Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gato Barbieri was born Leandro Barbieri on November 28, 1932 in Rosario, Santa Fe Province, Argentina into a family of musicians. He began playing music after hearing Charlie Parker’s “Now’s the Time”, first playing the clarinet and later the alto saxophone while performing with his fellow countryman pianist Lalo Schifrin in the late 1950s.
By the early 1960s in Europe he worked with Don Cherry, became influenced by John Coltrane’s later recordings as well as free jazz saxophonists Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders. He developed a warm and gritty sound that became Gato’s trademark and by the late Sixties began fusing music from South America and contributed to Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra and Carla Bley’s Escalator Over The Hill.
Barbieri earned a Grammy for the score of Last Tango In Paris, which led to a recording deal with Impulse Records. By the mid-70s, he was recording for A&M Records and moved his music towards soul-jazz and jazz-pop with albums like “Caliente!” and “Ruby Ruby”. As a leader he has recorded some thirty albums and as a sideman has played and recorded another nine with Dollar Brand, Gary Burton, the Jazz Composers Orchestra among others. The saxophonist has received the UNICEF Award and continued to compose, perform and record until his passing on April 2, 2016 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Art Themen was born Arthur Edward George Themen on November 26, 1939 in Manchester, England. In 1958 he began his medical studies at the University of Cambridge, going on in 1961 to complete his studies at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London, qualifying in 1964. He specialized in orthopedic medicine and eventually became a consultant.
Themen started playing saxophone with the Cambridge University Jazz Group, and then in London playing with blues musicians Jack Bruce and Alexis Korner. In 1965 he played with the Peter Stuyvesant Jazz Orchestra in Zurich, going on to play with such English luminaries as Michael Garrick and Graham Collier’s Music.
In 1974 Art entered into what was to be one of his central musical relationships when he started playing with Stan Tracey that took him throughout the United Kingdom and all over the world. He has also played and toured with musicians such as Nat Adderley, Ian Carr, George Coleman and Al Haig. In 1995 he formed a quartet with pianist John Critchinson.
Themen’s style originally owed much to the influence of Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins, but later influences included such disparate saxophonists Coleman Hawkins, Evan Parker and John Coltrane.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Serge Chaloff was born on November 24, 1923 in Boston, Massachusetts to noted piano teachers, Margaret and Julius. He was among the few major jazz performers on his instrument, and until his arrival on the jazz scene the only prominent baritone player was Harry Carney of the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
Originally influenced by Charlie Parker, Serge became the first major bebop baritone saxophonist, opening the way for others to follow. He first became well known as one of the “Four Brothers” reed section in Woody Herman’s Second Herd. He also played with Boyd Raeburn, Georgie Auld, Jimmy Dorsey and Count Basie.
Recording as a leader Chaloff produced five records working with Stan Kenton, Sonny Clark, Leroy Vinnegar, Philly Joe Jones and the metronome All-Stars, however, his career was greatly limited by addiction to heroin. After successfully giving up drugs, baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff developed cancer of the spine which caused his early death on July 16, 1957 at he young age of 33.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Don Braden was born November 20, 1963 in Cincinnati, Ohio and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He began playing tenor sax at age 13 and started playing professionally at 15. As a high school student he played in the McDonald’s All-American High School Jazz Band. He went on to attend Harvard University, studying engineering but played in the school’s jazz ensemble.
Braden moved to New York City in 1984, where he played with The Harper Brothers, Lonnie Smith and Betty Carter. In 1986 he toured with Wynton Marsalis and followed this with Out of the Blue, Roy Haynes, Tony Williams, Freddie Hubbard, J. J. Johnson, Tom Harrell, Art Farmer and the Mingus Big Band.
Don has developed an extensive knowledge of every aspect of jazz performance and is an imaginative and soulful saxophonist. He has released 16 albums as a leader or co-leader, with his recording debut in 1991 with “The Time is Now”. His list of sidemen is extensive and includes Christian McBride, Joris Teepe, Benny Green, Julian Joseph, Kenny Werner, Darrell Grant, Carl Allen, Cecil Brooks III & Billy Hart, David “Fathead” Newman, Vincent Herring, Dave Liebman, Terell Stafford, Tom Harrell, Randy Brecker, Steve Turre, Conrad Herwig, Jack McDuff, Larry Goldings and Russell Malone among many others.
He spent four years as co-music supervisor/composer for Bill Cosby’s CBS sitcom, “Cosby”, co-wrote the theme song for Cosby’s CBS cartoon series, “Little Bill” and composed music for Nickelodeon’s “Fatherhood”. Braden is a passionate and highly experienced educator, having held the position of Coordinator of Jazz Studies at Montclair State University, served as Music Director of the Litchfield Jazz Camp, has been the Music Director of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Well’s Fargo Jazz for Teens program and a visiting professor in the “New York Comes to Groningen” program at the Prins Claus Conservatoire, in Groningen, Netherlands. He continues to educate, perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ivy Benson was born on November 11, 1913 in Holbeck, Leeds, England. Her father Digger Benson, a musician who played with ensembles, began teaching her to play piano at the age of five. She played at working men’s clubs from the age of eight, billed as Baby Benson, and performed on BBC Radio’s Children’s Hour at nine years.
Ivy’s father had ambitions for her to become a concert pianist, but she was inspired to become a jazz musician after hearing a Benny Goodman record and learned to play clarinet and alto saxophone. Leaving school at 14, she took a job at the Montague Burton factory in Leeds, putting aside half a crown from her wages each week to save up for her first saxophone, supplementing her income by playing evenings in dance bands.
Benson joined a sextet, Edna Croudson’s Rhythm Girls in 1929, touring with them until 1935, followed by Teddy Joyce and the Girlfriends where she became a featured soloist. Moving to London in the late 1930s, she formed her own band and her first significant engagement was performing with the all-female revue Meet the Girls, starring Hylda Baker.
During World War II opportunities opened up and Ivy’s band became the BBC’s resident dance band in 1943 and was top of the bill at the London Palladium for six months in 1944. By wars end she was playing the VE Day celebration in Berlin, touring Europe and the Middle East performing for Allied troops, headlining variety theatres and performing at the 1948 Summer Olympics. Over the next thirty years the band experience much success with television appearances, a tribute on This Is Your Life, and a speaking role in the film The Dummy Talks.
The group disbanded in 1982 but she was honored as a fellow of Leeds Polytechnic, a plaque at her childhood home and a play, The Silver Lady, was based on her life. Retiring to Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, multi-instrumentalist Ivy Benson passed away on May 6, 1993 at age 79.
