#don grusin

[anamon-book]

スイングジャーナル 1981年11月号 スイング・ジャーナル社 表紙：中本マリ & ドン・グルーシン（写真＝Yoshi Ohara）

[dongrusin]

DG Playing in Europe soon!

Upcoming gigs:

POINT of DEPARTURE BAND 

led by Sax-Great Peter Weniger

Don Grusin - Keys,  Hanno Busch - Guitar,  Claus Fischer - Bass,   Jonas Burgwinkel  - Drums

June 12 - Jazz-Fabrik in Rüsselsheim, Germany 

June 13 - Redhorn District in Bad Meinberg, Germany

Heading over to London  June 18th REUNION CONCERT  with old friend Bill Sharpe of Shakatak

BILL and DON’S REUNION JAM at JENNIE’S

click on link for reservations:

https://www.wegottickets.com/sct/vWhpV4EmJS

Back to Berlin to play with Point of Departure Band

June 20-21 - A-Trane in Berlin

June 23 - Jazz Baltica in Timmerdorf

June 24 - A-Trane in Berlin with Patrice Heral on drums

On to Switzerland with brother Dave

Dave & Don Grusin  - 2 pianos

July 12 - Festival Da Jazz,  St. Moritz, Switzerland

[dongrusin]

Shanghai, China

Very excited to finally come to visit Shanghai next week and spend some time with my fellow musicians, producers, record company colleagues!

[dongrusin]

Jazz on 2nd Ave, Niwot

Hey, come and hang with us on September 17th for some very OUT jazz featuring drummer Mike Marlier, bassist Bijoux Barbosa, and Sax, Flute and Whistle champ Nelson Rangell.

www.jazzon2ndave

[dongrusin]

Happy Holidays! 

Here’s my view, looking out from music room high up in the Rockies.

I’m starting to get my MOUNTAIN MAN chops together!!

[blewnotes]

Jazziversaries April 22nd

Bull Moose Jackson  (tenor) 1919 -1989:: Benjamin Clarence "Bull Moose" Jackson was an American blues and rhythm and blues singer and saxophonist, who was most successful in the late 1940s.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, he learned to play the saxophone and started his first band, The Harlem Hotshots, while he was still in high school. In 1943, he was recruited as a saxophonist by bandleader Lucky Millinder, and the musicians in Millinder's band gave him the nickname "Bull Moose" for his appearance. He began singing when required to stand in for Wynonie Harris at a show in Texas.

Millinder encouraged Jackson to sign a solo contract with Syd Nathan of King Records to play rhythm and blues. He first recorded in his own right in 1946, with "I Know Who Threw the Whiskey", an answer song to Millinder's "Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well". The following year, his recording of "I Love You, Yes I Do" reputedly became the first R&B single to sell a million copies, holding the #1 spot on the R&B chart for three weeks and crossing over to the pop chart, where it made #24.

He formed his own group, The Buffalo Bearcats, and over the next five years recorded in a wide variety of musical styles, including both romantic crooning and bawdy jump blues. Other big hits in 1948 included the double-sided hit "All My Love Belongs to You" / "I Want a Bowlegged Woman", and his biggest R&B chart hit, "I Can't Go On Without You", which stayed at # 1 on the R&B chart for eight weeks. He also made an appearance in the 1948 film, Boarding House Blues, with Millinder.

Jackson toured throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s. Around 1951, his band included bebop composer and arranger Tadd Dameron on piano, and another jazz musician, Benny Golson, on saxophone.

Some of Jackson's later risqué material, including "Big Ten Inch Record" (later covered by Aerosmith on Toys in the Attic) and "Nosey Joe" (written by Leiber and Stoller), both from 1952, were too suggestive for airplay, but remained popular.

Jackson continued to record until the mid-1950s, but as musical tastes changed began working for a catering firm in Washington, D.C. In 1961 he re-recorded and had a minor hit with "I Love You, Yes I Do".

Charles Mingus (bass, acoustic) 1922-1979 :: was a highly influential American jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader. Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third Stream, free jazz, and classical music. Yet Mingus avoided categorization, forging his own brand of music that fused tradition with unique and unexplored realms of jazz. He once cited Duke Ellington and church as his main influences.

Mingus focused on collective improvisation, similar to the old New Orleans jazz parades, paying particular attention to how each band member interacted with the group as a whole. In creating his bands, Mingus looked not only at the skills of the available musicians, but also their personalities. Many musicians passed through his bands and later went on to impressive careers. He recruited talented and sometimes little-known artists whom he assembled into unconventional and revealing configurations. As a performer, Mingus was a pioneer in double bass technique, widely recognized as one of the instrument's most proficient players.

