Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Manny Albam was born on June 24, 1922 in Samana, Dominican Republic. Growing up in New York City he became interested in jazz after hearing Bix Beiderbecke and at sixteen dropped out of school to play for Dixieland trumpeter-leader Muggsy Spanier, but it was his membership in a group led by Georgie Auld that turned his career around.
While playing with Auld group, saxophonist Budd Johnson mentored Albam as an arranger. By 1950, Albam put down his baritone sax and began to concentrate strictly on arranging, writing, and leading. Within a few years, he became known for a bebop-oriented style that emphasised taut and witty writing with a flair for distinctive shadings. Flute-led reed sections became his trademark.
He became known for his work for bandleaders Charlie Barnet and Charlie Spivak, before moving forward to collaborate with Count Basie, Stan Getz, Bob Brookmeyer, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Hank Jones, Mel Lewis, Art Farmer, Urbie Green, and Milt Hinton, among others.
Manny found an entree into the classical music world when he arranged Leonard Bernstein’s score for West Side Story in 1957. Bernstein was said to have been so impressed that he invited him to write for the New York Philharmonic, and, in due course, write such works as Concerto for Trombone and Strings, became musical director for United Artists-Solid State Records, composed the score for a few films and television programs, and recording the albums The Blues is Everybody’s Business, The Drum Suite, The Jazz Workshop, Jazz New York, Something New, Something Blue and his jazz suite The Soul of the City.
As an educator Manny started teaching summer workshops at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York in 1964. He later joined the faculties of Glassboro State College in New Jersey and the Manhattan School of Music in New York. By 1988 he helped establish the BMI Jazz Composer’s Workshop to foster young composers and arrangers. In 1991 he eventually took over as director from Bob Brookmeyer and has as long list of former students throughout the music industry and in higher education, a pursuit he continued until his death.
Baritone saxophonist,composer,arranger, producer and educator Manny Albam passed away of cancer on October 2, 2001 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
Sponsored By
www.whatissuitetabu.com
More Posts: saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jerry “Buck” Jerome was born on June 19, 1912 in Brooklyn, New York and began playing the saxophone in high school in Plainfield, New Jersey. In 1936 he was part of a national tour with bandleader Harry Reser and his Clicquot Club Eskimos.
He joined Glenn Miller’s original orchestra in 1937 and was a member until it broke up in 1938. He played on the Miller recording Doin’ the Jive in which in soloed. He then joined the Red Norvo band followed by taking a chair in the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1938.
When Goodman broke up his band in 1940, Buck joined the Artie Shaw Orchestra. While with Shaw he appeared in the 1940 film Second Chorus starring Fred Astaire and Burgess Meredith.
Tenor saxophonist Jerry Jerome, who was a mainstay during the big band era and led four recording sessions, passed away on November 17, 2001.
Sponsored By
More Posts: saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Anthony Braxton was born June 4, 1945 in Chicago, Illinois. He studied philosophy at Roosevelt University and early in his career he led a trio with violinist Leroy Jenkins and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. He was involved with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) founded in his birthplace.
In 1969, Braxton recorded the double album For Alto, the first full-length album for unaccompanied saxophone. The album’s tracks were dedicated to Cecil Taylor and John Cage among others. The album influenced other artists like soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy and trombonist George Lewis, who would go on to record their own solo albums.
Joining pianist Chick Corea’s trio with bassist Dave Holland and Barry Altschul they form the short-lived avant garde quartet Circle around 1970. When Corea broke up the group to form Return To Forever, Holland and Altschul remained with Braxton for much of the 1970s as part of a quartet, rotating Kenny Wheeler, George Lewis and Ray Anderson. With Sam Rivers they recorded Holland’s This group recorded for Arista Records and the core trio with saxophonist Sam Rivers recorded Holland’s Conference of the Birds on ECM. In the 1970s he recorded duets with Lewis and with synthesizer player Richard Teitelbaum. In 1975, he released Muhal with the Creative Construction Company featuring Richard Davis, Steve McCall, Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo Smith and Leroy Jenkins. He would oo on to record through the 70s, 80s and early 90s wth Marilyn Crispell, Mark Dresser and Gerry Hemingway.
He performed at the Woodstock Jazz Festival, was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, composed his Ghost Trance Music released on his now defunct Braxton House label, and the final Ghost House live recordings at the New York City Iridium club were released by Firehouse 12 label in 2007. He recorded a prodigious series of multi-disc sets of standards during the 1990 and early 2000s
Besides playing saxophone, Braxton also plays clarinet, flute and piano, performs and records in the avant-garde, improvisation, bebop and mainstream genres, composes operas, orchestral and classical compositions, and is an avid chess player. He is the author of multiple volumes explaining his theories and pieces, such as the philosophical three-volume Triaxium Writings and the five-volume Composition Notes.
