Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Karen Briggs was born August 12, 1963 in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City to a family of musicians, father played trumpet, grandfather played saxophone and piano, and other family members were vocalists. It was when the family moved to Portsmouth, Virginia that she took up the violin at age 12, with a talent for playing by ear.
Briggs was the head of her class orchestra as a teenager and performed at a competition at Woodrow Wilson High School. Playing alongside her father and his colleagues, at their encouragement at age fifteen she committed to become a professional jazz violinist. After graduating high school in 1981, she became the first member of her family to attend college, going to Norfolk State College, and majoring in music education and mass media studies.
In 1983, while still in college Karen began performing at the Virginia Symphony Orchestra but finding classical music restricting she left after four years. Returning to New York in 1987 she sought out jazz, won several amateur night competitions at the Apollo Theater, then the following year married and moved to Los Angeles, California, where she became a frequent performer at the jazz club Marla’s Memory Lane. Briggs’ first professional tour was with the 100 piece ensemble group Soul II Soul, touring the United States and Japan in 1989. She then auditioned for Yanni, secured a place in his upcoming tour by playing over a performance of his piece Within Attraction. Linda Evans, then in a relationship with Yanni, pushed for Briggs to be a featured soloist in Yanni’s Live at the Acropolis tour. Briggs’ performances during the tour gained her broad recognition and the moniker “Lady in Red” and ultmaely toured with Yanni for thirteen years.
Post Yanni, Karen joined Stanley Clarke, Lenny White, Richie Kotzen, and Rachel Z forming the short-lived jazz fusion group Vertú and recording only one album. She released her debut album Karen in 1992 followed by her sophomore project Amazing Grace in ‘96 and Soulchestral Groove in 2009. She currently holds residency in the Lao Tizer Jazz Quartet and also performs with the all-women group Jazz in Pink.
Violinist Karen Briggs, also known as the Lady in Red, has recorded three albums as a leader and continues to perform, tour, record and collaborate with artists outside the jazz spectrum, such as Dave Grusin, Diana Ross, Wu Tang Clan, En Vogue and Chaka Khan.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nat Towles was born on August 10, 1905 in New Orleans, Louisiana the son of string bassist Phil “Charlie” Towles. Starting his musical career as a guitarist and violinist at the age of 11, he switched to the bass at the age of 13. Performing in New Orleans through his teenage years with Gus Metcalf’s Melody Jazz Band, he eventually played with a number of bands, including those of Buddie Petit, Henry “Red” Allen, Jack Carey, and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra.
In 1923 he formed The Nat Towles’ Creole Harmony Kings and this jazz band became one of the prominent territory bands in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. By 1925 he was playing bass for Fate Marable, and the following year reformed his own band. 1934 saw him organizing a band of young musicians studying music at Wiley College in Austin, Texas.
Nat worked a club circuit in Dallas during this period, reportedly for a gangster who owned 26 nightclubs throughout the city. During this period T-Bone Walker and Buddy Tate worked for him. During the 1930s he transformed his band into The Nat Towles Dance Orchestra, signed with the National Orchestra Service, and focused on swing music through the 1930s and 1940s.
In 1934 Towles took up residence in North Omaha, Nebraska, where his band was stationed for the next 25 years. With this outfit he dueled with Lloyd Hunter for dominance over the much-contested Near North Side in North Omaha, where he was held over at the Dreamland Ballroom for several weeks. In 1936 and 1937 his band held residence at Omaha’s Krug Park.
In 1943 he also held a three-month stint at the Rhumboogie Club in Chicago, and later that year took up residency again with Billy Mitchell in tow in Omaha’s Dreamland Ballroom. He went on to play extensively throughout New York City, playing with trombonist Buster Cooper, saxophonists Red Holloway, Buster Bennett and Preston Love.
As their bandleader, Towles is credited with influencing a variety of musicians including Sir Charles Thompson and Neal Hefti, as well as superior saxophonists Jimmy Heath, Oliver Nelson and Paul Quinichette. As an educator he influenced many younger musicians such as pianist Duke Groner and trombonist Buddy McLewis, aka Joe McLewis.
Continuing to lead bands throughout the 1950s, in 1959 he retired to California and opened a bar. Bassist, guitarist and violinist Nat Towles, who feared the limelight would steal away his best players thus never sought national recognition and leaving no known recordings, passed away in January of 1963 in Berkeley, California of a heart attack.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
William Russell was born Russell William Wagner on February 26, 1905 in Canton, Missouri. He learned to play the violin and throughout his career contributed to many a performance. When he decided to become a classical music composer he changed his name, transposing first and second and dropping his last.
