Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Archie Shepp was born on May 24, 1937 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida but was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano, clarinet and alto saxophone before focusing on the tenor saxophone. He studied drama at Goddard College from 1955-59, eventually turning professional.
Shepp played in a Latin jazz band for a short time before joining the band of avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor. His debut recording as a leader was under his own name, Archie Shepp-Bill Dixon Quartet on the Savoy label. The 1962 session included an Ornette Coleman composition was the initial link to the formation of the New York Contemporary Five, which included Don Cherry. Two years later with the admiration of Coltrane he recorded Four For Trane on Impulse Records with trombonist Roswell Rudd, bassist Reggie Workman and alto John Tchicai.
Archie participated in the sessions for Coltrane’s A Love Supreme in late 1964, but none of the takes were included on the final release but has since been made available on a 2002 reissue. He would cut Ascension with Coltrane in 1965, and his place alongside Coltrane at the forefront of the avant-garde jazz scene was epitomized when the pair split the record New Thing At Newport, the first side a Coltrane set, the second a Shepp set.
During the decade he would develop his political consciousness and Afrocentric orientation, recording albums that reflected. His albums Fire Music and The Magic of Ju-Ju put him at the forefront of the free-form avant-garde movement along with Pharoah Sanders. He continued to experiment into the new decade, at various times with harmonica players and even spoken word poets. Never far from political and social commentary Archie released Attica Blues for the prison riots and The Cry Of My People that spoke to civil rights. He also wrote for theater including The Communist and Lady Day: A Musical Tragedy.
In 1971, Shepp was recruited to the University of Massachusetts Amherst that began a thirty-year career as a professor teaching Revolutionary Concepts in African-American Music and Black Musician in the Theater, also teaching African-American Studies at SUNY in Buffalo, New York.
In the late 1970s and beyond Archie would record blues, ballads, spirituals, tributes to traditional jazz musicians, as well as R&B. He would perform with Sun Ra’s Arkestra, French trumpeter Eric Le Lann, with Michel Herr creating the original score for the film Just Friends. He also appeared on the Red, Hot Organization’s tribute to Fela Kuti titled Red, Hot and Riot.
He has been featured in two documentary films, 1981’s Imagine The Sound, in which he discusses and performs his music and poetry, and Mystery Mr. Ra in which he discusses and performs his music and poetry. Shepp also appears in Mystery, Mr. Ra, a 1984 French documentary about Sun Ra.
In 2004 he founded his own record label, Archieball, together with Monette Berthomier in Paris. Tenor and soprano saxophonist, pianist, vocalist Archie Shepp continues to perform, collaborate and record.
Put A Dose In Your Pocket
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sonny Fortune was born on May 19, 1939 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After moving to New York City in 1967 he recorded and appeared live with drummer Elvin Jones’s group. In 1968 he was a member of Mongo Santamaria’s band. He subsequently performed with singer Leon Thomas and then with McCoy Tyner from 1971–1973.
In 1974 Sonny replaced Dave Liebman in Miles Davis’s ensemble and remained until spring 1975. He went on to join Nat Adderley after his brief tenure with Davis, and then formed his own group, recording two albums for A&M’s Horizon label. During the 1990s, he recorded several acclaimed albums for Blue Note.
He has performed with Roy Brooks, Buddy Rich, George Benson, Rabih Abou Khalil, Roy Ayers, Oliver Nelson, Gary Bartz, Rashied Ali and Pharoah Sanders, and was a part of the live album The Atlantic Family Live at Montreux.
Alto saxophonist and flautist Sonny Fortune, who also played the soprano, tenor and baritone saxophone and clarinet, continued to perform, record and tour until he died of a stroke at the age of 79 on October 25, 2018.
Inspire A Young Mind
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jackie McLean was born John Lenwood McLean on May 17, 1931 in New York City. His father played the guitar in Tiny Bradshaw’s orchestra and started the young man’s musical education until he was eight when the senior John passed away. His godfather, his stepfather who owned a record store and several noted teachers continued his education. He received informal training by neighbors Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and Charlie Parker.
In high school Jackie played in a band with Kenny Drew, Sonny Rollins and Andy Kirk Jr. By the time he was twenty he was playing alongside Rollins on Miles Davis’ Dig album and went on to record with Gene Ammons, Charles Mingus, George Wallington and to become one of Art Blakey’s Messengers, joining the group after reportedly being punched by Mingus and pulling a knife on the bassist. Fortunately for the jazz world no one was stabbed.
Throughout his early career he was addicted to heroin, which resulted in the loss of his New York City cabaret card. To make a living he undertook a large number of session dates that produced an extensive body of recorded work in the 1950s and 1960s. He recorded for Prestige, then Blue Note both as a leader and sideman. His early recordings as leader were in the hard bop school but later McLean became an exponent of modal jazz without abandoning his foundation in hard bop. His adaptation of modal jazz and free jazz innovations to his vision of hard bop made his recordings from 1962 on distinctive.
He worked with the greats of the time not limited to Donald Byrd, Sonny Clark, Lee Morgan, Ornette Coleman, Dexter Gordon, Freddie Redd, Billy Higgins, Freddie Hubbard, Grachan Moncur III, Bobby Hutcherson, Mal Waldron, Chalres Tolliver, Tony Williams, Michael Carvin, Carl Allen, Bill Hardman, Larry Wilis and Tina Brooks.
By 1967 he abandoned recording for touring and the following year started his teaching career at The Harrt School at the University of Hartford. He would establish the university’s African American Music Department that evolved into the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz) and its Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Studies program.
