#david schnitter

[jazzplusplus]

1979 - Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Sankei Hall - Tokyo

Valery Ponomarev (tp), Bobby Watson (as), David Schnitter (ts), James Williams (p), Dennis Irwin (b), Art Blakey (dr)

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"Two for the Road" by David Schnitter, Yaniv Taubenhouse, Jorge Rossy, Masa Kamaguchi https://ift.tt/kTSy1RQ

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[blewnotes]

Jzziversaries March 19th

Dave Schnitter (saxophone) - 1948 :: Happy birthday to David Schnitter. David is an American hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist.

Schnitter played clarinet as a youth and switched to tenor sax at age 15. After moving to New York City he played with Ted Dunbar and then became a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers from 1974 to 1979. He played with Freddie Hubbard from 1979 to 1981 and also worked with Frank Foster, Charles Earland, and Groove Holmes. He recorded for Muse Records from 1976 to 1981, but has receded from the limelight since.

Eliane Elias (piano) - 1960 :: Birthday wishes to pianist Eliane. Eliane is a Brazilian jazz pianist, arranger, vocalist and songwriter.

She joined Brazilian singer/guitarist/songwriter Toquinho and poet/entertainer Vinicius de Moraes when she was 17 years old, with whom she made concert tours for three years, mainly through South America.

On a tour in Europe in 1981, she met jazz bassist Eddie Gomez and was encouraged to travel to New York. After moving there, she was invited to join Steps Ahead, and recorded one album with the group in 1983. After leaving Steps Ahead, she worked with trumpet player Randy Brecker, whom she subsequently married. They recorded an album named after their daughter, "Amanda". In 1988 she was elected as "Best New Talent" by the JAZZIZ magazine poll of jazz critics.

She has recorded several notable albums, including one featuring duets with Herbie Hancock. Their 1995 disc "Solos and Duets" was nominated for a Grammy in the "Jazz instrumental video" category. In 1997, American musician Bob Brookmeyer dedicated a full album to his arrangements of Eliane's compositions, backed by the Danish Jazz Orchestra and published under the name of "Impulsive!", which received another Grammy nomination as "Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album" in 2001.

Elias was one of the featured artists in the Latin jazz documentary, Calle 54, released in 2000. In 2002 she made her first appearance on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz radio program (and another in 2008). She is married to bassist Marc Johnson, with whom she has produced several albums including the ECM Records release titled Shades of Jade which features Eliane's writing and pianism. This recording won the Best Foreign Release Award in Denmark in 2006 and was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the five best Fall releases in 2005.

Lennie Tristano (piano) - 1919-1978 :: was a jazz pianist, composer and teacher of jazz improvisation. He performed in the cool jazz, bebop, post bop and avant-garde jazz genres. He remains a somewhat overlooked figure in jazz history, but his enormous originality and dazzling work as an improviser have long been appreciated by knowledgeable jazz fans. In addition, his work as a jazz educator meant that he has exerted a substantial influence on jazz through figures such as Lee Konitz and Bill Evans.

Among Tristano's most important earlier recordings was a 1949 sextet session with his students, saxophone players Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh. After recording a number of conventionally structured compositions, Tristano had the group record "Intuition" and "Digression." Both pieces were completely improvised, with no prearranged melody, harmony or rhythm. These two songs are often cited as the first recorded examples of free jazz or free improvisation.

His 1953 recording "Descent into the Maelstrom" is especially significant: an experiment in overdubbing which in its harsh atonality anticipates the much later work of players like Cecil Taylor and Borah Bergman (who has specifically mentioned the piece as an important influence on his work).

Tristano released two important albums on Atlantic Records, which remain his best-known work. Lennie Tristano, from 1955, is famous for including innovative experiments with overdubbing ("Requiem" and "Turkish Mambo") and altered tape-speed ("Line Up" and "East 32nd"). The second side is a straightforward club gig in the company of Lee Konitz. "Requiem," a tribute to the late Charlie Parker, is notable for its deep blues feeling – a style not usually associated with Tristano. However, perhaps the most significant work lies in the composition "Line Up", a spiralling linear improvisation based on the changes to "All of Me".

The New Tristano (1962) remains a landmark in solo jazz piano. Though on this occasion no overdubbing was used, the music is just as densely conceived, especially the classic "G Minor Complex," an improvisation on the changes of "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To". Tristano's mimicking of a jazz bassist's accompaniment with his left hand on these recordings is distinctive and often imitated. The combination of this line with the dazzling line-spinning of his right hand also gives the music a contrapuntal flavour explicitly paying homage to Bach.

Tristano's distrust of jazz record labels and increasingly infrequent public performances meant that his recordings are comparatively scarce, and many of them are concert recordings of very variable fidelity. Some of his live performances were recorded and have been released, including those from the Half Note Club in New York from the 1950s, and concerts in Europe from the 1960s. He was one of the first musicians to start his own record label, Jazz Records, which is still in existence and is run by his daughter, the drummer Carol Tristano. The label Inner City released a compilation of various Tristano recordings, Descent into the Maelstrom.