Nearly as well known as his ambitious music was Mingus' often fearsome temperament, which earned him the nickname "The Angry Man of Jazz". His refusal to compromise his musical integrity led to many on-stage eruptions, exhortations to musicians, and dismissals. Because of his brilliant writing for mid-size ensembles, and his catering to and emphasizing the strengths of the musicians in his groups, Mingus is often considered the heir of Duke Ellington, for whom he expressed great admiration. Indeed, Dizzy Gillespie had once claimed Mingus reminded him "of a young Duke", citing their shared "organizational genius".

Mingus' music was once believed to be too difficult to play without Mingus' leadership. However, many musicians play Mingus compositions today, from the repertory bands Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty, and Mingus Orchestra, to the high school students who play the charts and compete in the Charles Mingus High School Competition.

Gunther Schuller has suggested that Mingus should be ranked among the most important American composers, jazz or otherwise. In 1988, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts made possible the cataloging of Mingus compositions, which were then donated to the Music Division of the New York Public Library for public use. In 1993, The Library of Congress acquired Mingus's collected papers—including scores, sound recordings, correspondence and photos—in what they described as "the most important acquisition of a manuscript collection relating to jazz in the Library's history".

Don Menza   (saxophone) 1936 :: Birthday wishes to saxophonist Don Menza. Don is an American saxophonist, arranger, composer, session musician, and jazz educator noted for his many contributions to American jazz and big band music.

He studied saxophone with musician and teacher John Sedola. After serving in the U. S. Army, he worked with Maynard Ferguson's Orchestra (1960–1962) as both a soloist and an arranger. A short tenure with Stan Kenton and a year leading a quintet in Buffalo preceded a period living in Germany (1964–1968). Later, he returned to the United States and joined Buddy Rich's 1968 big band in the "jazz tenor" chair, recording the famous solo cadenza on "Channel One Suite" (Recorded "live" at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas) that utilized circular breathing and has become known as a classic among music educators and musicians alike. In the late 1960s, he settled in California and performed in the bands of Elvin Jones (1969) and Louie Bellson. Other artists with which Menza has recorded include Keely Smith, Cold Blood, Natalie Cole, Pat Boone, and Leonard Cohen.

Joe Cuba (composer/conductor/bandleader) 1931-2009 :: Joe Cuba a.k.a "Sonny" was an American musician of Puerto Rican descent who was known as the "Father of Latin Boogaloo".

In 1950, when he was 19 years old, he played for J. Panama and also for a group called La Alfarona X. The group soon disbanded and Cuba enrolled in college to study law. While at college he attended a concert in which Tito Puente performed "Abaniquito". He went up to Tito and introduced himself as a student and fan and soon they developed what was to become a lifetime friendship. This event motivated Cuba to organize his own band. In 1954, his agent recommended that he change the band's name from the Jose Calderon Sextet to the Joe Cuba Sextet and the newly named Joe Cuba Sextet made their debut at the Stardust Ballroom.

In 1962, Cuba recorded his first album with the Joe Cuba Sextet, called "To Be With You" featuring the impressive vocals of Cheo Feliciano and Jimmy Sabater Sr. The band became popular in the New York Latin community. The lyrics to Cuba's music used a mixture of Spanish and English, becoming an important part of the Nuyorican Movement.

In 1965, the Sextet got their first crossover hit with the Latin and soul fusion of "El Pito (I'll Never Go Back to Georgia)" . The "Never Go Back to Georgia" chant was taken from Dizzy Gillespie's intro to the seminal Afro-Cuban tune, "Manteca." Sabater later revealed that "none of us had ever been to Georgia.

Along with fellow Nuyorican artists such as Ray Barretto and Richie Ray, Cuba was at the forefront of the developing Latin soul sound in New York, merging American R&B styles with Afro-Cuban instrumentation. Cuba was one of the key architects behind the emerging Latin Boogaloo sound, which became a popular and influential Latin style in the latter half of the 1960s. In 1966, his band which included timbales, congas, sometimes bongos, bass, vibraphones, and the piano among its musical instruments, scored a "hit" in the United States National Hit Parade List with the song "Bang Bang" - which helped kick off the popularity of the boogaloo. He also had a No. 1 hit, that year in the Billboards with the song "Sock It To Me Baby". Charlie Palmieri, who was his musical director, died in 1988 of a heart attack upon his arrival to New York from Puerto Rico.

Paul Chambers (bass, acoustic) 1935-1969 :: Paul Chambers was a jazz double bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, his importance in the development of jazz bass can be measured not only by the length and breadth of his work in this short period but also his impeccable time, intonation, and virtuosic improvisations.