Along with his wife Dollie, they founded the Artists Collective, Inc. of Hartford, and his bands were drawn from his students including Steve Davis, his adopted son Rene and pianist Mark Berman. He received an American Jazz Masters fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame, and a biography titled Sugar Free Saxophone, as well as numerous other national and international awards. McLean is the only American jazz musician to found a department of studies at a University and a community-based organization almost simultaneously and they each have existed for over three decades.
After a long illness, alto saxophonist, composer, educator and bandleader Jackie McLean passed away on March 31, 2006 in Hartford, Connecticut.
Take A Dose On The Road
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kidd Jordan was born Edward Jordan on May 5, 1935 in Crowley, Louisiana and grew up listening to Zydeco and blues. His first instruments were C-melody and alto saxophones and while in high school he began performing stock arrangements for three or four saxophones with some older musicians. He read transcribed solos in Down Beat magazine, credits Illinois Jacquet with the idea of free improvisation and the free jazz of Ornette Coleman.
Kidd majored in music education and after completing his degree at Southern University in Baton Rouge, he relocated to New Orleans and began playing R&B gigs with Guitar Slim, Ray Charles, Big Maybelle, Big Je Turner, Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, Little Esther, Lena Horne and others. He taught at Southern University New Orleans from 1974 to 2006.
Jordan performs on tenor, baritone, soprano, alto, C-melody and sopranino saxophones as well as contrabass and bass clarinets. He has recorded with a wide selection of musicians in styles ranging from R&B to avant-garde jazz, including Stevie Wonder, Archie Shepp, Fred Anderson, Ellis Marsalis, Ornette Coleman, Cannonball Adderley, Ed Blackwell and Cecil Taylor on the short list.
Jordan taught Donald Harrison and Branford Marsalis, and Charles Joseph the co-founder of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. He was an instructor at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, and suffered the loss of his home and possessions during Hurricane Katrina. He recorded his album Palm of Soul shortly afterwards, that has had a track featured on the TV series Treme as well as making a guest appearance. The multi-instrumentalist continues to perform and teach.
Put A Dose In Your Pocket
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Maynard Ferguson was born Walter Maynard Ferguson on May 4, 1928 in Verdun, Quebec, Canada. Encouraged by his musician parents he was playing piano and by the age of four. A child prodigy violinist, at nine he heard a cornet and ask for one. By thirteen, he was heard soloing regularly with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra, featured on “Serenade for Trumpet in Jazz, and won a scholarship to the Conservatoire de Musique du Quebec a Montreal where he studied from 1943 through 1948.
Dropping out of Montreal High School at 15 to pursue his music career ore actively, Ferguson began playing in various dance bands and then took over his saxophonist brother Percy’s band. He played around Montreal and became an opening act for touring bands. This brought him to the attention of many bandleaders in the U.S. and he started getting offers to cross the border.
Maynard eventually relocated to the United States in 1948, intent on joining Stan Kenton’s organization. However, it had just disbanded so he started playing with Boyd Raeburn, Jimmy Dorsey and Charlie Barnet’s bands. When Barnet retired he went to work with Stan Kenton’s newly formed 40-piece Innovations Orchestra in 1950. For three years running, 1950, 1951, and 1952, he won the Down Beat Readers’ Poll as best trumpeter. In 1953, become a session player for Paramount Pictures, soon becoming the first-call player and appeared on 46 soundtracks, and to get around the studio contract that prevented him from playing jazz clubs he would appear under aliases Tiger Brown, Foxy Corby and others.
By 1956, Ferguson became the leader of the Birdland Dream Band, a 14-piece all-star big band formed by Birdland’s owner Morris Levy. He has played with Slide Hampton, Don Ellis, Don Sebesky, John Bunch, Joe Zawinul, Joe Farrell, Jaki Byard, Nino Tempo and others as well as arrangers Bob Brookmeyer, Jimmy Guiffre, Bill Holman and Marty Paich to name a few.
He went on to guest with the New York Philharmonic, then moved to the Hitchcock estate with Timothy Leary, Ram Dass and their Harvard community in 1963 and experimented with LSD, psilocybin and other psychedelic drugs for spiritual awakening. After three years he moved to India, engaged with a guru and established the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning Boys Brass Band and taught for several years.
By 1969, Maynard was in England, signed with CBS Records, formed a big band with British musicians and performed on television then returned to debut his new band in New York. He would recruit young talent from jazz programs from institutions like Berklee College of Music, North Texas State University and the University of Miami and targeting young audiences.
For the next couple of decades he would play the Olympics, work with large ensembles, formed the Big Bop Nouveau, backed vocalists such as Diane Schuur and Michael Feinstein, performed, toured and recorded big band albums. Ferguson has been an influence in the worlds of big band, swing, bebop, cool jazz, Latin, jazz-rock, fusion classical and opera. As an educator he has conducted scores of master classes with amateurs and professional trumpeters over the course of his career. In addition to trumpet he plays the flugelhorn, valve trombone, baritone horn and French horn.
He has been inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame, is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi, honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha’s Xi Chi Chapter, received Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Charles E. Lutton man of Music Award, has an honorary doctorate from and The Maynard Ferguson Institute of Jazz Studies at Rowan University, and his extensive memorabilia is housed at the Sherman Jazz Museum in Texas. He passed away on August 23, 2006 at age 78 in Ventura, California.
Take A Dose On The Road
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