He was a leading figure in percussion music composition, influenced by his acquaintances John Cage and Henry Cowell. In turn, he also influenced Cage, in his emphasis of percussion. During the 1930s, predating Cage’s main work, Russell’s percussion works called for vernacular textures such as Jack Daniels bottles, suitcases, and Haitian drums, and pianos.
One notable performance of his Fugue For Eight Percussion Instruments took place in 1933 at Carnegie Hall, with the ubiquitous and influential critic-writer-performer Nicholas Slonimsky conducting. These performances took place under the auspices of the Pan-American Association of Composers, an organization that was composed of Cowell, Slonimsky Ruth Crawford Seeger, Edgard Varese and other luminaries of American ultra-modernism.
Bill was also one of the leading authorities on early New Orleans jazz, authoring articles and books, including three essays in the milestone book, Jazzmen and the voluminous 720-page Jelly Roll Morton scrapbook, Oh, Mr. Jelly. He made many recordings of historical interest, founded American Music Records, helping bring many forgotten New Orleans performers, including Bunk Johnson back to public attention and became an important force in the New Orleans jazz revival of the early 1940s.
Moving to the French Quarter of New Orleans in 1956, he opened a small record shop from which he also repaired violins. Russell played violin with the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra, co-founded and became the first curator of The Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University in 1958,
Russell collected a large quantity of material related to the history of New Orleans, early jazz, ragtime, blues, and gospel music, all of which he kept in his French Quarter apartment. During his lifetime he always was willing to share access to the material with serious researchers.
At his death on August 9, 1992, Bill Russell, the single most influential figure in the revival of New Orleans jazz that began in the 1940s, bequeathed his collection to the Historic New Orleans Collection, where it continues to be a valuable resource for researchers in the city that became his last home.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jerry Blake was born Jacinto Chabania on January 23, 1908 in Gary, Indiana and grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He began his musical education playing violin before switching to reeds.
In 1924 he toured with the Sells-Fioto Circus Band but was left stranded in Chicago. Making the best of the situation, he joined Al Wynn’s band, then played with Bobby Lee and Charlie Turner. He then toured Europe in 1928-29 as a member of Sam Wooding’s ensemble.
Back in the States in the 1930s Jerry played in the US with Chick Webb,Zack Whyte and Don Redman, then was off to Europe again with Willie Lewis from 1934 to 1935. After his return home he spent time performing with Claude Hopkins, Fletcher Henderson and Cab Calloway, acting as the latter’s musical director during his 1938-42 stint.
In the early 1940s Blake played with Count Basie, Earl Hines, Lionel Hampton and Redman again. Sometime around 1943 he had a mental breakdown and never played again for the rest of his life, most of which he spent in institutions. Alto saxophonist and clarinetist Jerry Blake, who never recorded as a leader, passed away on December 31, 1961.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michał Urbaniak was born on January 22, 1943 in Warsaw, Poland. He started his music education during high school and continued from 1961 in Warsaw in the violin class of Tadeusz Wronski. Learning to play the saxophone he first played in a Dixieland band, and later with Zbigniew Namyslowski and the Jazz Rockers, performing during the 1961 Jazz Jamboree festival.
The following year Michal played with Andrzej Trzaskowski band, The Wreckers, touring festivals and clubs in the USA in Newport, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington and New York City. A return to Poland saw him working with the Krzysztof Komeda Quintet from 1962 to 1964, touring Scandinavia and remaining to form his own band with Wojciech Karolak, that became starting point for the famous Michał Urbaniak Fusion.
Urbaniak returned to Poland and the violin, and created the self-named Michał Urbaniak Group, to which he invited, among others, vocalist Urszula Dudziak, pianist Adam Makowicz, bassist Pawel Jarzebski and on drums Czeslaw Bartowski. Their debut recording on the international scene was in 1970 with Parathyphus B, and during the Montreux ’71 festival, he was awarded “Grand Prix” for the Best Soloist and a scholarship to the Berklee Colege of Music, though he declined to attend.
He played his final concert in Poland in 1973 and emigrated with Urszula Dudziak to the United States, signed with Columbia Records, formed the band Fusion and released Super Constellation. His 1978 Urbanizer project fused rap, hip-hop and a R&B vocal quartet. By 1995 he was engaging a 60-piece full symphony with jazz group, rapper and Apple computer in concert and recorded both CD and DVD.
Over the course of his career he has performed and recorded with Steve Jordan, Marcus Miller, Kenny Kirkland, Tony Bun, Omar Hakim, Victor Bailey, Weather Report, Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, George Benson, Billy Cobham, Joe Zawinul, Ron Carter, Kenny Barron, Buster Williams and Quincy Jones.
Violinist Michal Urbaniak played on the 1985 session of the Miles Davis Tutu album and in 2012 appeared in the Polish film My Father’s Bike. He hs recorded thirty-eight albums to date and continues to perform, record and compose.
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