Composer and instrumentalist Anthony Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s, has taught at Mills College in the Eighties, was Professor of Music at Wesleyan University from the 1990s until his retirement at the end of 2013, and in 2013, was named a 2014 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master.
Give A Gift Of Jazz – Share
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bud Shank was born Clifford Everett Shank, Jr. on May 27, 1926 in Dayton, Ohio. He began with clarinet in Vandalia, Ohio, but had switched to saxophone before attending the University of North Carolina. While at UNC he was initiated into the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity.
In 1946 he worked with Charlie Barnet before working with Stan Kenton and the West Coast jazz scene. He also had a strong interest world music, playing Brazilian-influenced jazz with Laurindo Almeida in 1953–54, and in 1962 fusing jazz with Indian traditions in collaboration with Indian composer and sitar-player Ravi Shankar.
He spent the 1960s as a first-call studio musician in Hollywood and is also well known for the alto flute solo on the song California Dreamin’ recorded by The Mamas & the Papas in 1965. By 1974 Shank had joined with Ray Brown, Shelly Manne and Laurindo Almeida to form the group the L.A. Four, recording and touring extensively through 1982. He helped to popularize both Latin-flavored and chamber jazz music performing with orchestras as diverse as the Royal Philharmonic, the New American Orchestra, the Gerald Wilson Big Band, Stan Kenton’s Neophonic Orchestra, and Duke Ellington.
In 2005 he formed the Bud Shank Big Band in Los Angeles, California to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Stan Kenton’s Neophonic Orchestra.
A documentary film, Bud Shank “Against the Tide” Portrait of a Jazz Legend, was produced and directed by Graham Carter of Jazzed Media and released by Jazzed Media as a DVD and CD) in 2008. The film has been awarded 4 indie film awards including an Aurora Awards Gold.
Alto saxophonist Bud Shank, who also played tenor and baritone saxophone, passed away on April 2, 2009, of a pulmonary embolism at his home in Tucson, Arizona, one day after returning from San Diego, California, where he was recording a new album.
Inspire A Young Mind
#preserving genius
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gary Foster was born May 25, 1936 in Leavenworth, Kansas and started on the clarinet at age 13. His first personal musical inspiration was Olin Parker, his Jr. High School music director and private teacher who introduced him to Woody Herman, Count Basie and many other types of music. He listened closely to the Woody Herman orchestra recording of “Four Brothers” from the late 1940s which featured jazz saxophonists Stan Getz, Zoot Sims and Serge Chaloff and for him, Getz stood out on the tenor saxophone because of his tone. but Lester Young and Charlie Parker were also major influences.
His earliest professional experience was at age of 15 playing Leavenworth VFW Hall dances with bassist Harold Stanford. After high school Gary studied at Central College in Fayette, Missouri, he then transferred to the University of Kansas studying classical clarinet, music education, musicology and conducting. While there he met and played with Kansas City jazz trumpet great Carmell Jones.
In 1961 at age 26 Foster moved to Los Angeles, California to join the West Coast jazz scene, teaching privately and studying the flute but finding little work for a saxophonist to make a living only playing jazz he turned to studio work as a woodwind doubler to support his family. His initial associations and friendships with Clare Fischer and Warne Marsh were vital to Foster’s artistic approach to music and jazz improvisation.
He joined at its inception in 1973 he was a member of the Grammy Award winning Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band, worked with the big bands of Clare Fischer, Louis Bellson, Mike Barone, Ed Shaughnessy, and the Marty Paich Dek-tette, as well as with Cal Tjader, Poncho Sanchez, Sammy Nestico, Shelly Manne, and Rosemary Clooney and numerous others.
For over 45 years he has made his studio work has included television, movies, recordings, media and soundtracks such as Monsters, Inc., Ice Age, Elf, Meet The Fokkers, and Haunted Mansion to name a few. Foster has been in the Academy Awards Television Orchestra for 30 different broadcasts of the show, performed regularly with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
Saxophonist, clarinetist and flutist Gary has taught at Pasadena City College, University of Missouri, University of California, Los Angeles and California State University and founded Nova Music Studios. He has co-authored educational materials and conducts clinics at colleges and performs and lectures at professional music symposiums.
Dose A Day-Blues Away