Birthdays
Mezz Mezzrow
Mezz Mezzrow was born in Chicago in 1899 and was one of that city's most popular clarinetists during the golden jazz age of the twenties. Many of Mezzrow's records reveal his deep feeling for the blues and his playing is characterized by well-thought lines, frequent agility and an appealingly acid tone, but despite touring regularly with various bands and with Louis Armstrong, his most notable contribution to jazz history is his autobiography, Really the Blues, written with Bernard Wolfe, first ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Houston Person
Houston Person wears the Boss Tenor crown, worn so long by Gene Ammons. Mr. Person is busy working his own gigs; booking his tours, finding new clubs, having phone numbers for every major concert promoter on every continent. He even produces his own albums. His first big break came while working as a sideman with organist Johnny Hammond and his group, co-led by Etta Jones. Mr. Person's working relationship with Ms. Jones began in 1973 and lasted for thirty years, ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Mario Pavone
Bassist/composer Mario Pavone has collaborated with both legendary innovators and today's most respected young musicians to consistently define the cutting edge of jazz for the past 40 years. He has anchored the trios of Paul Bley (1968-72), Bill Dixon (1980's), and the late Thomas Chapin (1990-97), and co-led a variety of notable ensembles with Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, Marty Ehrlich, and Michael Musillami. His list of sidemen past and present includes Steven Bernstein, Gerald Cleaver, Dave Douglas, Peter Madsen, ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Sam Jones
Sam Jones was a solid jazz bassist with impeccable technique, who could also swing and groove with the best of them. Most associated with his tenures with Cannonball Adderley, and then Oscar Peterson, he also went on to front his own bands and left a reputable recorded legacy as a leader. Sam Jones was born in Florida on Nov. 12, 1924, starting his career playing in local bands. By 1953 he was playing with Tiny Bradshaw , then after moving ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Hampton Hawes
Who Was Hampton Hawes?
Although one rarely hears of Hampton Hawes today hewas a significant presence on the jazz scene in the mid-50s then again from the mid-60s on until his death in1977. A direct descendant of bebop who had beenvariously classified as "West Coast" and "funk-jazz" or"rhythm school," Hawes transcended all thesecategories. He was famous for his prodigious right hand,his deep groove, his very personal playing, his profoundblues conceptions, and his versatility within a mainstreamcontext. He remained anchored in ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
George Cables
When George Cables was going to school in New York City he used to walk the streets at night, taking in the cosmopolitan sights and sounds, mentally recording his encounters with “so many different kinds of people.” In his musical career as well, Cables has prowled sidestreets and main thoroughfares in relative anonymity, absorbing countless influences into his personal style. Born in New York City on November 14, 1944, Cables was classically trained as a youth and when he started ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Kevin Eubanks
Kevin Tyrone Eubanks (born November 15, 1957 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), is an American jazz guitarist who has been the leader of the Tonight Show Band with host Jay Leno since 1995. He played with Art Blakey, Roy Haynes, Slide Hampton, and Sam Rivers before starting to lead his own groups in 1983. Like his brother Robin Eubanks, a jazz trombonist, he has played on record with Dave Holland. In 2005, Eubanks received an honorary doctorate degree from the Berklee College ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Diana Krall
It had only been a few days since singer and pianist Diana Krall publicly announced that she and husband Elvis Costello were expecting their first child. Her remarks may have primarily focused on her upcoming album, but it was easy to discern the rosy glow as she discussed imminent arrivals, and how she came up with the name for one of them. “I already knew before we went into the studio the title of the record. I definitely knew it ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Ben Allison
In a career that spans over 30 years, bassist/composer Ben Allison has developed his own instantly identifiable sound. Known for his inspired arrangements, inventive grooves and hummable melodies, Ben draws from the jazz tradition and a range of influences from rock and folk to 20th century and a broad range of music from around the world, seamlessly blending them into a cinematic, cohesive whole.