In 2013 Tristano will be honored with induction into the Grammy Hall of Fame for the 1949 album Crosscurrents.

Mike Longo (piano) - 1939 :: Birthday greetings to pianist Mike Longo. Mike is a jazz pianist, composer, and author. He is most known for his work with Dizzy Gillespie.

Mike's career started in his father's band, but later Julian Cannonball Adderley helped him get gigs of his own. Their working relationship began before Adderley was well known as a band leader. Adderley approached the teenaged Longo because he needed a pianist at his church. At this time the town was largely segregated so the white Mike Longo playing at a black church was unusual. When this led to recordings with Adderley in the mid-1950s, Longo was initially too young to go to the clubs with him. Still in 10th grade, one of the places Longo played was Porky's, which was later portrayed in the movie of the same name.

The great Dizzy Gillespie first heard Longo when he was playing at The Metropole. "I was playing downstairs with Red Allen, and Dizzy was playing upstairs with his band. So every time he wanted to go outside for a break, he had to come down the stairs and pass us on the way out. There was a joint across the street called the Copper Rail, which was a soul food restaurant and a bar where the musicians from the Metropole would all hang out. Soon I learned Dizzy mentioned me in an interview in International Musician, the musician union’s magazine, when he was asked about any promising young musicians he heard"

In the 1960s Longo began to lead the Mike Longo Trio, which would remain active for the next 42 years. Gillespie was playing at the Metropole again and Longo, depressed after divorcing his first wife, had just gotten a gig at Embers West playing with Roy Eldridge. Eldridge brought Gillespie to see Longo playing with Paul Chambers. Gillespie hired Longo the next day.[1] Longo eventually became musical director for the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet and later Gillespie chose him to be the pianist for the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Band. From 1966 onward his music career would be strongly linked to that of Gillespie's.

Longo performs at weekly jazz sessions held at the New York City Bahá'í center in honor of Gillespie, a tradition he helped start. Longo's big band, the New York State of the Art Jazz Ensemble, plays at the center intermittently and provides upcoming musicians a chance to learn on stage and the audience receives a jazz experience at reasonable cost. A big part of Mike Longo's mission is to reestablish the apprenticeship relationship in teaching jazz. He says "I know jazz education is an important thing and I know that the field means well, but there seems to be a trend in that field to teach jazz where people are actually copying off recordings instead of actually learning to play jazz. The apprenticeship aspect of jazz has always been the way it has evolved."

Clarence "Frogman" Henry (piano)- 1937 :: Many happy returns to Clarence Henry. Clarence is an American rhythm and blues singer and pianist.

Fats Domino and Professor Longhair were young Henry's main influences while growing up. When Henry played in talent shows, he dressed like Longhair and wore a wig with braids on both sides.

His trademark croak, utilized to the maximum on his 1956 debut hit "Ain't Got No Home," earned Henry his nickname and jump-started a career that endures to this day. "(I Don't Know Why) But I Do" and "You Always Hurt the One You Love", both from 1961, were his other big hits.

Henry opened eighteen concerts for the Beatles across the US and Canada in 1964, but his main source of income came from the Bourbon Street strip in New Orleans, where he played for nineteen years. His name could still draw hordes of tourists long after his hit-making days had ended.

Henry's pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In April 2007, "Frogman" was honored for his contributions to Louisiana music with induction into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

Curly Russell (Bass) - 1917-1986 :: Dillon "Curley" Russell was an American jazz double-bassist, who played bass on many bebop recordings.

A member of the Tadd Dameron Sextet, in his heyday he was in demand for his ability to play at the rapid tempos typical of bebop, and appears on several key recordings of the period. He left the music business in the late 1950s.

According to jazz historian Phil Schaap the classic bebop tune "Donna Lee", a contrafact on "Back Home Again In Indiana", was named after Curley's daughter.

Lem Winchester (vibraphone)- 1928-1961  :: Lem Winchester had great potential as a vibraphonist but it was all cut short by a tragic accident. Influenced by Milt Jackson but developing a sound of his own, Winchester actually played tenor, baritone, and piano before choosing to stick exclusively to vibes. A police officer in Wilmington, Delaware, he made a big impression at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival and was soon recording regularly with such major players as Oliver Nelson, Benny Golson, and Tommy Flanagan. Winchester resigned from the police force in 1960 to be a musician full-time, but then on January 13, 1961, he unsuccessfully demonstrated a trick with a revolver.

Just for a moment there I thought it was going to be an all piano day! The magic of the day showing up again, you know my theory 'bout that!

Hey, if you're celebrating your birthday today then make the day your own as best you can and set it as the blueprint for your year to come!

As always we say thanks to All About Jazz & the Jazz Birthday Calendar for the guidance

Special shout out to AllMusic and Scott Yanow for the Lem Winchester bio! Thank you people

Respect to the YouTube Massive for the uploads. Amazing work as always.

Hugs, cuddles, peace and love to all the blogs followers, thanks you for being there.

And thanks to YOU for passin' thru'

Walk Tall

Speak low

Go placidly

Geo