Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Aaron J. Johnson was born in Washington, D.C. on June 10, 1958. He studied piano and drums before taking up the trombone at age 12. While in high school he frequently performed with area funk bands but also conducted and arranged for student ensembles under the direction of noted trumpeter Peter D. Ford. It was Ford who gave him his first professional gigs and introduced him to Ellington alumni, bandleader and alto saxophonist Rick Henderson.
Although pursuing degrees in electrical engineering, Johnson remained active as a trombonist and bass trombonist throughout his college years. He had the good fortune to play with the University of Pittsburgh Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Kenny Clarke and Nathan Davis. Following college Aaron continued gigging around D.C. and the New York area, studying privately with reed multi-instrumentalist Makanda Ken McIntyre.
By the early 1990s Johnson established himself as an experienced and valuable sideman, composer and arranger. He has since recorded and performed with a multitude of major artists and ensembles to include Reggie Workman, Jimmy Heath, Charles Tolliver, Oliver Lake, Muhal Richard Abrams, Bill Lee, Frank Lacy, The Mingus Big Band, the Count Basie Orchestra, Steve Turre’s Sanctified Shells, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.
He has received the New Jersey State Council Fellowship in Music Composition (2000) Aaron Johnson has composed and arranged works performed or recorded by Frank Foster, Steve Turre, Frank Lacy, the Nancie Banks Orchestra, and Paradigm Shift. He has been featured in film scores, television commercials and public radio broadcasts.
Trombonist Aaron Johnson is currently in Columbia University’s Musicology doctorate program and has released his debut album Songs Of Our Fathers and continues to perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Britt Woodman was born on June 4, 1920 in Los Angeles, California. A childhood friend of Charles Mingus, he first worked with Phil Moore and Les Hite. After serving in World War II he played with Boyd Raeburn before joining with Lionel Hampton in 1946.
During the 1950s he worked with Duke Ellington. As a member of Ellington’s band he can be heard on twenty-five recorings such as 1957’s Such Sweet Thunder, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book, and 1958’s Black, Brown, and Beige and Ellington Indigos.
1960 saw Britt departing from Ellington to work in a pit orchestra. He went on to later work with Mingus and can be heard on the album Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus released in 1963. In the 1970s he led his own octet and recorded with pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi. In 1989, he was part of the personnel for the album Epitaph dedicated to the previously unrecorded music of Charles Mingus.
He recorded Playing For Keeps and In L.A. as a leader, and leaves a sideman recording catalogue of ninety-three albums with Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band, Bill Berry, Ella Fitzgerald, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges, Jimmy Smith, Gene Ammons, Ray Brown, Ruth Brown, Frank Capp, Nat Pierce, Benny Carter, Rosemary Clooney, John Coltrane, Randy Crawford, Tadd Dameron, Miles Davis, Booker Ervin, John Fahey, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Golson, Chico Hamilton, Jimmy Hamilton, Hank Jones, Oliver Nelson, Philly Joe Jones, Jon Lucien, Galt MacDermot, Teo Macero, Junior Mance, The Manhattan Transfer, Wade Marcus, Blue Mitchell, Grover Mitchell, James Moody, Maria Muldaur, Oliver Nelson, Oscar Peterson, Zoot Sims, Billy Taylor, Clark Terry, Teri Thornton, Jimmy Woode
Trombonisit Britt Woodman died in Hawthorne, California at the age of 80, having suffered severe respiratory problems on October 13, 2000.
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Daily Dose Of Jaz…
Zalman “Porky” Cohen was born on June 2, 1924 in Springfield, Massachusetts and began performing publicly in his mid-teens, and studied with trombonist Miff Mole. By 19 he was playing with the Charlie Barnet Orchestra, often featured as a soloist. Stints with Tony Pastor and Glen Gray’s Casa Loma Orchestra followed, and in 1948 during the segregation era in the jazz and blues worlds, he was one of a few white musicians to perform with the Lucky Millinder Orchestra.
Porky married, settled down and limited his performing career to local gigs in Rhode Island and southeastern New England. He did, however, join the Grammy winning jump-blues band Roomful Of Blues from 1981 to 1987, touring all over the U.S. and Europe. During this phase of his career, he recorded with jump-blues greats Big Joe Turner, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Jimmy Witherspoon and Earl King.
Having had enough of the rigors of constant touring, in 1987 he returned to Providence, Rhode Island and again played with various area bands. He continued performing until increasitg ill-health sidelined him Trombonist Porky Cohen died of complications resulting from a stroke on April 14, 2004 at age 79 in Providence.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Barron W. “Barry” Rogers was born on May 22, 1935 in The Bronx, New York descended from Polish Jews whose name was originally Rogenstein, and was raised in Spanish Harlem. His father and several of his uncles sang in a choir and his mother taught in Africa and Mexico, inspiring an interest in music from other nations. Mambo and jazz were popular in his neighborhood.
As a student of jazz trombonists Jack Teagarden, Lawrence Brown, and J. C. Higginbotham’s playing, he began performing Latin music in the mid-1950s and would be most associated with it from then on. He developed his style while working with Eddie Palmieri, and Willie Colón regarded Rogers as his strongest musical influence and would feature him in many of his productions. Bobby Valentín would feature Rogers in his song El Jíbaro y la Naturaleza, which led Marvin Santiago to nickname him El Terror de los Trombones for the record.
Rogers worked with Israel “Cachao” López, Machito, Manny Oquendo, Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Cheo Feliciano, Johnny Pacheco, Chino Rodríguez, and the Fania All-Stars. He was a founding member of the band Dreams with Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, and Billy Cobham. He also worked with George Benson, David Byrne, Ron Carter, Aretha Franklin, Don Grolnick, Bob James, Elton John, Chaka Khan, Bob Moses, Todd Rundgren, Carly Simon, Spyro Gyra, James Taylor, Jimmy Ponder and Grover Washington Jr. as well as others too numerous to name in pop, r&b and rock genres.
Trombonist Barry Rogers, who performed in the jazz and salsa mediums, died suddenly in Washington Heights, Manhattan at the age of 55 on April 18, 1991.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Henderson was born on May 20, 1921 in Wichita Falls, Texas and began studying piano at age six, picking up the trombone a few years later. By the time he was thirteen he had joined a musicians’ union and was first chair at the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra.
Winning several trombone competitions by age fourteen, Jimmy started his own orchestra while still in his teens, in addition to studying at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Henderson toured with the big bands of Hal McIntyre, Jimmy Dorsey, and Tommy Dorsey.
In 1954, he moved to Los Angeles, California where he steadily worked as a session musician for some 20 years. Among his credits in the studios was the soundtrack for Bonanza. From 1957 to 1960, he was also a member of Lawrence Welk’s orchestra in which he appeared weekly on the Maestro’s television show.
He led his own orchestra for fifteen years, and was the musical director for the Emmy Awards, Television Academy Honors, and Directors Guild of America Awards In the 1970s, he led the Glenn Miller Orchestra ghost band before retiring in 1980.
Trombonist and bandleader Jimmy Henderson died at the age of 77 on June 10, 1998 in New York City, New York.
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