven Standards and a Blues, Last Chorus and 2 Horns / 2 Rhythm.

Alto saxophonist Ernie Henry passed away of a heroin overdose at the age of 31 on December 29, 1957 in New York City.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Buster Smith was born Henry Smith on August 24, 1904 Alsdorf, Texas, the third boy of five and earned the name “Buster” from his parents as he was an overweight baby when his mother gave birth. His early musical influences were his mother, and his father, who played guitar. At the age of four years, Buster and his brother Boston, a pianist, were playing organ, he played the keys and his brother stepped on the pedals. Soon thereafter, believing it would lead to a life of sin, his grandfather gave away the organ.

In 1919, Smith picked cotton for a week to earn himself the money to buy a $3.50 clarinet. He went on to learn to play several instruments by the time he was eighteen years old. Moving to Dallas in 1922, he joined the Voodie White Trio, playing alto saxophone and clarinet. The following year he began his professional career as an alto saxophonist with the medicine shows, though he had to play very loudly to draw in more customers. This experience defined his musical style, becoming known for being loud.

This period led to Oran “Hot Lips” Page inviting Smith to join his group, the Oklahoma City Blue Devils, in 1925. Over the next few years Buster wrote much of the group’s music, learning from banjo player Johnny Clark, writing lyrics with co-workers from the bank that he worked in.

As a Blue Devils he worked alongside Walter Page, Oran Page, Lester Young, Count Basie, Jimmy Rushing, and Emir “Bucket” Coleman. They toured the Kansas City area and the Midwest, playing jazz for a year, bringing all of its members into prominence. Basie and Page both left the group; and shortly afterwards so did Smith. He and Basie formed the Buster Smith-Count Basie Band of Rhythm, where the two innovated a louder style of jazz. Buster’s contribution to the unique sound was by using a tenor saxophone reed in his alto saxophone to achieve a louder, “fatter” sound. Young opted for a heavier reed, using a baritone saxophone reed on his tenor saxophone. This sound was later labelled the Texas Sax Sound.

Smith gained influence in the Texan music community and industry. He mentored saxophonist Charlie Parker during the 1930s, developing a father-son relationship. He played with a host of musicians including Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Earl Hines but in 1941 he returned to Dallas and ceased touring but remained active in the local music scene. In the years that followed he wrote for jazz and blues bands, played often, and known as Professor Smith, taught many young Texan musicians, including Aaron “T-Bone” Walker and Red Garland among others. He also performed session work with Pete Johnson’s Boogie-Woogie Boys, Eddie Durham, Leo “Snub” Mosley, Bon and His Buddies, and the Don Redman Orchestra.

In the 1960s, Smith was involved in auto accident, his injuries causing him to give up the saxophone. Not to be dissuaded from performing he took up the bass guitar, led a dance band and played into the mid-Eighties with the Legendary Revelations. Alto saxophonist Buster Smith, who recorded only one album as a leader in 1959, passed away on August 10, 1991 of a heart attack in Dallas, Texas.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bumps Myers was born Hubert Maxwell Myers on August 22, 1912 in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Influenced by Coleman Hawkins he played the tenor saxophone but also the alto and baritone. Growing up in California he began his musical career at the age of 17 in the Los Angeles area, playing with Curtis Mosby and His Dixieland Blue Blowers,

By 1927 he had recorded for the first time and two years later was playing in Seattle, Washington with Earl Whaley. The mid-1930s saw him with Buck Clayton and Teddy Weatherford, with whom he went on tour. From 1934 to 1936 he lived in Shanghai, China where he worked in Canidrome with Weatherford’s band and Buck Clayton. After returning to the United States in 1937 he played with Lionel Hampton and Les Hite .

The early Forties had Bumps working with the short-lived band of Lee and Lester Young. In 1942 and again in 1945 he worked at Jimmie Lunceford and 1943-48 in Benny Carter’s big band. Mid-1940s he performed several times with Jazz at the Philharmonic and in 1945 he played with Sid Catlett on.

1947 saw him playing with Benny Goodman and recording the hit Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad). Under his own name he released Bumps Myers & His Frantic Five in 1949 on the Blu, Selective and RPM labels.

In the 1950s, Myers worked as a studio musician, played with Red Callender, and Harry Belafonte in 1958 . After touring with Horace Henderson from 1961-62, Myers retired from music  because of issues with his health.

In the field of swing and jazz, he was involved from 1927 to 1960 on some 90 recording sessions with Irving Ashby, Kay Starr, Lee Richardson, Ernestine Anderson, Freddie Slack, Mel Powell, Dan Grissom, Fletcher Henderson, Russell Jacquet, Louis Bellson and Maxwell Davis, Not limiting himself to jazz he also played on a number of rhythm and blues recordings by T-Bone Walker, George Vann, Amos Milburn, Jimmy Witherspoon, Helen Humes, Percy Mayfield, Tony Allen and B. B. King.

Swing saxophonist Bumps Myers, who never gained the notoriety or popularity of his contemporaries, due possibly to working mainly in the Los Angeles music scene, passed away on April 9, 1968 in Los Angeles, California.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Justin Robinson was born August 14, 1968 in Manhattan, New York City and first began playing saxophone at the age of 13, while attending the High School of Music and Arts, formerly LaGuardia High School. His influences were Charlie Parker and Jackie McLean.

From 1984 to 1986 he was a part of the McDonald’s High School Jazz Band and at the age of 18 he joined with Philip Harper and Winard Harper actively helping in their formation of the Harper Brothers. By 1988 Betty Carter brought him into her band and from the early 1990s, he has played with Cecil Brooks III, Abbey Lincoln, Diana Ross, Little Jimmy Scott, Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, the Dizzy Gillespie All Star Band, Kate Higgins, Sam Newsome and especially Roy Hargrove, both in the Big Band as well as in the quintet.

After his 1991 recording debut with Justin Time on the Verve label, to the Bobby Watson, Eddie Henderson, Kenny Barron and Gary Bartz participated release of Challenge in 1998, on which he was accompanied by his childhood friend Stephen Scott. Always a thoughtful leader who takes his time to compose and record, his third project In The Spur Of The Moment was released in 2012.

Alto saxophonist Justin Robinson is currently touring with the quintet and big band of trumpeter Roy Hargrove.

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