BOBBY FELDER ~ CHRISTMAS JAZZ GALA

More Posts: adventure,album,club,festival,genius,jazz,museum,music,preserving,restaurant,travel,trombone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bill Reichenbach was born William Frank Reichenbach Jr. on November 30, 1949 in Takoma Park, Maryland. He began playing in high school for bands in the Washington, D.C. area and also sat in with his father’s group, playing with Milt Jackson, Zoot Sims, and others.

He went to Rochester, New York to study at the Eastman School of Music with the legendary teacher Emory Remington and after graduating joined the Buddy Rich band. He would go on to work in the Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band in Los Angeles, California in the mid/late 1970s. After that move he became known for music for television and film.^[2]

He played trombone on The Wiz and, with the Seawind Horns including Jerry Hey on Michael Jackson’s albums Off the Wall, Thriller, and HIStory. He was a composer for Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue. 

He recorded a solo album, Special Edition, where he is featured on bass trombone as well as tenor. Trombonist, euphoniumist, composer and session musician  Bill Reichenbach, who has collaborated on eighty-six albums with artists from Al Jarreau and George Benson to Barbra Streisand, Patti Austin and Bette Midler to Christopher Cross and Selena, continues his career in television, films, cartoons, and commercials.

More Posts: bandleader,composer,euphonium,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trombone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr. was born November 19, 1905 in Mahanoy Plane, Pennsylvania, the second of four children born to bandleader Thomas Francis Dorsey Sr. He studied the trumpet with his father but later switched to trombone. At age 15, Jimmy recommended him to replace Russ Morgan in the Scranton Sirens, a territory band in the 1920s. He worked in bands led by Tal Henry, Rudy Vallee, Vincent Lopez, and Nathaniel Shilkret. In 1923 he went to Detroit to play in Jean Goldkette’s band but returned to New York in 1925 to play with the California Ramblers. Two years later he joined Paul Whiteman, then in 1929, the Dorsey Brothers had their first hit with Coquette for OKeh Records.

In 1934, as the Dorsey Brothers, the band signed with Decca, having a hit with I Believe in Miracles. However, acrimony between the brothers led to Tommy walking out and forming his own band in 1935 and having a hit with Every Little Moment. His orchestra rendered ballads at dance tempos and frequently featured singers Jack Leonard and Frank Sinatra. The band was popular almost from the moment it signed with RCA Victor for “On Treasure Island”, the first of four hits in 1935.

He would go on to have a Dixieland group called Clambake Seven, co-host The Raleigh-Kool Program on the radio and hire arranger Sy Oliver away from Jimmie Lunceford to put more jazz into his pop music. Hiring Sinatra from Harry James helped people the singer to fame and learned breath control from the trombonist. Dorsey’s staff of arrangers included Axel Stordahl, Nelson Riddle, Paul Weston, and Bill Finegan.

Throughout the course of the bands life Bunny Berigan, Doc Severinsen, and Charlie Shavers, Buddy DeFranco, Peanuts Hucko, Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson, Dave Tough, Edythe Wright, Jo Stafford with the Pied Pipers, Gene Krupa, Dick Haymes, Connie Haines, and The Clark Sisters all worked with Tommy.

Dorsey owned two music publishing companies, a ballroom, trade magazine, sponsored other bands, and disbanded the orchestra afte World War II. Teaming up with his brother once more, the took the unit on tour and onto their own television show, Stage Show, from 1954 to 1956. In January 1956, they made rock music history introducing Elvis Presley on his national television debut. Tommy Dorsey, who had a run of 286 Billboard chart hits, of which were seventeen number-one hits with his orchestra transitioned on November 26, 1956 at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, a week after his 51st birthday. He had begun taking sleeping pills regularly at this time, causing him to become heavily sedated; he choked to death in his sleep after having eaten a large meal.

More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trombone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

James Edward Pugh, born November 12, 1950 in Butler, Pennsylvania began playing the trombone around the age of ten. He attended the Eastman School of Music from 1968 to 1972, where he played in an ensemble under Chuck Mangione.

Pugh toured and recorded with the Woody Herman Band for four years from 1972 and briefly performed with Chick Corea in 1977. He then concentrated on studio session work for jazz and popular musicians. In 1984, he was co-leader for the album The Pugh–Taylor Project. He also composed for and played on the album X Over Trombone.

Trombonist and composer James Pugh continues to perform and record sessions for jazz, pop and Broadway soundtracks.

More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trombone

DELFEAYO MARSALIS QUINTET

Delfeayo Marsalis is one of the top trombonists, composers and producers in jazz today.  He is known for his “technical excellence, inventive mind and frequent touches of humor” says Leonard Feather of the Los Angeles Times.  According to Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner, Marsalis is “one of the best, most imaginative and musical of the trombonists of his generation.”  In January 2011, Delfeayo and the Marsalis family (father Ellis and brothers Branford, Wynton and Jason) earned the nation’s highest jazz honor, a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award.

Born in New Orleans on July 28, 1965, Marsalis was destined to a life in music. “I remember my dad (Ellis Marsalis) playing piano at the house, and me laying underneath the piano as a child, listening to him play. After briefly trying bass and drums, in sixth grade I gravitated towards the trombone, which was an extension of my personality. Early on my influences and inspirations included J.J. Johnson, Curtis Fuller, Al Grey, Tyree Glenn and Tommy Dorsey.” Marsalis attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts high school, was classically trained at the Eastern Music Festival and Tanglewood Institute, and majored in both performance and audio production at the Berklee College of Music.

From the age of 17 until the present, Marsalis has produced over 100 recordings for major artists including Harry Connick, Jr, Marcus Roberts, Spike Lee, Terence Blanchard, Marcus Roberts, Adam Makowicz, Nicholas Payton, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the projects of Ellis, Branford and Wynton Marsalis.

Marsalis has also been long involved in work as an educator. He lectured in schools in 1995 on behalf of the Dallas Opera and the Bravo cable network. Marsalis served as director of the Foundation for Artistic and Musical Excellence summer program in Lawrenceville, New Jersey (1998-2002), founded the Uptown Music Theatre in 2000, and implemented its Kidstown After School in three New Orleans grammar schools in 2009. He has composed over 80 songs that help introduce kids to jazz. Learn more about Delfeayo at www.dmarsalis.com

More Posts: adventure,album,club,festival,genius,jazz,museum,music,preserving,restaurant,travel,trombone