Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Kitty Margolis was born November 7, 1955 in San Mateo, California. As a child she listened to underground radio to hear the sounds of Ramsey Lewis, Beach Boys, John Lee Hooker and Santana, and Tower of Power was a local band playing at her high school dances. She would go to the Fillmore and Winterland and hear Miles Davis, Grateful Dead, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, John McLaughlin, Charles Lloyd to name a few. But an outing with her uncle to the Village Vanguard and it was a Rahsaan Roland Kirk performance that changed her life.

She went on to San Francisco State and studied jazz and recording studio arts and was soon gigging with her teachers John Handy and Hal Stein. Hanging out at Todd Barkan’s Keystone Korner she met all the heavyweights, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner, Betty Carter, Cedar Walton, Freddie Hubbard, Flora Purim, Airto, Horace Silver, Red Garland and many more. She even had the oppoertunity to sing Charlie Parker’s solo on Billie’s Bounce and got thumbs up from her idol Eddie Jefferson. In 1989, she made her well-received debut at the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival.

She released her debut studio album Evolution in 1993 and with guest performers Joe Henderson and Joe Louis Walker made a name for herself in the jazz community. On the heels of this album release Kitty won honor of Talent Deserving Wider Recognition in that year’s Down Beat critics’ poll, which she would repeat in 1995 and 1997. Her sophomore album, 1997’s Straight Up With a Twist, was her most eclectic outing yet, featuring quirky interpretations of standards, plus guest appearances by Roy Hargrove and Charles Brown.

Recording in between continuous performance and touring vocalist and record producer Kitty Margolis has taken time to co-found her own record label Mad Kat with Madeline Eastman. She has subsequently released five albums with a couple of live dates in San Francisco among them.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Gary McFarland was born in Los Angeles, California on October 23, 1933. An influential composer, arranger, vibraphonist and vocalist, he made a name for himself on Verve and Impulse Records during the Sixties, making one of the more significant contributors to orchestral jazz. He attained a small following after working with Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Johnny Hodges, John Lewis, Stan Getz, Bob Brookmeyer and Anita O’Day.

His debut as a leader came in 1961 with the Jazz Version of How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. Gary recorded for Skye, Buddah and Cobblestone Records through the 1960s into the early Seventies. As well as eighteen of his own albums as a leader and arrangements for other musicians such as Lena Horne, Steve Kuhn, Gabor Szabo, John Lewis, Shirley Scott, Zoot Sims and Gary Burton, he composed the scores to the films Eye of the Devil in 1968 and Who Killed Mary What’s ‘Er Name in 1971.

By the end of the 1960s McFarland was moving away from jazz towards an often wistful or melancholy style of instrumental pop, as well as producing the recordings of other artists on his Skye Records label, run in partnership with Szabo and Cal Tjader until its bankruptcy in 1970.

Gary McFarland and Louis Savary wrote the classic song Sack Full Of Dreams that was first released by Grady Tate in 1968. He was considering a move into writing and arranging for film and stage when on November 3, 1971 he was poisoned with methadone in a New York City bar at the tender age of 38. In tribute Bill Evans performed Gary’s Waltz in 1979, shortly before his own death.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Urszula Bogumiła Dudziak was born October 22, 1943 in the Straconka neighborhood of Bielsko-Biata, Poland. She studied piano but began to sing in the late 50s after hearing records by Ella Fitzgerald. Within a few years she was one of the most popular jazz artists in her native country.

With her marriage to Michael Urbaniak in the late 60s they began to tour overseas and in the 70s settled in New York. Dudziak has some problems with language and customarily eschews words in favor of wordless vocalizing that is far more adventurous than scat.  Already gifted with a remarkable five-octave vocal range, she employs electronic devices to extend still further the possibilities of her voice.

She has frequently worked with leading contemporary musicians, including Archie Shepp, Lester Bowie, Jay Clayton, Jeanne Lee, Bobby McFerrin, Norma Winstone, Sting, Michelle Hendricks, Michael Urbaniak, Krzysztof KomedaLaura Newton, Gil Evans and collaborated with fellow Polish jazz vocalist Grazyna Auguscik.

Vocalist Urszula Dudziak has been awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by President Leon Kaczynski, published her autobiography Wyspiewam Wam Wszystko, translated means I’ll Sing Everything For You and she has recorded twenty-two albums and appeared in thirteen films. She continues to perform and tour.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Carol Kidd was born on October 19, 1945 in Glasgow, Scotland and knew from five years old that she was a singer. She first came to prominence in the mid-Seventies as the vocalist for the band led by vibraphone and saxophonist Jimmy Feighan, and while raising three children and running a hotel she sang part-time all over Britain, performing on stage and television.

