Jazz Highlights

Today in Jazz

Monday, March 15, 2010

Birthdays of notable jazz musicians:

Harry James, Trumpet/Leader, 1916, Albany, GA

Harry began working professionally in his father's circus band at an early age .  He performed with various bands in Texas and in the mid '30s spent a year with Ben Pollack before becoming a leading member of Benny Goodman's orchestra.  He left Goodman in late '38 and formed his own band that by 1940 was enormously popular.   He also appeared in several Hollywood films during the 1940s. Through the next decade he toured this country and Europe with much success.  During the1960s James spent long periods in Las Vegas and performed in New York frequently.  He continued to work until shortly before his death in 1983.  Harry was a great admirer of Louis Armstrong, but he certainly had a style of his own that influenced many trumpet players. He was noted for the boldness of his style and the richness of his tone, range and stamina. A collection of his scores and other materials is held in the American Heritage Center of the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

Jimmy McPartland, Cornet, 1907, Chicago, IL

Jimmy was a member of the group known as the Austin High Gang, a circle of young white musicians that attended the Austin High School in Chicago. At the age of 17 he was invited to replace Bix Beiderbecke in the Wolverines.  He remained with the group for about one year.  In 1927 he joined Ben Pollack's orchestra.  Later that year, with members of the Austin High Gang, (using the name McKenzie and Condon 's Chicagoans), he made recordings for Okeh that introduced and defined the exciting style that was later called Chicago Jazz.  In 1929 he worked as a freelance in and around New York, and from the mid '30s worked around Chicago leading small groups.  During the mid '40s he served in Europe where he met and married the pianist, Marion Turner.  After returning to the U.S. he led a quartet in Chicago and elsewhere. During the mid '50s he played regularly in New York, spending a great deal of time at Nick's.  He remained active into the 1980s, playing with his own group and with others.  McPartland's playing was admired by Beiderbecke, and his work owed something to the latter's ringing lyricism and phraising.  Jimmy McPartland died in 1991.

Cecil Taylor, Piano, 1929, New York, NY

Cecil grew up on Long Island, where his mother encouraged him to start piano lessons when he was only 5 years old.  Later he also studied percussion which probably influenced his percussive approach to the keyboard.  In 1952  he entered the New England Conservatory, where he sudied piano and theory, however , he soon detected a lack of appreciation in the academic world  for the aesthetic values of black culture.  After exploring the music of  Dave Brubeck, Lennie Tristano, and Igor Stravinsky, he came under the decisive influence of  Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and Horace Silver.  In the early '50s he began an extended engagementat the Five-Spot in New York, which virtually established the club as a major forum for new jazz.   It was in 1962 that he was given the Downbeat award for "new star" for new pianists, and ironically, he was unemployed during this period.  In 1962-63 he made a fairly successful tour of Scandinavia in a trio with Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray.  Throughout the following decade Taylor faced a baffling combination of high critcal acclaim and little or no work.  He made perhaps one major concert appearance each year, but otherwise worked sporadically in clubs for modest to low pay.  During the '60s he frequently incorporated single-note melodies and conventional rhythms in his playing, but by the late '60s he was concentrating on clusters and glissandos produced with open palms, fists, amd elbows. The music he made was more akin to the European avant garde than the jazz of his predecessors.  Cecil ventured into college teaching during the early '70s and his career began to gain momentum with regular tours with groups of  his own.  He remains totally uncompromising as an artist and, after 30 years in jazz, is still a controversial figure. 

Charles Lloyd, Saxophone, 1938, Memphis, TN

Charles studied informally with Phineas Newborn and very early in his career worked with Booker Little, George Coleman, Frank Strozier, and Hank Crawford.  In the mid '50s he moved to LosAngeles where he attended the University of Southern California, where he majored in composition. He spent 6 years at the university, where he met Harold Land. Eric Dolphy, Buddy Collette, and Ornette Coleman.  During this period he also played alto and flute with small groups and in Gerald Wilson's big band.  In 1961 he joined Chico Hamilton's group, of which he eventually became the manager and principal arranger.  After taking up the tenor sax in 1962 he joined Cannonball Adderley's sextet, and in 1964 recorded two albums with his own group.  In 1966 he formed a new group with Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee, and Jack DeJohnette.  This group remained in existance for three years, during which it achieved great  success at festivals in this  country and in Europe.  The group also became popular with rock audiences.  By 1969 Jarrett and DeJohnette had left the group, and Lloyd became less active and his music less inspired, and during the 1970s he had few engagements.  Lloyd's playing evoked strong reactions from his listeners; he was acclaimed as a pioneer by some and denounced as a charlatan by others.  In fact he was neither.  In his best work he was a powerful improviser, but one whose style was largely from that of John Coltrane.  His importance lies in his having brought innovation of  free jazz to a wide audience.

Bob Wilbur, Bandleader, 1928, New York, NY

 

 

March 2010

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