Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lew Tabackin was born March 26, 1940 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Tabackin studied flute at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music and also studied music with composer Vincent Persichetti. Graduating in he did a stint with the Army, and then worked with Tal Farlow. He also worked in a combo that included Elvin Jones, Donald Byrd and Roland Hanna. He eventually took a chair in the band of the Dick Cavett Show.
He formed a quartet with Toshiko Akiyoshi in the late 1960s, and in 1973 co-founded the Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band that would later transform into the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra featuring Lew Tabackin. He would be the principal soloist for the big band/orchestra from 1973 through 2003. The orchestra would play bebop in the Duke Ellington-influenced arrangements and compositions by Akiyoshi.
Tabackin has become a great supporter of The Jazz Foundation of America in their mission to save the homes and the lives of America’s elderly jazz and blues musicians including musicians that survived Hurricane Katrina. He has been seated on the Advisory Committee of the Foundation since 2002.
Saxophonist Lew Tabackin has some 54 albums under his belt as a leader and co-leader as well as another twenty-eight in his catalogue as a sideman. He has been a Down Beat Critic’s and Reader’s Poll winner numerous times for Jazz Album of the Year, Big Band and Flute, has been nominated for a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance – Big Band ten times as well as Stereo Review magazine Jazz Album of the Year and recognition in Japan winning four Gold and Silver Disks from Swing Journal. He continues to perform and record.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paul Horn was born March 17, 1930 in New York City and began playing piano at the age of 4 and the saxophone at 12. He studied the flute in 1952 at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio and then earned a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music.
Moving to Los Angeles in 1956 Paul played with Chico Hamilton’s Quintet till 1958 and two years later recorded his debut album “Something Blue”. By now an established West Coast session player he played on the Duke
Ellington Orchestra’s Suite Thursday and during this period worked with Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett and others. In 1970, he moved Vancouver Island, formed his own and has recorded film scores for the National Film Board of Canada.
Widely known for his innovations on both metal and traditional wood flutes, Horn has recorded some truly exotic albums. Perhaps most famous of these are his “Inside” recordings, which feature airy, echoing sounds created in places of spiritual importance. While he is undoubtedly a jazz musician, many of his works defy categorization. As well as the Inside series, he has recorded other albums of jazz with musicians from a range of cultures and backgrounds including China and Africa. He continues to perform and record.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herschel “Tex” Evans was born March 9, 1909 in Denton, Texas but spent much of his childhood in Kansas City, Kansas learning to play alto saxophone. It was his trombone and guitar-playing cousin, Eddie Dunham who convince him to switch to the tenor, which ultimately established his reputation.
After perfecting his craft in the famous jam sessions held in the jazz district between 12th and 18th streets in Kansas City, Evans returned to Texas in the 1920s and joined the Troy Floyd orchestra in San Antonio in 1929. He stayed with the band until it dispersed in 1932. Evans performed for a time with Lionel Hampton and Buck Clayton in Los Angeles, and in the mid-1930s returned to Kansas City to become a featured soloist in Count Basie’s big band.
For the next three years Herschel’s reputation as a tenor saxophonist was at its peak. His musical duels with fellow band member Lester Young are considered jazz classics. Count Basie’s popular “One O’Clock Jump” featured the contrasting styles of the two musicians and brought to each the praise of both critics and the general public. Evans’s greatest single success was his featured solo on Basie’s hit “Blue and Sentimental”.
Evans also made records with such notable jazz figures as Harry James, Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton. Evans has been credited with influencing fellow tenorists Buddy Tate, Illinois Jacquet, and Arnett Cobb. Although not a prolific composer, Evans wrote a number of popular works including the hits “Texas Shuffle” and “Doggin’ Around”. On February 9, 1939, at the age of 29, he died of heart disease in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Robin Kenyatta was born Robert Prince Haynes on March 6, 1942 in Moncks Corner, South Carolina but grew up in New York City, learning to play the alto saxophone. He played with Bill Dixon in the 1960s and playing with his project “The October Revolution in Jazz”. Later that decade he played with Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, Roswell Rudd, Sonny Stitt, Archie Shepp and Buddy Miles among others.
By the 1970s he was playing with Alan Silva and Andrew Hill; for a brief time he experimented with instrumental pop music during this decade as well. He moved to Europe during the Seventies, finding it easier to make a living as a jazz musician.
Later in his career he would play with musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, B. B. King, Dr. John and George Benson; played the Montreux Jazz Festival and went with his own groups on a European tour.
Kenyatta would go on to lead a jazz school in Lausanne, Switzerland during this period. In 2002 Kenyatta returned to the USA becoming active as a director of music in Boston. He died on October 28, 2004 at the age of 62 in Lausanne, leaving behind a catalogue of thirteen albums as a leader and eight as a sideman.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Donald Rafael Garrett was born on February 28, 1932 in El Dorado, Arkansas but was raised in Chicago, Illinois. While in high school he first studied clarinet and then bass under Captain Walter Dyett. By the late 50s he was working closely with Muhal Richard Abrams, becoming a member of his Experimental Band in the Sixties.
It was during this time that he worked with Ira Sullivan, Eddie Harris, Dewey Redman and Rahsaan Roland Kirk but by the mid-sixties he relocated to San Francisco and formed a band called Sound Circus. He stayed on the West coast into the 70s working with such jazz greats as Archie Shepp, Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders and numerous more including performing and recording on four John Coltrane albums – Om, Kulu Se Mama, Selflessness and Live In Seattle.
In 1971 he formed the Sea Ensemble with Zusaan Kali Fasteau and embarked on a world tour for the next several years, the duo funding their travels with Fasteau giving music lessons and Garrett skillfully making bamboo flutes. Throughout his career he studied Turkish music, added flute to his instrumental repertoire, became an educator, writer, researcher and continued to perform and record with Johnny Griffin, Sonny Stitt, Joe Henderson, Billy Bang and other great jazz musicians.
Donald Garrett, multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with John Coltrane and the free jazz musicians and improvisers of the 60s and 70s, passed away on August 17, 1989.
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