Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Oscar Castro-Neves was born one of triplets on May 15, 1940 in Rio de Janiero. Discovering his interest in music at an early age, by six he was playing the little viola and the cavaquinho and forming a band with his brothers. He found his musical interest in the synthesis of European classical influenced altered chords with the bittersweet samba-cancao.
He would learn from Johnny Alf who was deeply influenced by jazz, as would all musicians who chose the path to bossa nova. However it wasn’t until the 60s that it would catch on and in 1962 he was part of the historic Carnegie Hall Bossa Nova Festival.
Soon after he befriended Paul Winter and recorded his debut Oscar! on Paul’s label Living Music. That recording led to other sessions as a leader and performances with the likes of Vinicius de Moraes, Dorival Caymmi, and Quarteto em Cy. In 1966 he recorded with Tom Jobim on his Apresenta album before joining Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66 and recording Fool On The Hill. Having recorded three albums, he had already gained immediate fame blending commercially Brazilian, jazz and American pop.
As an arranger he has worked for Quincy Jones, Flora Purim, Laurindo Almeida, Joao Gilberto, played with Yo Yo Ma, Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Toots Thielemans, Stevie Wonder, John Klemmer and Stan Getz and been involved in projects with Dave Grusin, Herbie Hancock and Michael Brecker.
Guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves continues to record, compose, arrange, score movies and television, perform and tour worldwide.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Maxine Sullivan was born Marietta Williams on May 13, 1911 in Homestead, Pennsylvania who developed a subtle and lightly swinging jazz style. Maxine possessed an affable delivery that slighted no lyric.
Over the course of her long career Sullivan first moved to New York and sang during intermissions at the Onyx Club. It was here she was discovered by Claude Thornhill who recorded her in front of a septet singing standards and a couple of Scottish tunes in swinging fashion. One of those tunes “Loch Lomond” would become her big hit and her career signature song.
During the forties Maxine appeared in movies opposite Louis Armstrong, on Broadway in Swingin’ The Dream, with then husband John Kirby and his sextet, and starred a radio show “Flow Gently Sweet Rhythm” for two years receiving reasonable success with a solo career.
By the 50s she became trained as a nurse and over the next several years was absent from music. However, 1968 saw Sullivan’s comeback performing at festivals and even playing a little valve trombone and flugelhorn.
During the later years of her career she intermittently appeared with the World’s Greatest Jazz Band, sang with mainstream jazz groups and recorded in concert her first hit Loch Lomond. Passing away on April 7, 1987 in New York City, vocalist Maxine Sullivan was inducted into the Big Band Hall of Fame in 1998.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tania Maria was born on May 9, 1948 in Sao Luis, Maranhao in northern Brazil. She began playing piano at 7, became a leader at 13 of a band organized by her father, won first place in a local music contest and began playing dances, in clubs and on the radio. It was her father who encouraged her to study piano so that she could play in his weekend jam sessions. By doing so she absorbed the rhythms and melodies of samba, jazz, pop and Brazilian chorinho. Since then she has never worked in anyone else’s group.
Tania released her first album ”Apresentamos” in 1969 with a second in 1971 but it was her move to France that exploded her on the international scene. She began touring and while performing in Australia she caught the ear of guitarist Charlie Byrd who recommended her to Concord Records.
Tania’s formidable musical precision and freewheeling spirit has been heard at virtually every important jazz festival in the world and has appeared on countless television and radio shows. She has recorded numerous albums, has been nominated for a Grammy in the category of “Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female, and has played with such greats as Steve Gadd, Anthony Jackson, Sammy Figueroa and Eddie Gomez to name a few.
