WYCLIFFE GORDON & FROST STUDIO JAZZ BAND

Highly acclaimed musician Wycliffe Gordon enjoys an extraordinary career as a soloist, as well as performing and touring with some of the world’s most sought-after jazz musicians. His high-energy, traditional hard-swinging style captivates audiences across time–performing for dignitaries and heads- of-state to elementary school children. He is equally at home as a composer, arranger and recording artist with over 50 recordings to his credit, 24 of which he is leader or co-leader. He is one of America’s foremost music educators and currently serves as full time director of jazz studies at Augusta University and travels all over the world giving masterclasses and performances with college and university ensembles.

Presenting Oscar Micheaux’s silent race film Within Our Gates, synchronized with Wycliffe Gordon’s original score, “Within These Gates of Mine.” This event powerfully fuses history and music, highlighting the earliest surviving film by an African-American filmmaker. Within Our Gates is a dark and emotional indictment of American racial injustices. The concert features Gordon, Etienne Charles, a 20-piece jazz orchestra, and vocalists.

Tickets: $15.00~$40.00

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

John Grant Sangster was born November 17, 1928 in the Melbourne suburb of Sandringham, Victoria, Australia. He was an only child that attended primary schools in Sandringham and Vermont, and then Box Hill High School. While at high school he taught himself to play trombone and with a friend, Sid Bridle, formed a band.

In 1946 he started a civil engineering course at Melbourne Technical School. Two years later Sangster performed at the third annual Australian Jazz Convention, held in Melbourne. By the following year he led his own ensemble, John Sangster’s Jazz Six, which included Ken Evans on trombone. He provided trombone for Graeme Bell and his Australian Jazz Band, later took up the cornet and then the drums. They toured several times from 1950 to 1955, and in the late Fifties he began playing the vibraphone.

He went on to play with Don Burrows in the early 1960s, form his own quartet and experimented with group improvisatory jazz, after becoming interested in the music of Sun Ra and Archie Shepp. By the end of the Sixties his attention turned to rock musicians and he joined the expanded lineup of the Australian progressive rock group Tully, who provided the musical backing for the original Australian production of the rock musical Hair. He performed and recorded with Tully and their successors, Luke’s Walnut, throughout the two years he played in Hair. In 1970 he re-joined the Burrows group for Expo 1970 in Osaka, Japan.

In the 1970s Sangster released a series of popular The Lord of the Rings inspired albums that started with The Hobbit Suite in 1973. He was also the composer of a large number of scores for television shows, documentaries, films, and radio. In 1988, Sangster published his autobiography, Seeing the Rafters.

Trombonist John Sangster, who also plays trumpet, drums, percussion, cornet, vibraphone and is best known as a composer, died in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia on October 26, 1995 at age 66.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Joseph Bowie was born October 17, 1953 in St. Louis, Missouri and was greatly influenced by his older brothers, saxophonist Byron and trumpeter Lester. His first international tour was with Oliver Lake of the Black Artists Group in 1971. During this time in Paris, France he worked with Alan Silva, Frank Wright, and Bobby Few. He also worked with Dr. John in Montreux, Switzerland in 1973.

Moving to New York City, and with the help of Off Broadway Theater impresario Ellen Stewart he established La Mama children’s theater. He performed with Cecil Taylor, Human Arts Ensemble, Nona Hendryx, Leroy Jenkins, Vernon Reid, Stanley Cowell, Sam Rivers, Philippe Gaillot, Dominique Gaumont and Ornette Coleman.

In 1976 Joseph relocated to Chicago, Illinois where he led bands for Tyrone Davis and other R&B artists. Returning to New York City in 1978 he began singing with punk and funk musician James Chance and the Contortions. Defunkt was born during that time and over the next 25 years, Defunkt recorded 15 albums.

Bowie has collaborated with Jean-Paul Bourelly and Jamaaladeen Tacuma. He has performed “big band funk” arrangements with Ed Partyka at Music School Lucerne, Barbary Coast Ensemble at Dartmouth College, JazzArt Orchestra, and the HR Frankfurt Radio Big Band. The first Defunkt Big Band debuted in 1999 in New York City at the Texaco Jazz Festival sponsored by the Knitting Factory.