Jazz bass players were largely limited to timekeeping with drums, until Duke Ellington's bassist Jimmy Blanton began a transformation in the instrument's role at the end of the 1930s. Chambers was about 15 when he started to listen to Charlie Parker and Bud Powell, his first jazz influences. Oscar Pettiford and Ray Brown were the first bassists he admired, and these were followed by Percy Heath, Milt Hinton and Wendell Marshall for their rhythm section work, and Charles Mingus and George Duvivier for their technical prowess and for their efforts in broadening the scope of jazz bass. Blanton was his all-time favorite. Playing his first gig at one of the little bars in the Hastings Street area, he was soon doing club jobs with Thad Jones, Barry Harris and others.

From 1954 on through 1955, he gained significance touring with such musicians as Bennie Green, Quinichette, George Wallington, J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding. In 1955 he joined the Miles Davis quintet, staying on with the group until 1963 and appearing on many classic albums, including Kind of Blue. One of Chambers's most noted performances was on that album's first track, "So What", which opens with a brief duet featuring Chambers and pianist Bill Evans. The sessions for Kind of Blue were difficult for all of the musicians, working to the peak of their musical abilities. Chambers' playing on Kind of Blue are considered some of the most patient and thought out bass lines in the history of jazz.

From his role in the Davis band, Chambers was the bassist in two rhythm sections. The first, with Red Garland on piano and Philly Joe Jones on drums, came to be known as "the rhythm section," that name featured on a celebrated album by saxophonist Art Pepper, Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section. The second, with Wynton Kelly and Jimmy Cobb, made many sessions as a unit, recording albums with John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, and by themselves under Kelly's name in albums such as Kelly Blue. From 1963 until 1968 Chambers played with the Wynton Kelly trio. He freelanced frequently as a sideman for other important names in jazz throughout his career. During the course of his lifetime Paul Chambers developed addictions to both alcohol and heroin. On January 4, 1969 he died of tuberculosis aged 33.

Don Grusin (piano) 1941 :: Many happy returns to Don Grusin. Don Grusin truly epitomizes the term visionary.  Artist, innovator, educator, performer and advocate for social change, Don Grusin Music and Bad Dog Music are the production houses and publishing entities for this esteemed American composer, producer, arranger and pianist with 3 Grammy’s, 20 CD’s and an unstoppable global vision that infuses everything he does from recording to teaching.

Don was the creative sparkplug for the acclaimed Atlantic Records fusion ensemble Friendship, and from there proceeded to record and produce scores of albums over the course of the next 35 years – including 20 of his own – as well as composing for and producing Ernie Watts’ Grammy-winning Quest CD, Musican. He has had four recording homes over the years – GRP out of NYC, VideoArtsMusic in Tokyo, JVC for Japan and Asia and CareMusicGroup in Germany.

Since 1975 Don has been intrinsically involved with the music of Brazil and Latin America, one of his great passions. He travelled to Bogota, Colombia, with Pete Escovedo’s Latin Jazz band, Azteca (including Pete’s daughter, the percussion virtuoso Shiela E.).  That trip enabled him to listen to an amazing array of new artists, and set him on a path to play and record with many players and singers from all over Latin America.

As Brazilian music resonates so much with Don, he has recorded many projects there – producing the album Vicios with Simone in 1985. His long association with Dori Caymmi on many of his albums planted seeds that are creating projects with new-on-the-scene singer-guitarists Totonho Villeroy, Luis Brasil and Renato Braz, and they are currently completing music for a CD in Rio which will include guest singers Milton Nascimento, Ivan Lins, Leila Pinheiro and Ana Carolina.

Most recently, Don completed a musical collaboration with Bill Sharpe of the great Shakatak band in the UK.  Entitled Trans Atlántica, the CD is a musical travelogue – a collection of tracks produced and energized by two years of visiting one another’s studios from LA to the UK to Boulder, and sending ideas and files back and forth over the Internet.  It features players and singers including Charlie Bisharat, Elvis du Chez, Ashley Maher, and Derek Nash. The CD was mastered by multiple Grammy-winner Roger Nichols (Steely Dan).

Hey all you April 22nd Jazzlings trust you are going to have a brilliant day today, fill iut with laughter and have the hppiest year ahead you can!

Thanks to AAJ & JBC for the guidance!

Respect to the YouTube massive for the uploads without which this would be one dry blog!

Hugs cuddles and shoulder bumps with the blog followers a.k.a the Inspiration Crew. cos thats what they do!

And thanks to YOU for just passin' thru'

Walk tall

Speak Low

Go placidly

Geo