With his small groups, Ben has toured extensively throughout the world building new audiences with an adventurous yet ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Don Cherry
Don Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, OK in 1936 and raised in Los Angeles, where he first began to play the trumpet and later piano. According to Cherry, his upbringing had everything to do with his interest in music: “Yeah, well I was fortunate to have such great parents…because they've always been around music. My Father was a bartender, and he was very much into the music of the swing period. That whole groove of music and ballrooms and ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Tommy Dorsey
Trombonist Thomas “Tommy" Dorsey was born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, the younger brother of famed jazz clarinetist, Jimmy Dorsey. In early years he was equally well-known as both trumpet and trombone player, recording several hot jazz solos on trumpet in 1920s, including “The Spell of the Blues" with the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra for OKeh on 1/26/29. His career closely followed that of brother Jimmy; by 1930 he was one of the most successful free-lance radio and recording artists on trombone, recognized ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
June Christy
June was born as Shirley Luster on November 20, 1925 at the Memorial Hospital in Springfield, Illinois and was raised from the age of three in Decatur, Illinois; and from the beginning always wanted to sing.
She was singing with local bands when she was just 13, and later with society bands around Chicago, the big city 150 miles from Springfield, using the name Sharon Leslie. None of her family knew anything about music, so she had to persuade them ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Hawkins single-handedly brought the saxophone to the prominence in jazz that the instrument enjoys. Before he hit the scene, jazz groups had little use for the instrument. One player (forgot who) said, “with all due respect to Adolph Sax, Coleman Hawkins invented the saxophone." Hawkins, or “Bean", as he was known as, started playing cello at a young age before switching to the saxophone. He was a lifelong listener of classical music, and as a result, his knowledge of ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Gunther Schuller
The composer Gunther Schuller is, famously, a man of many musical pursuits. He began his professional life as a horn player in both the jazz and classical worlds, working as readily with Miles Davis and Gil Evans as with Toscanini; he was principal horn of the Cincinnati Symphony from age sixteen and later of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra until 1959. In the 1950s he began a conducting career focusing largely on contemporary music, and thereafter conducted most of the major ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Ray Drummond
Composer, arranger, bandleader, educator and producer are hats that bassist RAY DRUMMOND has worn well over the past 30 years. But it all comes down to one thing: musician Ray Drummond likes to make great music. Born the son of an Army colonel on November 23, 1946 in Brookline, Massachusetts, he attended 14 different schools around the world. Drummond's musical journey began at age eight with the trumpet, then French horn. Though, early on he developed a love of jazz ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Teddy Wilson
His airy, effortless style, with its emphasis on lightly accompanied right-hand melody, was a key element in the transition from swing to bebop, and many modern jazz pianists took Wilson's approach as their starting point. His early recordings were percussive and forceful, but as he matured his technique became graceful, almost elegant. He was a gifted artist who used the full range of his instrument to his advantage. His recordings with Billie Holiday and Benny Goodman’s trio and quartet during ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Paul Desmond
Paul Desmond was revered for the pure, gentle tone of his alto saxophone, and the elegant lyricism of his improvisations. For seventeen years he was the lead soloist in the most commercially successful jazz combo ever, the Dave Brubeck Quartet. In an era that worshipped the frenetic, bebop style of Charlie Parker, Paul Desmond found his own sound, a tone that he claimed imitated a “dry martini." It was a sound that made him a favourite with critics and fans ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Bobby Sharp
Sharp was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1924. His family had settled there because Kansas was, during slavery times, a free state. Sharp’s great-grandmother was a slave and he remembers her telling him stories about lying on the floor while cannonballs blasted through the cabin. The Great Depression soon followed, and Sharp’s parents sent him to live with relatives in Los Angeles while they went to New York to seek their fortune. Sharp’s father was a concert tenor who won ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Maria Schneider
Maria Schneider’s music has been hailed by critics as “evocative, majestic, magical, heart-stoppingly gorgeous, imaginative, revelatory, riveting, daring, and beyond categorization.” Blurring the lines between genres, her varied commissioners stretch from Jazz at Lincoln Center, to The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, to the American Dance Festival, and include collaboration with David Bowie. She is among a small few to receive GRAMMYS in multiple genres, having received the award in jazz and classical, as well as for her work with David Bowie. ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Gigi Gryce
Gigi Gryce was born George General Grice(sic) on 28th November, 1925 (not 1927) in Pensacola, Florida - although he was brought up in Hartford, Connecticut. He spent a short period in the Navy where he met musicians such as Clark Terry, Jimmy Nottingham and Willie Smith, who were to turn his thoughts from pursuing medicine to the possibility of making music for a living. In 1948 he began studying classical composition at the Boston Conservatory under Daniel Pinkham and Alan ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz