Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Byron Stripling was born August 20, 1961 in Atlanta, Georgia and was educated at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan. An accomplished actor and singer, Stripling was chosen, following a worldwide search, to star in the lead role of the Broadway bound musical, “Satchmo”. He was featured in a cameo performance in “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles”, and his critically acclaimed performance in the 42nd Street production of “From Second Avenue to Broadway”.
Stripling earned his stripes as lead trumpeter and soloist with the Count Basie Orchestra, under the direction of Thad Jones and Frank Foster. He has also played and recorded extensively with the bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, Lionel Hampton, Clark Terry, Louis Bellson, and Buck Clayton in addition to The Lincoln Center Classical Jazz Orchestra, The Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and The GRP All Star Big Band.
Byron is the Columbus Jazz Orchestra Artistic Director and as a trumpet virtuoso, has ignited audiences performing at jazz festivals throughout the world. He has soloed with Boston Pops, Cincinnati Pops, Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Utah Symphony, The American Jazz Philharmonic and at the Hollywood Bowl.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Idrees Sulieman was born on August 7, 1923, in St. Petersburg, Florida. He studied trumpet and music at the Boston Conservatory, and gained early experience playing with the Carolina Cotton Pickers and the wartime Earl Hines Orchestra in the early Forties.
Sulieman was closely associated with Mary Lou Williams, worked with cab Calloway, John Coltrane, Count Basie and Lionel Hampton. He recorded with Coleman Hawkins and gigged with Randy Weston in the 50s, toured with Oscar Dennard through Europe in 1961, and then settled in Stockholm, moving to Copenhagen in 1964.
A major soloist with The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Band in the mid-’60s through 1973, and frequently worked with radio orchestras. Idrees recorded as a leader for Swedish Columbia and SteepleChase, he played in the 1985 big band of Miles Davis on the album “Aura,” which was released in 1989. He worked and recorded some twenty-two albums as a leader and sideman with Teddy Charles, Mal Waldron, Lester Young, Cedar Walton, Sam Jones, Billy Higgins, Horace Parlan and Niels-Henning Orsted Pederson among others.
Hard bop trumpeter Idrees Sulieman’s career slowed down considerably in the ’90s as he aged and he died of bladder cancer on July 23, 2002 at St. Anthony’s Hospital in his hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida.
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Daily Dose Of jazz…
Ernestine Davis was born on August 5, 1907 in Memphis Tennessee. Little is known about her early life but along the way to becoming a vocalist and trumpeter. In 1937, the Piney Woods Country Life School of Mississippi founded to educate black children, created a 16-piece band known as The International Sweethearts of Rhythm to financially support the school.
In 1941, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm severed their ties with the school, moved to Virginia and recruited seasoned professionals of all ethnicities to join their band such as singer Anna Mae Winburn, Ernestine “Tiny” Davis, and alto saxophonist Roz Cron.
Holding their own during the Swing Era, the ladies toured the United States extensively up until 1945 with the end of the war and opportunities dried up as the men returned home. Their high points of touring were the Apollo Theater in New York, the Regal Theater in Chicago, and the Howard Theater in Washington, D. C., where their debut set a box office record of 35,000 patrons in one week.
One such engagement was at The Apollo where the audience was on their feet, Louis Armstrong and Eddie Durham stood in the wings, smiling broadly as Ernestine “Tiny” Davis took off in a riveting solo. The band pushed the fevered audience to new levels as Edna Williams, Willie Mae Wong, and Ruby Lucas upped the ante on the song “Swing Shift.”
Admired by the likes of Count Basie and Louis Armstrong, the later unsuccessfully attempted to lure Davis away at ten times her salary when she was at the height of notoriety. They recorded “The Jubilee Sessions” for radio broadcasts aimed toward America’s black soldiers serving during 1943 to 1946. However, because of the racial makeup of the Sweethearts, they did not get as much exposure to mainstream audiences in the South.
While their exposure to white audiences was somewhat limited, they were extremely popular with black audiences. Tiny and her partner Ruby Lucas owned Tiny and Ruby’s Gay Spot in Chicago during the 1950s.
In 1988, a short film titled “Tiny & Ruby: Hell Divin’ Women” was made as a tribute to Davis, and her lesbian partner of 40 years, drummer Ruby Lucas. Trumpeter and vocalist Ernestine “Tiny” Davis died in 1994.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Etienne Charles was born in Trinidad on July 24, 1983 into a family with four generations of musicians. He was immersed in the folk music of his country suffused with the sounds of calypso, steel pan and African Shango drumming to create the diverse colors of his harmonic palette.
The Bishop Anstey Junior School proved to be a potent incubator where he began playing the recorder, followed by trumpet at 10 and formal lessons. An athlete with prowess, Etienne eclipsed his musical success with academics with football, cricket, swimming and water polo teams at Fatima College, winning the Provincial Cup three times, first at the age of 13. He studied privately, at the Brass Institute, become a member of the band, added drums and percussion, landed his first job in a pit orchestra, worked with his father on the road during carnival and with Phase II for the Panorama steel pan competition.
By sixteen Charles was attending the summer performance program at Berklee College of Music, then on to Florida State University, placed or won several competitions, performed at North Sea Jazz Festival, attended the Henry Mancini Institute and received his Master’s from Julliard School of Music.
Etienne has toured, performed or recorded with the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, Grammy Award winners Roberta Flack, Wynton Marsalis, Johnny Mandel, Ralph MacDonald, Maria Schneider and the Count Basie Orchestra as well as Marcus Roberts, Monty Alexander, Frank Foster, Wycliffe Gordon, Rene Marie, Lord Blakie and David Rudder.
He released his debut album “Culture Shock” in 2006 was followed by “Folklore” three years later and then “Kaiso”. Trumpeter and composer Etienne Charles stands at the vanguard of a new generation of Caribbean musicians and he continues to record, perform and tour.
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Henry Lowther was born Thomas Henry Lowther on July 11, 1941 Leicester, Leicestershire, England. Learning trumpet, his first experience was on cornet in a Salvation Army band. He studied violin briefly at the Royal Academy of Music but returned to trumpet by 1960 though he sometimes played violin professionally.
In the 1960s, he worked with pianist and composer Mike Westbrook, a relationship that lasted into the 80s, Manfred Mann, John Dankworth from 1967-77, Graham Collier, John Mayall, John Warren, and would appear with the Keef Hartley Band.
The Seventies brought work with Mike Gibbs, Kenny Wheeler, Tony Coe, Gordon Beck and Barbara in addition to his own ensemble, Quaternity. In the 80s Henry worked with the Buzzcocks, Talk Talk, Peter King, Gil Evans, Humphrey Lyttleton on a Buddy Bolden documentary.
He played with Charlie Watts’ band in the late 80s, and then led his own band, Still Waters. From the late 1980s he did much work in big bands, such as the Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra and the London Jazz Composers Orchestra; in the Nineties he worked with Kenny Wheeler’s group, The Dedication Orchestra, the London Jazz Orchestra, George Russell’s Living Time Orchestra, and the Creative Jazz Orchestra. Trumpeter Henry Lowther most recently plays in the band Jazzmoss.