Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Matthias Lupri was born Matthias Albrecht Lupri on October 29, 1964 in Germany but grew up in Manhattan, Kansas and Alberta, Canada. Initially he played the drums, playing in blues, rock and country music bands as a teenager. In his early 20’s he studied music at Mount Royal College, where he heard Gary Burton’s recordings and became interested in jazz vibraphone music.

Lupri practiced the instrument for the next five years while on the road with rock bands as a drummer, and then enrolled at Berklee College of Music to study with Burton himself.

After graduating Matthias easily slid into the jazz circles in the U.S. and around the world. He has performed and recorded with Greg Osby, Chris Potter, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, Greg Hutchinson, Reuben Rogers, Rick Margitza and George Garzone among others and has been sought after on the national and international jazz festival circuit.

Vibraphonist Matthias Lupri’s has released six recordings as a leader that have charted in radio’s Top 40 Gavin, CMJ and Chart Magazine Canada, has been heard on the television show “Alias”, and was named as a rising artist on vibraphone twice in the Down Beat critics poll. He continues to perform, collaborate, record and tour.

More Posts: vibraphone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Don Elliott was born on October 21, 1926 in Somerville, New Jersey. He played mellophone in his high school band and played trumpet for an army band. After study at the University of Miami he added vibraphone to his arsenal of instruments.  He recorded with Terry Gibbs and Buddy Rich before forming his own band.

From 1953 to 1960 he won the Down Beat readers poll several times for “miscellaneous instrument-mellophone.” Known as the “Human Instrument”, Elliott additionally performed jazz as a vocalist, trombonist, flugelhornist and percussionist. He pioneered the art of multi-track recording, composed over 5000 jingles with a countless number being prize-winning advertising jingles, prepared film scores, recorded over 60 albums and built a thriving production company.

Don scored several Broadway productions, such as The Beast In Me and A Thunder Carnival, the latter of which he performed with the Don Elliott Quartet, provided one of the voices for the novelty jazz duo the Nutty Squirrels, and lent his vocal talents to such motion picture soundtracks as The Getaway, $ (Dollars), The Hot Rock and The Happy Hooker.

His album Calypso Jazz is considered by some jazz enthusiasts to be one of the definitive calypso jazz albums. He worked with Paul Desmond, Bill Taylor, Billy Eckstine, Bill Evans, Urbie Green, Michel Legrand, George Shearing and Mundell Lowe among others over his career. Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, publisher and producer Don Elliott, who was a longtime associate of Quincy Jones, passed away of cancer in Weston, Connecticut on July 5, 1984.

More Posts: flugelhorn,mellophone,percussion,trombone,trumpet,vibraphone,vocal

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Johnny Lytle was born John Dillard Lytle on October 13, 1932 in Springfield, Ohio, the son of a trumpeter father and an organist mother. He began playing the drums and piano at an early age. Before studying music in earnest, he was a boxer and was a successful Golden Gloves champion. During the late ’50s, Lytle continued to box, but landed jobs as a drummer for Ray Charles, Jimmy Witherspoon and Gene Ammons.

Switching from drums to vibraphone Johnny toured with organist Hiram “Boots” Johnson in 1955 and then formed his first group in 1957 with saxophonist Boots Johnson, organist Milton Harris and drummer William “Peppy” Hinnant. He so impressed Grammy winning producer Orrin Keepnews who signed him to his Jazzland label in 1960.

Known for his great hand speed and showmanship, Lytle was also a songwriter, penning many of his own hits, including “The Loop,” “The Man,” “Lela,” “Selim” (honoring Miles Davis), and the jazz classic “The Village Caller”. He recorded more than 30 albums for various jazz labels including Tuba, Jazzland, Solid State and Muse. Throughout his career he performed and recorded with a host of jazz greats including Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis, Nancy Wilson, Bobby Timmons and Roy Ayers.

Johnny never recorded with any of the major record labels fearing loss of control of his music and creative development, thus never gaining the status of a jazz icon like some of his peers, but finding success early in his career with chart-topping albums like A Groove, The Loop, and Moonchild. Nicknamed “Fast Hands,” he always kept an audience’s attention, was popular on the jazz circuit and built a respectable catalog of music with recordings in the ’70s,’80s and ’90s. Johnny toured throughout the U.S. and Europe, with his last performance one month before his passing on December 15, 1995 in his hometown of Springfield. The street where the vibraphonist and drummer used to live was renamed Johnny Lytle Avenue in his honor.

More Posts: drums,vibraphone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jay Hoggard was born September 24, 1954 in Washington, D.C. but grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. His mother taught him how to play piano at a young age and picked up the saxophone long before age 15 when he started playing the vibraphone. He played with Anthony Davis and Leo Smith in the early 1970s around New England.

After moving to New York City in 1988 Jay worked again with Davis and with Chico Freeman, Sam Rivers, Cecil Taylor, James Newton and Kenny Burrell. He would go on to collaborate and perform over the next few decades with Lionel Hampton, Milt Jackson, Tito Puente, Bobby Hutcherson, Billy Taylor, James Newton, Hilton Ruiz and Oliver Lake.

An international performer Hoggard has played on stages and jazz festivals in Africa, South America, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean and throughout the United States as well as appearing on television. Since 1978 he has recorded more than a dozen and a half sessions as a leader and many dates as a sideman. Vibraphonist Jay Hoggard currently teaches at his alma mater Wesleyan University.

More Posts: vibraphone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Peter Appleyard was born August 26, 1928 in Lincolnshire, England and became apprenticed to a nautical instrument maker after being forced to leave school due to economical reasons related to the Second World War. At that time the popularity of American Big Band music was growing in England, due to recordings by jazz legends like Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington and Count Basie.

Strongly influencing young Appleyard, he decided to pursue a career as a jazz musician and in the early 1940s began his career playing in the Boys Brigade, a youth organization. He went on to perform as a drummer in several other British dance bands and played in RAF bands.

In 1949 Appleyard moved to Bermuda, spent his holidays in Canada and picked up his first set of vibes, eventually settling in Toronto. He worked as a room booking clerk and a salesman studying music and soon thereafter began playing the vibraphone in concerts with Billy O’Connor in the early 1950s.

From 1954-1956 he played with a band at the Park Plaza Hotel, made numerous appearances on CBC Radio, his own jazz ensemble in 1957 and performed and toured throughout North America, appeared on American television during the 1960s. He would go on to host radio and television programs, work with Benny Goodman’s sextet, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie Orchestra, and continue to perform in Toronto nightclubs and lounges while double as music director for several bands.

In 1982 Appleyard formed the All Star Swing Band that Swing Fever, earning a gold record and a nomination for a Juno Award for Instrumental Artist of the Year. Following Goodman’s death, he formed the Benny Goodman Tribute Band in 1985, leads the “Swing Fever Band”, has had several concert tours for NATO, and has performed for Canadian and American servicemen at the North Pole Christmas Show in Greenland.

With more than two-dozen albums under his belt, vibraphonist Peter Appleyard has received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee award and regularly traveled, toured and performed around the world until his passing of natural causes on July 17, 2013 in Eden Mills, Ontario, Canada. He was 84 years old.

More Posts: vibraphone