In 2003, he moved to the Netherlands where he met Hans Dulfer and was introduced to the Dutch music scene. He has performed with Hans, Candy Dulfer, Saskia Laroo Band, Naked Ears, Monsieur Dubois, Emergency Room, Funkateer, Seven Eleven, and Almost Three.

In 2014 he produced Sax Pistols Allergy for the U.S (ZIP Records) with lyricist Hilarius Hofstede. The album Defunkt Mastervolt was released in 2015 on ZIP Records. Robin van Erven Dorens directed the documentary In Groove We Trust about Bowie’s life.

Trombonist and vocalist Joseph Bowie continues to perform and record.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Fred Norman was born on October 5, 1910 in Leesburg, Florida. After attending Howard University,  in Washington, DC he joined the Claude Hopkins band in 1932. Touring with the group as both a trombonist and singer for much of the 1930s, he notably recorded his own composition, Church Street Sobbin’ Blues, as the trombone soloist with the band in 1937 for Decca Records. He also appeared in short films with the Hopkins band during the 1930s.

Moving away from performance in 1938 he went on to work as a full-time music arranger. The late Thirties and 1940s saw him writing arrangements for Bunny Berigan, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, Teddy Powell, Artie Shaw, Charlie Spivak, and Jack Teagarden.

In the 1950s he was the music director and arranger for multiple records made by the singers Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington. He continued to work as an arranger until his retirement in the 1970s.

Composer, arranger, trombonist, and vocalist Fred Norman died on February 19, 1993 in New York City.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Wilfred Theodore Wemyes, known to the world as Ted Weems, was born on September 26, 1901 in Pitcairn, Pennsylvania. He learned to play the violin and trombone, and his start in music came when he entered a contest, hoping to win a pony. He won a violin instead and his parents arranged for music lessons, and was a graduate of Lincoln School in Pittsburgh. While still at Lincoln, he organized a band there, initially providing some instruments himself.

As an enterprising young man he reinvested money given him by his teacher and that collected from band members to buy better instruments for the band. His family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he enrolled at West Philadelphia High School, joined the school’s band and became its director. Ted went on to the University of Pennsylvania, where he and his brother Art organized a small dance band that became the All American Band. They soon started receiving offers to perform in well-known hotels throughout the United States. They were one of the bands that played at the inaugural ball of President Warren G Harding in 1921.

Going professional in 1923, Weems toured for the MCA Corporation and began recording for the Victor Talking Machine Company. His first #1 hit was Somebody Stole My Gal in early 1924 and recorded for Victor/RCA Victor and their Bluebird Records arm. He then signed with Columbia, and on to Decca. He also co-wrote several popular songs: The Martins and the McCoys, Jig Time, The One-Man Band, Three Shif’less Skonks, and Oh, Monah!, which he co-wrote with band member Country Washburn.

Moving to Chicago, Illinois with his band around 1928, his orchestra  charted more success in 1929 and the band gained popularity in the 1930s, making regular radio broadcasts. He would go on to enlist with his entire band into the United States Merchant Marine in 1942, directing the Merchant Marine Band. After the war, with his new-found popularity of the 1938 Heartaches, Decca continued to re-release several of his hits, however, he reaped no benefit as his contract expired while he was in the military.

Weems made front-page news in 1947 when he publicly repaid his debt to disc jockey Kurt Webster, who had revived Heartaches and thus his career. He staged a benefit performance by his band and gave all proceeds going to war veteran Webster. Decca cashed in once again on his new popularity by reissuing another oldie, I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now with vocals by Perry Como, which became another major chart hit.

The hits dried up after 1947 but Ted continued touring until 1953 then accepted a disc jockey position in Memphis, Tennessee, later moving on to a management position with the Holiday Inn hotel chain.

Violinist, trombonist and bandleader Ted Weems, who operated a talent agency in Dallas, Texas with his son, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, died of emphysema in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on  May 6, 1963.

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