Blind Willie McTell (guitar 12-string) 1898-1959 :: was a Piedmont and ragtime blues singer and guitarist. He played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique, common among many exponents of Piedmont blues, although, unlike his contemporaries, he came to use twelve-string guitars exclusively. McTell was also an adept slide guitarist, unusual among ragtime bluesmen. His vocal style, a smooth and often laid-back tenor, differed greatly from many of the harsher voice types employed by Delta bluesmen, such as Charley Patton. McTell embodied a variety of musical styles, including blues, ragtime, religious music and hokum.
Born blind in the town of Thomson, Georgia, McTell learned how to play guitar in his early teens. He soon became a street performer around several Georgia cities including Atlanta and Augusta, and first recorded in 1927 for Victor Records. Although he never produced a major hit record, McTell's recording career was prolific, recording for different labels under different names throughout the 1920s and 30s. In 1940, he was recorded by John Lomax for the Library of Congress's folk song archive. He would remain active throughout the 1940s and 50s, playing on the streets of Atlanta, often with his longtime associate, Curley Weaver. Twice more he recorded professionally. McTell's last recordings originated during an impromptu session recorded by an Atlanta record store owner in 1956.
Despite his mainly failed releases, McTell was one of the few archaic blues musicians that would actively play and record during the 1940s and 50s. However, McTell never lived to be "rediscovered" during the imminent American folk music revival, as many other bluesmen would.
McTell's influence extended over a wide variety of artists, including The Allman Brothers Band, who famously covered McTell's "Statesboro Blues", and Bob Dylan, who paid tribute to McTell in his 1983 song "Blind Willie McTell"; the refrain of which is, "And I know no one can sing the blues, like Blind Willie McTell". Other artists influenced by McTell include Taj Mahal, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Ralph McTell, Chris Smither and The White Stripes.
J.B. Lenoir (guitar) 1929-1967 :: was an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter, active in the 1950s and 1960s Chicago blues scene. Although his name is sometimes mispronounced like the French "lan WAH", Lenoir himself pronounced his name a "la NOR". The initials "J.B." had no specific meaning; his given name was simply "J.B.
Lenoir's guitar-playing father introduced him to the music of Blind Lemon Jefferson, whose music became a major influence. During the early 1940s, Lenoir worked with blues artists Sonny Boy Williamson II and Elmore James in New Orleans. Lenoir would eventually find musical influence in Arthur Crudup and Lightnin' Hopkins.
In 1949, he moved to Chicago and Big Bill Broonzy helped introduce him to the local blues community. He began to perform at local nightclubs with musicians such as Memphis Minnie, Big Maceo Merriweather, and Muddy Waters, and became an important part of the city's blues scene. He began recording in 1951 the J.O.B. and Chess Records labels. His recording of "Korea Blues" was licensed to and released by Chess,as having been performed by 'J. B. and his Bayou Boys'. His band included pianist Sunnyland Slim, guitarist Leroy Foster, and drummer Alfred Wallace.
During the 1950s Lenoir recorded on various record labels in the Chicago area including J.O.B., Chess, Parrot, and Checker. His more successful songs included "Let's Roll", "The Mojo" featuring saxophonist J. T. Brown, and the controversial "Eisenhower Blues" which his record company, Parrot, forced him to re-record as "Tax Paying Blues."
Lenoir was known in the 1950s for his showmanship - in particular his zebra-patterned costumes - and his high-pitched vocals. He became an influential electric guitarist and songwriter, and his penchant for social commentary distinguished him from many other bluesmen of the time. His most commercially successful and enduring release was "Mamma Talk To Your Daughter", recorded for Parrot in 1954 which reached #11 on the Billboard R&B chart and was later recorded by many other blues and rock musicians. In the later 1950s (recording on the Checker label), he wrote several more blues standards including; "Don't Dog Your Woman", and "Don't Touch My Head!!!" (1956).
In 1963, Lenoir recorded for USA Records as 'J. B. Lenoir and his African Hunch Rhythm', developing an interest in African percussion. However, he struggled to work as a professional musician and for a time took menial jobs, including working in the kitchen at the University of Illinois in Champaign. Lenoir was rediscovered by Willie Dixon, who recorded him with drummer Fred Below on the albums Alabama Blues and Down In Mississippi (inspired by the Civil Rights and Free Speech movements). Lenoir toured Europe, and performed in 1965 with the American Folk Blues Festival in the United Kingdom.
