Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Juul Johansson, better known as Mads Mathias, was born on January 9, 1981 in Silkeborg, Denmark and grew up partly in Tanzania. Growing up in a musical home, his exposure to music began at infancy, picking up the saxophone as his main instrument by age 11. A car accident at seventeen left his right hand injured, losing his index finger and half of two other fingers. Afraid that his days of playing the saxophone were over, he started singing and writing songs instead.
Inspired and influenced by the great jazz vocalists of the past and present from Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra to Harry Connick Jr, and with a deep respect for the crooner tradition, Mathias is nevertheless an original talent with a unique and effortlessly charming vocal delivery and a skill for writing catchy and memorable, stylishly crafted tunes.
Fortunately the rehabilitation of his hand made him able to play the saxophone again and at age 20 he was entered the Rhythmic Music Conservatory, graduating in 2007.From an early age, Mads Mathias was a part of Jutland jazz scene and today is part of the Danish music scene: As a studio musician, he has contributed to several record releases and frequently used live dates.
In 2012 released debut solo album Free Falling which won him a Danish Music Award for “Best New Danish Jazz Artist of the Year”, He also won an Honorable Mention Award at one of the world’s largest songwriting competitions for his song “Fool for Love” and Kvintet with the addition of Espen Laub in addition to critical reviews and airplay on Danish radio.
Besides his own Mads Mathias Orchestra, Mads formed Mads Mathias Kvartet with Peter Rosendal, Regin Fuhlendorf and Morten Ankarfeldt and appears with The Danish Radio Big Band, Tivoli Big Band and Six City Stompers. The vocalist, songwriter and saxophonist continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nigel Hitchcock was born in Rustington, England on January 4, 1971 and began to play alto sax at the age of eight. In 1982 he and his elder brother Clive joined the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and after one year he took the lead alto chair, holding it for five years. During this time the orchestra toured with different musicians such as Vic Damone, Buddy Greco and Al Martino.
By 16, Hitchcock moved to London and began his career as a session musician and also had recorded TV jingles, movie soundtracks and pop solos. 1989 saw him joining the contemporary saxophone quartet Itchy Fingers and touring throughout Europe and Southeast Asia for 18 months. While with the group he received three jazz awards: the Schlitz Awar for Rising Star; the Cleo Laine Personal Award for Best Young Musician; and the Pat Smythe Trust Award.
With that behind him Nigel left the band and returned to continue working as a pop and session musician. This has given him the opportunity to work with many artists, among other, Tom Jones, Wet Wet Wet, Beverly Craven, Ray Charles, Swing Out Sister, Joe Cocker, Cher, Robbie Williams, Claire Martin, Mark Isham, Mark Knopfler and the London Symphony Orchestra. He has also released his debut solo album “Snake Ranch Sessions”.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Carter was born January 3, 1969 in Detroit, Michigan and learned to play under the tutelage of Donald Washington, becoming a member of his youth jazz ensemble Bird-Trane-Sco-NOW!! As a young man, he attended Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and become the youngest faculty member at the camp. He first toured Europe (Scandinavia) with the International Jazz Band in 1985 at the age of 16.
By 1988, while at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Carter was a last-minute addition for guest artist Lester Bowie, which turned into an invitation to play with his new quintet in New York that following November at the now defunct Carlos 1 jazz club. This New York invite was pivotal in his career, putting him in musical contact with the world, and he moved to the city two years later.
James has won Down Beat magazine’s Critics and Readers Choice award for baritone saxophone several years in a row. He has performed, toured and played on albums with Lester Bowie, Julius Hemphill, Frank Lowe & the Saxemble, Kathleen Battle, the World Saxophone Quartet, Cyrus Chestnut, Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater and the Mingus Big Band. On his 2000 album Chasin’ the Gypsy, he recorded with his cousin, jazz violinist Regina Carter.
An authority on vintage horns, Carter owns an extensive collection of them. He continues to be a prominent force as a performer and recording artist on the jazz scene since the late 1980s, playing saxophones, flute and clarinets.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gil Mellé was born December 31, 1931 in New York City and began his career in jazz as a post-bop baritone and tenor saxophonist, signed with Blue Note at the age of 19, becoming the first Caucasian on the label. Between 1953 and ’57 he recorded five 10” records and his debut 12” LP, Patterns in Jazz for Blue Note. Leaving the label he then went to Prestige releasing three albums.
In the 1950s, Mellé’s paintings and sculptures were shown in New York galleries and he created the cover art for albums by Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins. During this period Gil played the tenor and baritone saxophone with George Wallington, Max Roach, Tal Farlow, Oscar Pettiford, Ed Thigpen, Kenny Dorham and Zoot Sims.
It was Mellé who introduced engineer Rudy Van Gelder to Alfred Lion, Blue Note’s founder, in 1952 after Lion was impressed with the sound of Mellé’s recordings. Abandoning jazz and moving to Los Angeles in the 60s his road led to composing for film and television, and experimenting with electronic music.
As a film and television composer, Mellé was one of the first to use electronic instruments that he built himself, was first to compose a main theme for Rod Serling’s Night Gallery series arranged entirely for electronic instruments as well as The Six Million Dollar Man. Gil composed more than 125 motion picture scores including That Certain Summer, The Andromeda Strain, The Judge and Jake Wyler.
Gil Mellé died of a heart attack on October 28, 2004 in Malibu, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson was born on December 18, 1917 in Houston, Texas and took up the alto saxophone in his youth. By the late 30s he joined Milton Larkin’s Orchestra and at various times sat next to Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, Cedric Haywood and Wild Bill Davis.
Exiting Larkin’s employment in 1941, Vinson picked up a few vocal tricks while touring with bluesman Big Bill Broonzy, moved to New York City joining and recording with Cootie Williams, and then struck out on his own in 1945, Eddie formed his own large band that performed, recorded and toured over the next ten years.
He signed with Mercury Records, and enjoying a double-sided hit in 1947 with his R&B chart-topper “Old Maid Boogie”, and the song that would prove to be his signature number, “Kidney Stew Blues”.
Vinson leaned towards jazz during the early 50s when his band included John Coltrane. In the early 1960s he moved to Los Angeles working with Johnny Otis and by the late 60s he was touring in a strict jazz capacity with Jay McShann and his career took an upswing. A 1970 appearance at the Monterey Jazz Festival with Otis spurred a bit of a comeback for Vinson and throughout the decade worked high-profile blues and jazz sessions for Count Basie, Johnny Otis, Roomful of Blues, Arnett Cobb and Buddy Tate.
During this period he also composed steadily, including “Tune Up” and “Four”, both of which have been incorrectly attributed to Miles Davis. Vinson recorded extensively during his fifty-odd year career and performed regularly in Europe and the United States.
Jump blues, R&B, jazz and bebop alto saxophonist Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, whose nickname came from a hair straightening incident in which the lye destroyed his hair, passed away on July 2, 1988 from a heart attack whilst undergoing chemotherapy in Los Angles, California.
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