The Brazilian artist, singer, composer, bandleader and pianist also has a law degree She sings mostly in Portuguese but also English. Her music is sometimes pop, jazz, and unmistakably Brazilian. Whether playing fiery samba, tranquil bossa or any other style, Tania Maria maintains a style that is uniquely her own. Her vibrant voice, brilliant piano work and outstanding performances have made an artist of increasing international popularity.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mary Ann McCall was born on May 4, 1919 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and started her music career singing middle-of-the-road pop but quickly grew into a respected jazz singer. She started out singing and dancing in Philly with Buddy Morrow’s Orchestra followed by brief stints with Tommy Dorsey and Woody Herman in 1938 and ’39 respectively, and then Charlie Barnett until 1940.
During the forties Mary Ann reconnected with Woody Herman and recorded notable tunes “Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams” and “Detour Ahead”. She went on to work with the Ralph Burns Orchestra, Tommy Reynolds and Teddy Powell and in 1949 she won the Down Beat Readers Poll for Girl Singer (with Band).
In the 50’s McCall she recorded several albums as a leader working with Charlie Ventura, Teddy Charles, Phil Moore and Ernie Wilkins. By the end of the decade her flame had started to fade singing in Detroit and then relocating to Los Angeles where she performed intermittently. In the seventies she re-emerged to record with Jake Hanna and Nat Pierce and in 1987 she came out of retirement to perform at a Woody Herman tribute concert a few days before his death.
Vocalist Mary Ann McCall passed away on December 14, 1994 in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born on April 25, 1917 in Newport News, Virginia, the child of common law parents who separated shortly after her birth. Her mother moved her to Yonkers, New York and as a child she wanted to be a dancer but loved listening to the jazz of Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and The Boswell Sisters.
However, losing her mother to a heart attack in 1932 and the subsequent trauma caused her grades to drop, skip school, become a bordello lookout, and become involved with a Mafia affiliated numbers runner. This trouble led to reform school, ultimate escape, homelessness, and apprehension and sent to the Colored Orphan Asylum in the Bronx.
Ella made her singing debut at age 17 on November 21, 1934 at the Apollo Theatre. Pulling in a weekly audience won her the opportunity to compete in the Amateur Nights where she won first prize. Her winning spirit led her to perform with the Tiny Bradshaw band at the Harlem Opera House in 1935, and then to meet Chick Webb who offered her an opportunity to test with the band at a Yale University dance. This led to a regular gig with Webb at the Savoy Ballroom and in 1938 her rendition of the nursery rhyme A-Tisket, A-Tasket that she co-wrote, brought her wide public acclaim. When Webb died in 1939, Ella became the bandleader renaming it Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Orchestra, and went on to record nearly 150 songs during this tenure.
Pursuing a solo career she left the band, signed with Decca Records, began working with Norman Granz’s Jazz At The Philharmonic, and saw the demise of swing and the big touring bands. With Granz as her manager creating Verve Records around her and the advent of bebop, Fitzgerald changed her style of singing evident in her work with Dizzy Gillespie. She included scat in her repertoire and her rendition of Flying Home became one of the most influential vocal jazz records. Other songs like Oh, Lady Be Good would enhance her reputation as an important jazz vocalist.
Over the course of a career spanning nearly 60 years she recorded her now famous songbooks, recorded for a host of labels, performed all over the world. Fitzgerald appeared on film in Pete Kelly’s Blues, St. Louis Blues, and Let No Man Write My Epitaph. On television her most famous commercial was with Memorex in which her singing of a note and the subsequent playback shatters a glass – “Is it live or is it Memorex?”
Ella Fitzgerald, the three-octave vocalist noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, intonation and horn-like improvisation ability is considered one of the supreme interpreters of the Great American Songbook. She has been photographed by Annie Liebovitz, won 14 Grammy awards, received the National Medal of Art by President Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal Of Freedom from George H.W. Bush.
After a long battle with diabetes Ella Fitzgerald passed away on June 15, 1996 at the age of 79 in Beverly Hills, California. So important was her contribution to the genre that her career history and archival material are housed at the Archives Center at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History; her personal music arrangements are at The Library of Congress; her extensive cookbook collection was donated to the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University; and her published sheet music collection is at the Schoenberg Library at UCLA.
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