Kidd recorded her debut album Just For You in 1981 but it was three years before she released her self-titled sophomore project Carol Kidd and a third in 1985 titled All My Tomorrows. Her full-time professional career began in 1990 when Frank Sinatra issued her an invitation to appear live with him at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow, in front of a capacity crowd. British jazz lovers gave rave reviews and Kidd was invited to sing at London’s internationally acclaimed Ronnie Scott’s Club, where Tony Bennett was in the audience. The momentum of her success picked up after that appearance and she was voted the Best Performer at Edinburgh International Jazz.

With four albums already under her belt, in 1990 Carol released her award-winning album, The Night We Called It a Day for Linn Records and was voted Best Jazz Recording at the U.K. Musical Retailer’s Awards. After being named Best Vocalist at the Cannes International Jazz Awards, she subsequently received invitations to appear all over Europe, the Far East and the United States.

For over a decade, jazz singer Carol Kidd has managed to consistently pull in accolades, “Best Awards,” and honors from an arena consisting of all-time greats such as Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan. She has won several awards at the British Jazz Awards and in 1998 she was awarded an MBE or Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her services to jazz.

Jazz vocalist Carol Kidd has performed and recorded a standards album with the Robert Farnon Orchestra, has sixteen albums to date and continues to perform, record and tour all over the world.

Take A Dose On The Road

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Sathima Bea Benjamin was born Beatrice Bertha Benjamin on October 17, 1936 in Claremont, Cape Town, South Africa. As an adolescent, she first performed popular music in talent contests at the local cinema (bioscope) during the intermission. By the 1950s she was singing at various nightclubs, community dances and social events, performing with notable Cape Town pianists Tony Schilder and Henry February, among others. She built her repertoire watching British and American movies and transcribing lyrics from songs heard on the radio. She discovered Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Doris Day and Ella Fitzgerald who greatly influenced her singing style, phrasing and diction.

At 21, she joined Arthur Klugman’s traveling show, Coloured Jazz and Variety, touring South Africa. When the production failed, she found herself stranded in Mozambique where she met South African saxophonist Kippie Moekets. Returning to Cape Town’s now thriving jazz scene in 1959, Sathima met pianist Dollar Brand, later known to the world as Abdullah Ibrahim. She would marry him in 1965 and the same year record with his trio what would have been the first jazz album in South Africa titled My Songs For You, but it was never released.

In the aftermath of South Africa’s 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, Benjamin and Ibrahim left South Africa for Europe, settling in Zurich. Along with bassist Johnny Gertze and drummer Makhaya Ntshoko they worked throughout Germany and Scandinavia, meeting and occasional working with American jazz players, such as, Don Byas, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Drew, Ben Webster, Bud Powell, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. The artist who would have the greatest impact on Benjamin’s life, however, was Duke Ellington.

Benjamin met Duke Ellington while he was in Zurich in 1963 asked that he hear her husband’s trio at the Club Africana. Obliging but insisting that she sing for him. Following this encounter, Ellington arranged for the couple to fly to Paris and record separate albums for Sinatra’s Reprise label. Her recording, A Morning in Paris, was thought lost and remained unreleased until 1966. Maintaining her musical relationship with Ellington she performed with his band in the U.S. at the Newport Jazz Festival. He subsequently asked her to join his band permanently but being newly wedded she declined.

Throughout the 1960s, Sathima moved back and forth between Europe and New York City as manager and agent for her husband while raising their son, Tsakwe. Returning to South Africa 1976 she gave birth to a daughter and recorded African Songbird, and then returned to New york City the following year. Launching her own record label, ekapa rpm, to produce, publish and distribute her and Ibrahim’s music, between 1979 and 2002, she released eight of her own albums on ekapa: Sathima Sings Ellington, Memories and Dreams, Windsong, Lovelight, Southern Touch, Cape Town Love, Musical Echoes and Dedications, the last receiving a Grammy nomination.

Benjamin collaborated on these albums with saxophonist Carlos Ward, pianists Stephen Scott, Kenny Baron,, Larry Willis and Onaje Allan Gumbs, bassist Buster Williams and drummers Billy Higgins and Ben Riley. She has been the recipient of South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga Silver Award, was the feature of a 2010 documentary film Sathima’s Windsong, and has had a co-authorhip of her life Musical Echoes: South African Women Thinking In Jazz.

Sathima Bea Benjamin returned to Cape Town in 2011, where she continued to work as a vocalist until passing away on August 20, 2013, aged 76.

Put A Dose In Your Pocket

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