Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Claes was born Octave John Claes on August 11, 1916 in London, England and received his education at Lord Williams’s School. He began playing trumpet in a jazz band that included Max Jones on reeds, and another with Billy Mason on piano. By the 1930s he had moved to the Netherlands, where he worked with Valaida Snow and Coleman Hawkins and in Belgium he worked with Jack Kluger’s.
Returning to England, Johnny led his own group, the Clay Pigeons, making a recording in 1942. Unfortunately for the jazz world in the late 1940s he abandoned his jazz career and settled in Belgium as a professional racing driver.
By 1955 Claes’ he had contracted tuberculosis and his health problems worsened. Finally trumpeter, bandleader and professional racer Johnny Claes succumbed to the disease in Brussels on February 3, 1956 at the age of 39.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Natsuki Tamura 田村 夏 樹 was born on July 26, 1951 in Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. He played in a wind band during his school days and after his graduation he became a professional musician performing with the World Sharps Orchestra, Consolation, the Skyliners Orchestra, the New Herd Orchestra, the Music Magic Orchestra and in different band configurations with his future wife, pianist Satoko Fujii .
He appeared in various Japanese television shows from 1973 to 1982, such as The Best Ten, Music Fair and Kirameku Rhythm. In 1986 he moved to the United States to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. After returning to Japan, Tamura taught at the Yamaha Music School and gave at private trumpet studios in Tokyo and Saitama.
Back in the United States, he worked with among others, the improvisation quartet Gato Libre, led his own groups, performed in the duo with his wife and as a soloist. Signed to Leo Records he released four albums, A Song for Jyaki, Buzz, Libra and NatSat. He also worked with Masahiko Satō, the Roca Saxophone Quartet, Larry Ochs, the Juggernaut Jug Band, Misha Mengelberg, Angelo Verploegen, Chris Brown, Jimmy Weinstein, Elliott Sharp, Paul Bley, Takayuki Katō, Takaaki Masuko, Ryōjirō Furusawa and the band Junk Box.
Trumpeter and composer Natsuki Tamura, whose influences have been Hugh Ragin, Roy Campbell, Wadada Leo Smith, Toshinori Kondo, Don Cherry and Lester Bowie, continues to perform, record and compose.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Delano Zollar was born July 24, 1959 in Kansas City, Missouri and studied after high school at San Diego City College, then at the University of California, San Diego . At the same time, he played in various radio and jazz bands and conducted his own quintet. By 1972 he had moved to San Francisco, California to study improvisation with Woody Shaw.
In 1984, he moved to New York City, played in the Cecil McBee band, and was involved in several big band projects by David Murray in the 1990s. During the decade he worked in the big band of Joe Haider & Bert Joris, recorded with Sam Rivers on his Inspiration album, played with JM Rhythm Four of Jürg Morgenthaler in Zurich and played in the Tom Harrell big band on Time’s Mirror.
By the turn of the century he was working on several projects with clarinetist Don Byron such as Bug Music and You Are # 6. He released his debut recording as a leader, Souring with Bird, on the Naxos Jazz label. James worked with Jon Faddis and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra and with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.
Zollar appeared in Robert Altman’s film Kansas City and is known for his use of the plunger effect of the early trumpeters of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, in whose successor bands he also played. He also performed in Madonna’s music video My Baby’s Got a Secret and in Malcolm D. Lee’s film The Best Man. Trumpeter and pianist James Zollar continues to perform and record.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bobby Lee Bradford was born July 19, 1934 in Cleveland, Mississippi and at age eleven his family moved to Dallas, Texas in 1946. He moved to Los Angeles, California in 1953 where he reunited with childhood friend from Texas, Ornette Coleman. He subsequently joined Coleman’s ensemble but was drafted into the U.S. Air Force and replaced by Don Cherry.
After playing in military bands from late 1954 to late 1958, Bradford reunited with Coleman’s quartet from 1961 to 1963, infrequently performing in public, but prolifically recorded under Coleman’s Atlantic contract. Unfortunately these tapes were among those many destroyed in the Great Atlantic Vault Fire. Returning to the West Coast to pursue further studies, he would eventually receive his B.M. degree from Huston-Tillotson College.
He soon began a long-running and relatively well-documented association with the clarinetist John Carter, a pairing that brought both increased exposure at international festivals. Following Carter’s death in 1991, Bobby fronted his own ensemble known as The Mo’tet.
Bradford has performed with Eric Dolphy, Leon “Ndugu” Chancler, Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten, Bob Stewart, Charlie Haden, George Lewis, James Newton, Frode Gjerstad, Vinny Golia, Nels Cline, William Parker, Paal Nilssen-Love, and David Murray, among others.
An educator, he is a professor at Pasadena City College in California and Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he teaches The History of Jazz. Trumpeter and cornetist Bobby Bradford is the father of drummer Dennis Bradford and jazz vocalist Carmen Bradford. He has recorded eight albums as a leader, ten as a co-leader, seventeen as a sideman and continues to perform with his group The Mo’tet.
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.