Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Arnett Cobb was born on August 10, 1918 in Houston, Texas. Taught to play piano by his grandmother, he went on to study violin before taking up the saxophone in high school. At fifteen he joined Louisiana bandleader Frank Davis, performing around Houston and throughout Louisiana during the summers. He continued his career in the mid-Thirties with the local bands of Chester Boone and Milt Larkin; the latter home to Illinois Jacquet, Wild Bill Davis and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson.
Arnett went on to replace Illinois in Lionel Hampton’s band in 1942 and is credited with the words and the music to “Smooth Sailing” which became a jazz standard in 1951, and sung by Ella Fitzgerald on her Lullabies of Birdland. After departing from Hampton’s band, Cobb formed his own seven-piece band, but suffering a serious illness in 1950, which necessitated spinal surgery, the group was disbanded.
Reforming the band upon recovery, in 1956 its success was again interrupted, this time by a car crash. This accident had long-term effects on his health, involving long hospital stays and making him permanently reliant on crutches. Nevertheless, Cobb worked as a soloist through the 1970s and 1980s in the U.S. and abroad, working with Jimmy Heath and Joe Henderson in Europe during the late Eighties.
Arnett Cobb, tenor saxophonist, passed away in his hometown in March 24, 1989 at the age of 70.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Donald Matthew Redman was born into a musical family on July 29, 1900 in Piedmont, West Virginia. He started playing the trumpet at age 3, joined his first band at 6 and by twelve was proficient on all wind instruments ranging from trumpet to oboe and piano. After studying at Storer’s College in Harper’s Ferry and at the Boston Conservatory, he joined Billy Page’s Broadway Syncopaters in New York.
1922 saw Don joining Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra, mostly playing clarinet and saxophones. He soon began writing the bulk of the orchestra’s arrangements, contributing much to formulate the sound that was to become big band swing. The chief trademark of Redman’s arrangements was that he harmonized melody lines and pseudo-solos within separate sections; for example, clarinet, sax, or brass trios. He played these sections off each other, having one section punctuate the figures of another, or moving the melody around different orchestral sections and soloists. His use of this technique was sophisticated, highly innovative, and formed the basis of much big band jazz writing in the following decades.
By 1927 he joined McKinney’s Cotton Pickers in Detroit as their musical director and leader but by 1931 Redman formed his own band and took up residency at Connie’s Inn in Manhattan. Redman’s band recorded for Brunswick Records, provided music for the Betty Boop series, employed singer Harland Lattimore, known as “The Colored Bing Crosby” and wrote arrangements for musicians and bandleaders like Paul Whiteman, Isham Jones and Bing Crosby. By 1940 Redman had disbanded his orchestra, began freelancing writing arrangements that became hits for Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie and Harry James. In 1949 he appeared on CBS’s Uptown Jubilee and in the Fifties became musical director for Pearl Bailey.
Don Redman died in New York City at age 64 on November 30, 1964. His family legacy left us two more generations of jazz musicians, as he was the uncle of saxophonist Dewey Redman, and thus great-uncle of saxophonist Joshua Redman and trumpeter Carlos Redman.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dale Fielder was born July 27, 1956. Growing up in Midland, a small suburb outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania he studied oboe, bassoon and tuba in the school system and clarinet, saxophone, composition and arranging privately with Pittsburgh area tenor saxophonist Phillip Celli. An alumnus of the University of Pittsburgh Jazz Studies Program, Dale studied as an ethnomusicology major under Dr. Nathan Davis. His debut jazz performance was as a member of the Joe Harris Quartet, former drummer with the Charlie Parker Quintet and Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra.
Fielder is a recipient of a NEA grant, has completed his first large work “The Aquarian” for alto saxophone and chamber orchestra; spent eight years in NYC, moved to Los Angeles, began studying with alto legend, Charles McPherson. He has recorded a dozen CDs as a leader including the top-ten critically acclaimed “Dear Sir: Tribute To Wayne Shorter”; he received his first commission and wrote the extended eleven-movement jazz suite, “Ocean Of Love And Mercy”; was selected as BET’s 1999 Jazz Discovery winner and performs throughout Europe and Asia with his quartet.
If originality is the barometer of what truly makes a great jazz artist, Dale Fielder possesses a quality of originality in his voice. The multi-instrumentalist offers rare and obscure jazz classics to his audience coupled with his original compositions, giving the listener a variety of new concepts and presentations. He continues his performance, recording and touring.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Steve Lacy was born Steven Norman Lackritz on July 23, 1934 in New York City. He didn’t begin his career until age sixteen, coming to prominence in the 1950s as a progressive Dixieland musician playing with the likes of Henry “Red” Allen, Pee Wee Russell, George ”Pops Foster and Zutty Singleton, as well as Kansas City jazz musicians like Buck Clayton, Dicky Wells and Jimmy Rushing.
Working extensively in experimental jazz and dabbling in free improvisation, Lacy’s music was typically melodic and tightly structured over a long and prolific career. He became involved with the avant-garde, performed on “Jazz Advance” in 1956, the debut album of Cecil Taylor, and appeared with his groundbreaking quartet at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival.
Steve made a notable appearance on an early Gil Evans album, however, his most enduring relationship, however, was with the music of Thelonious Monk, his first recorded album in 1958 as a leader “Reflections” featured only Monk compositions. He briefly played in Monk’s band in 1960 and later on Monk’s Columbia session “Big Band/Quartet” in 1963.
Monk tunes became a permanent part of his repertoire, making an appearance in virtually every concert appearance and on his albums. He often collaborated with trombonist Roswell Rudd in presenting interpretations of Monk, Mingus, Ellington and Herbie Nichols’ compositions, rarely playing standard popular or show tunes. In the 1960s he continued to work with other players involved in the American free-jazz avant-garde, and in the Seventies immersed in the European free improvisation scene that would remain an important element in his work thereafter.
Steve became a highly distinctive composer with his signature simplicity of style. He became a widely respected figure on the European jazz scene for several decades, was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, began teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and performed one of his last public performances in front of 25,000 people at the close of a peace rally on Boston Common in 2003.
Steve Lacy, soprano saxophonist, was diagnosed with cancer continued playing and teaching until weeks before his death on June 4, 2004 at the age of 69.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paul Gonsalves was born July 12, 1920 in Brockton, Massachusetts to Cape Verdean parents. His first instrument was the guitar, and as a child he was regularly asked to play Portuguese folk songs for his family. Growing up in New Bedford, Massachusetts he was a member of the Sabby Lewis Orchestra.
His first professional engagement in Boston was with the same group on tenor saxophone, that he had learned to play prior to and during World War II military service. After the war he played in Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie’s big bands before joining the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1950.
At the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, Gonsalves’ solo in Ellington’s song “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” contained 27 choruses and the publicity from which is credited with reviving Ellington’s career. This performance is captured on the album Ellington at Newport. He was a featured soloist in numerous Ellingtonian settings and received the nickname “The Strolling Violins” from Ellington for playing solos while walking through the crowd.
Tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves died on May 15, 1974 in London just a few days before Duke Ellington’s death. Gonsalves and Ellington, along with trombonist Tyree Glenn, lay side-by-side in the same New York funeral home for a period of time.
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