Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chico Freeman was born Earl Lavon Freeman Jr. on July 17, 1949 in Chicago, Illinois to saxophonist Von Freeman. His initial outing on his musical path came from his brother Everett who introduced him to the trumpet and began playing, inspired by Miles Davis. In 1967 he attended Northwestern University on scholarship for mathematics and played the trumpet in the school, but did not begin playing the saxophone until his junior year.
Changing his major to music, he graduated in 1972, proficient playing saxophone, trumpet, and piano. After graduation, Freeman taught at the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians School of Music in Chicago and started taking classes as a graduate student at Governors State University, earning a master’s degree in composition and theory. Though focused on jazz during this period he also played blues in local clubs with Memphis Slim and Lucky Carmichael.
1976 saw the release of his debut album as a leader, Morning Prayer and moving to New York City the next year he widened his musical influences. He would experience his most productive years of his career, releasing albums such as No Time Left, Tradition in Transition and The Outside Within which earned him Record of the Year from Stereo Review. Coming to prominence in the late 1970s Chico was part of a movement including Wynton Marsalis of modern players steeped in the traditions of jazz.
He went on to record for independent labels India Navigation and Contemporary Records enlisting the talents of Wynton Marsalis, Bobby Hutcherson and Cecil McBee. He formed the band Guataca with Hilton Ruiz, Ruben Rodriguez, Yoron Israel and Giovanni Hidalgo and released Oh By the Way… in 2002. Freeman has toured internationally, both with his band as well as with Chaka Khan, Tomasz Stanko, Celia Cruz and Tito Puente.
His electric band Brainstorm brought together Delmar Brown on vocals and keyboards, percussionist Norman Hedman, bassist Chris Walker, and Archie Walker on drums. By the end of the Nineties he was producing Arthur Blythe’s album NightSong and beginning his teaching role at New School University.
Tenor saxophonist, bass clarinetist and trumpeter Chico Freeman, who was a recipient of the New York Jazz Award, continues to compose, perform and educate.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bengt-Arne Wallin was born on July 13, 1926 in Linköping, Sweden and was also active under the pseudonym Derek Warne. He began his musical path with a homemade accordion. He then took up the trumpet and by the Forties he was playing trumpet in Linköping, followed by time spent in Gothenburg playing with Malte Johnsson’s Orchestra and in Stockholm Seymour Österwall at Nalen (National Palace) from 1951-1952.
In the years that followed from 1953-1965 he played in Arne Domnérus’s big band and between 1955 and 1965 was also in Harry Arnold’s radio band, after which he put the trumpet on the shelf.
Bengt took a position as an educator in 1972 and for the next twenty-one years he taught at the Music School of Stockholm. By the late 1990’s he started playing the trumpet again, now with his group Five to Five .
For the production show from Barnrike he was awarded the international radio prize Triumph Varieté. He went on to compose music for a variety of musicals and a larger number of television productions, such as The Magic Box. He was also the conductor of various major bands.
Trumpeter, composer, arranger, educator Bengt Arne Wallin, who was also trained in aeronautics, passed away November 23, 2015 in the Sollentuna Parish of Stockholm County, Sweden.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ray Biondi was born Remo Biondi on July 5, 1905 in Cicero, Illinois. As a child he started with violin and his early training was classical under the supervision of several teachers from the American Conservatory of Chicago. Mandolin followed at age 12 and it became his gateway into the world of string bands, and added guitar and then trumpet into his musical arsenal.
In 1926 he began playing professionally with the Blanche Jaros Orchestra, based out of Cicero, and the next year he started an eight-year period of heavy freelancing in Chicago, enjoying new contacts such as trumpeter Wingy Manone, reedman Bud Freeman, and Earl Burtnett put Biondi in his lineup as a violin and trumpet double. This band took him on a series of tours Kansas City, Cincinnati and New York. this led to a gig with clarinetist and saxophonist Joe Marsala and playing guitar whenever Eddie Condon double booked himself.
In 1938, Gene Krupa hired Ray solely as a guitarist except on an orchestra project where he double as a violinist. A year later he left the band and formed a series of small groups as a leader and one band had a long residency at Chicago’s 606 Club. He then opened a short-lived club himself, and Krupa took him back on the road in the early ’50s. He then began to get session guitar and mandolin work in some genres outside of straight jazz. With Pat Boone and the Crew Cuts as doo wop became a new musical style.
By 1961, he had begun a serious shift to teaching all of his instruments except the trumpet, but continued gigging with groups both large and small, including the orchestra of Dick Schory in the former case and stride pianist Art Hodes in the latter. Violinist Ray Biondi passed away on January 28, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois.
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John Parker was born on June 24, 1928 in Queens, New York and began playing jazz trumpet at the age of 16 while attending Flushing High School. Encouraged by the bassist George Duvivier in the late Forties, he began playing in the jazz clubs on Manhattan’s W. 52nd Street where Dixieland, swing and bebop combos held court. It was on 52nd St. that drummer Zooty Singleton nicknamed him Tasty because of his tasty solos.
During the early 1950s, John, who was no relation to the Charlie Parker, began traveling with the Rhythm & Blues band of Roosevelt Sykes. He also played with trumpeter and composer Sy Oliver and vocalist Etta Jones. He also stepped in for trumpeter Cat Anderson in the Duke Ellington band. He would go on to play with Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk.
The 1970s saw Parker playing with pianist Brooks Kerr and drummer Sonny Greer in Manhattan venues including the Algonquin Hotel. Over the last 20 years, when Parker was living at Westbeth Artists Community with his wife, the late writer Leslie Gourse, he became a regular at Arthur’s Tavern and played New York City clubs in Little Italy and Chelsea.
Trumpeter John “Tasty” Parker, who never recorded as a leader and had been suffering from emphysema, passed away on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 in his Manhattan apartment at the age of 78.
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Paul Cacia was born on June 20, 1956 and at age 10 he took up playing the trumpet. A protege of the master Claude Gordon and private pupil of Cat Anderson, he was also mentored by Stan Kenton, Louie Bellson, and Don Ellis.
His professional career began as the lead trumpet for the Al Hirt Big Band in New Orleans, Louisiana and The Ray Anthony Orchestra. His first recording session was a duet with Stevie Wonder, leading to over a decade as a top call studio musician in Los Angeles, California. As a soloist and bandleader, his career began before sixty thousand people as the opening act for the rock group Chicago. Paul has also shared billing with Tito Puente and Pia Zadora.
Hard bop trumpeter, big band leader and producer Paul Cacia recorded for the Alexander Street, Outstanding and Happy Hour labels. He has produced The Mormon Tabernacle Symphony & Chorus, the Los Angeles Raiders Big Band and has been the personal manager to Peggy Lee. For over fifty years he has been known as one of the world’s greatest high note trumpet showmen until his retirement in 2016.
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