Results for "Peter Welker"

Peter Welker

Welker, the only child of parents who were both working jazz musicians in New York and Boston, first picked up the trumpet at the age of nine. He credits his mother as being the major influence on his life and music career. "She really inspired me," Welker said. "Born blind, she sang on the coast-to-coast Camel Caravan show with Al Pearce and His Gang from 1935 to 1939.” After studying at Berklee College of Music, Welker moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. He led a sextet which was the house band at the famed Jazz Workshop in North Beach from 1961 to 1965 and featured piano player George Duke. He has toured and/or recorded with the likes of Van Morrison, Santana, Cold Blood, Jesse Colin Young, Buddy Miles and Dr

Peter Welker: Touching All of Jazz's Bases

by Nicholas F. Mondello
December 23, 2019

Bay Area-based trumpeter, composer and arranger Peter Welker possesses one of the most musically historically fascinating biographies. His decades-long career emanates and developed from a robust musical heritage in which talent merged with Life's coincidences to set him on a journey few, if any, musicians have had. From his parents performing the days of radio through ...

Deborah Winters: Lovers After All

by Nicholas F. Mondello
March 10, 2012

In his entertaining and impeccably researched book, Sessions with Sinatra (Chicago Review Press, 2004), author Charles Granata details the intricate in-studio mechanics and all-important chemistry behind some of the greatest recorded vocal performances of our time. The unique balance of Frank Sinatra's talent, sophisticated arrangements, great tunes and phenomenal musicians made those recordings classics.On ...

Deborah Winters: Lovers After All

by Dan Bilawsky
October 18, 2011

Placing vocalists under a specific, descriptive heading can be limiting in some ways, but it also shines a light on their greatest strengths. Singer Joe Williams--of Count Basie fame--resented being labeled as a “blues singer," since he possessed great range and felt that this tag had suggestions of racism behind it; few would argue, however, that ...

Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchesta / Vaughn Wiester / Chie Imaizumi

by Jack Bowers
October 7, 2010

Buselli--Wallarab Jazz OrchestraMezzanineOwl Studios2010 After veering slightly off-course recently with several albums devoted in part to backing singers, the outstanding Indianapolis-based Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra is back in a more pleasing instrumental groove on Mezzanine, profiling the compositions and arrangements of co-leader / trombonist Brent Wallarab. The first ...

Duke Billy & Tadd

By Peter Welker

Label: Peachy Productions
Released: 2006

Duke, Billy and Tadd

By Peter Welker

Label: Peachy Productions
Released: 2006
Track listing: Heaven; Our Delight; Prelude to a Kiss; Things Ain

Peter Welker: Duke, Billy and Tadd

by Jack Bowers
May 14, 2006

Trumpeter Peter Welker's labor of love, a warmhearted tribute to three of the jazz world's most renowned composer/pianists--Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and Tadd Dameron--awakened memories of a similar enterprise from some years ago, the late Tom Talbert's 1956 record Bix, Duke, Fats. Like Talbert, Welker uses a pared-down “big band whose numbers range from ten to ...

Paradise Is Awfully Nice

By Peter Welker

Label: Peachy Productions
Released: 2002
Track listing: Paradise Is Awfully Nice; Sweet George; Chelsea Bridge; Just Friends; A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing; Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You; Detour Ahead; Nica's Dream; Born to Be Blue; In Your Own Sweet Way; Come Sunday

Peter Welker: Paradise Is Awfully Nice

by Jack Bowers
June 1, 2002

Trumpeter / arranger Peter Welker has dedicated this album to his mother, Elisabeth, a remarkable woman who, in spite of having been born blind, became a band singer who performed on the coast--to--coast radio program Camel Caravan in the '30s, later taught at the Berklee School of Music and developed a Braille course that changed completely ...