Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Clark Terry was born on December 14, 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri. After high school he started his professional career in the early 40s playing in local clubs, and then served as a bandsman in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He influenced both Quincy Jones and Miles Davis, teaching the later while in St. Louis.
Terry’s years with Basie and Ellington in the late 1940s and 1950s established him as a world-class jazz artist, blending the St. Louis tone with contemporary styles. After leaving Ellington, Clark’s international recognition soared when he became NBC’s first African-American staff musician. He a ten-year member of The Tonight Show band where his unique “mumbling” scat singing became famous when he scored a hit with “Mumbles.”
Terry continued to play with musicians such as J. J. Johnson and Oscar Peterson, and led a popular group with Bob Brookmeyer in the early 1960s. In the 1970s he concentrated on the flugelhorn, performed studio work and teaching at jazz workshops, toured regularly in the 1980s with small groups and performed as the leader of his Big B-A-D Band.
At the behest of Billy Taylor, early in his career he and Milt Hinton bought instruments and gave instruction to young hopefuls and the idea was planted the seed that became Jazz Mobile in Harlem. He toured with the Newport Jazz All Stars and Jazz at the Philharmonic, recorded for the Red Hot + Rhapsody and Red Hot + Indigo albums, composed more than two hundred songs, performed for seven U.S. Presidents, has been both leader and sideman on more than three hundred albums performing with Clifford Brown, Gary Burton, Charlie Byrd, Tadd Dameron, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Lionel Hampton, Paul Gonsalves and Milt Jackson among others, recorded with symphonies and orchestras and established the Clark Terry Archive at William Paterson University.
Swing and bop trumpeter, pioneer of the flugelhorn and educator Clark Terry has received over 250 awards, medals and honors including a NEA Jazz Masters Award, has received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, 16 honorary degrees, a knighthood, keys to several cities, the French Order of Arts and Letters and over the course of a seventy year career is the most recorded trumpet player of all time appearing on more than 900 known recording sessions.
Trumpeter, and flugelhorn player Clark Terry passed away from complications from advanced diabetes on February 21, 2015 at the age f 94 in Pine Bluffs, Arkansas.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jack Purvis was born John Purvis on December 11, 1906 in Kokomo, Indiana. After his mother’s death in 1912 his behavior became uncontrollable, and, as a result of many acts of petty larceny that would remain a part of his adult life, he was sent to a reform school. While there, he discovered that he had an uncanny musical ability, and soon became proficient enough to play both the trombone and trumpet professionally. This also enabled him to leave the reformatory and continue his high school education, while he was playing paying gigs on the side.
One of the earliest jobs he had as a musician was with a band led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and not long afterward he was working with the Hal Denman dance band. After high school he played with the Original Kentucky Night Hawks, then Bud Rice, Whitey Kaufman’s Original Pennsylvanians, Arnold Johnson’s orchestra, and then traveled to France with the George Carhart band. The balance of the decade he spent recording as a leader and sideman with several bands.
In 1930, Purvis led a couple of racially mixed recording sessions including the likes of J.C. Higginbotham and Adrian Rollini. He would work with the Dorsey Brothers, Fletcher Henderson, Fred Waring, Charlie Barnet and the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra. His move to California had him in radio broadcasting, working at Warner Studios and with the George Stoll Orchestra.
By the mid Thirties he was back in New York playing with Frank Froeba’s Swing Band but this engagement and subsequent recordings were the end of his recording career. He disappeared from the music world, ultimately being sent to jail in Texas for robbery. After his second conviction and release Purvis worked as a chef, aviator, carpenter, radio repairman and even a mercenary in South America.
One account of trumpeter Jack Purvis’ death is that he gassed himself in San Francisco, California on March 30, 1962. However, his death certificate indicates the cause of death to be fatty degeneration of the liver. He was best known as the composer of Dismal Dan and Down Georgia Way, also played trombone, harp and a number of other instruments, and was one of the earliest trumpeters to incorporate the innovations pioneered by Louis Armstrong.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chuck Mangione was born Charles Frank Mangione on November 29, 1940 in Rochester, New York. He attended the Eastman School of Music from 1958 to 1963, afterwards joining Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, for which he filled the trumpet seat.
In the late 1960s, Mangione was a member of the band The National Gallery, then served as director of the Eastman jazz ensemble from 1968 to 1972, and during this time returned to recording with the album Friends and Love, with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
Mangione’s quartet with saxophonist Gerry Niewood recorded “Bellavia” that won him a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition. His music has been used during two Olympics, performed at the closing ceremonies, and composed the soundtrack for The Children of Sanchez starring Anthony Quinn, winning his second Grammy Award.
Chuck composed and performed the theme for The Cannonball Run among other films. Proficient on both trumpet and flugelhorn, he has performed with a 70-piece orchestra, recorded his hit album Feels So Good, and has worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Steve Gadd, and Chick Corea among other jazz luminaries.
Mangione, along with his brother Gap worked as the Jazz Brothers, recording three albums with Riverside Records. Later worked in one another’s band and orchestra. He has a recurring voice-acting role on the animated King of the Hill, and continues to perform and record with his current band.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Terell Stafford was born in Miami, Florida on November 25, 1966 and raised in Chicago, Illinois and Silver Spring, Maryland. He went on to get a degree in music education from University of Maryland in 1988 branching out from classical trumpet to jazz with their jazz band. He went on to obtain a degree in classical trumpet performance from Rutgers University.
His career in jazz soon picked up and has played with McCoy Tyner, Shirley Scott, Christian McBride, John Clayton, Steve Turre, Stephen Scott, Bobby Watson, Dave Valentin, Lafayette Harris, Cecil Brooks III, Cornell Dupree, Ed Wiley, Victor Lewis, Melissa Walker, Herbie Mann and Russell Malone among others. He has graced the stages such as Carnegie Hall and The Tonight Show.
Stafford’s educator hat has him as the Director of Jazz Studies at Temple University and has also worked with the Juilliard School’s jazz program, at the Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington program, and with the 2006 All-Alaska Jazz Band. He has recorded eight albums to date and continues to perform and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Don Cherry was born Donald Eugene Cherry on November 18, 1936 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His father, trumpeter and club owner moved the family to Watts in Los Angeles, California when he was four. He would skip high school at Fremont to play with the swing band at Jefferson High, resulting in his transfer to reform school at Jacob Riis, where he first met drummer Billy Higgins.
By the early 50s Cherry was playing with jazz musicians in Los Angeles, sometimes acting as pianist in Art Farmer’s group. While trumpeter Clifford Brown was in L. A. he would informally mentor him. He became well known in 1958 when he performed and recorded with Ornette Coleman quintet. He co-led The Avant-Garde session with John Coltrane replacing Coleman, toured with Sonny Rollins, joined the New York Contemporary Five and recorded with Albert Ayler and George Russell.
Don’s first recording as a leader was Complete Communion for Blue Note in 1965 with Ed Blackwell and Gato Barbieri. He would begin leaning toward funk/fusion and play sparse jazz during his Scandinavia years. He would go on to play with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, Carla Bley, Lou Reed, and Sun Ra, and then ventured into developing world fusion music incorporating Middle Eastern, African and Indian into his playing.
Cherry appeared on the Red Hot Organization’s compilation CD, Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool, was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame, played piano, pocket trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn and bugle. He recorded some two-dozen albums as a leader and some 48 as a sideman. Don Cherry died on October 19, 1995 at age 58 from liver cancer in Málaga, Spain.