Jack Walrath (trumpet) 1946 :: Birthday greetings to tumpet player Jack Walrath. Jack is an American post-bop jazz trumpeter and musical arranger known for his work with Ray Charles, Gary Peacock, Charles Mingus and Glenn Ferris, among others.
In 1969 Walrath relocated to the West Coast and found work in Los Angeles’ jazz scene. Soon he was a member of the band Revival, with trombonist Glenn Ferris, and the West Coast Motown Orchestra. An opportunity soon arose to work with the legendary Ray Charles, with whom Walrath did one tour of the United States. By 1970 the openings for jazz musicians in Los Angeles began to dry up, and Walrath relocated again to New York City.
Walrath spent the next several years working with mainstream and Latin jazz bands. In 1974 Walrath was working in the band of saxophonist Paul Jeffrey when the leader introduced him to bassist Charles Mingus, a pioneer of bebop and post-bop jazz who was experiencing a career resurgence. Baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett had recently left Mingus’ band, and Walrath was eager to fill the opening. He joined tenor saxophonist George Adams, pianist Don Pullen and drummer Dannie Richmond in the quintet, which was acclaimed as one of Mingus’ finest ensembles and broke new ground by leaning towards free jazz and non-chordal improvisations. Aside from Richmond, who had worked with Mingus off and on since the 1950s, Walrath enjoyed the longest unbroken tenure of any Mingus sideman. He made music with the bassist up until Mingus’ death in 1979. The primary albums of interest from Walrath’s tenure with Mingus are Changes One and Changes Two, both recorded for Atlantic Records in 1974. The latter album features Walrath’s composition “Black Bats and Poles” (originally entitled “Rats and Moles” until Mingus decided it needed a darker name). Walrath has extended the Mingus legacy through his work with Mingus Dynasty, a mid-sized tribute band, and the Charles Mingus Big Band coordinated by Mingus’ widow, Sue Graham Mingus.
Walrath has been a sideman for Muhal Richard Abrams, Ricky Ford, Sam Rivers, Joe Morello, Miles Davis, Quincy Jones, Ray Anderson, Craig Harris, Pete LaRoca, Mike Longo, Elvis Costello, Larry Willis, George Gruntz, Gunther Schuller, Hal Galper, Bobby Watson, Richie Cole and others. He has worked with the WDR Big Band, the Jazz Tribe and the Charli Persip Superband. Walrath's appeal was summed up by reviewer David Grogan: "Like Mingus, Walrath delights in rich melodic nuances and colors, with blue notes stretched amid bursts of rhythmic energy."
Ensembles under Walrath’s own leadership have included The Jack Walrath Group, Wholly Trinity, Hard Corps, The Masters of Suspense, and The Jack Walrath Quintet. In 1987 Walrath received a Grammy nomination for a cover of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" (on the album Master of Suspense) featuring Willie Nelson. His compositions have been performed and recorded by Hamiet Bluiett, Red Rodney, Larry Willis, Mike Clark, Cecil Brooks III, Ray Mantilla, Hank Jones, Zé Eduardo, and the Manhattan New Music Project. His television scores include Homicide: Life on the Streets.
Johnnie Taylor (vocal) 1938-2000 :: was an American vocalist in a wide variety of genres, from rhythm and blues, soul, blues and gospel to pop, doo-wop and disco.
As a teenager, Johnnie had one release, "Somewhere to Lay My Head", on Chicago's Chance Records label in the 1950s, as part of the gospel group Highway QCs, which had been founded by a young Sam Cooke. His singing was strikingly close to that of Sam Cooke, and he was hired to take Cooke's place in the latter's gospel group, the Soul Stirrers, in 1957.
A few years later, after Cooke had established his independent SAR Records, Taylor signed on as one of the label's first acts and recorded "Rome Wasn't Built In A Day" in 1962. However, SAR Records quickly became defunct after Cooke's death in 1964.
In 1966, Taylor moved to Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was dubbed "The Philosopher of Soul". Whilst there he recorded with the label's house band, Booker T. & the MGs. His hits included "I Had a Dream", "I've Got to Love Somebody's Baby" (both written by the team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter) and most notably "Who's Making Love", which reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 1 on the R&B chart in 1968. "Who's Making Love" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.
During his tenure at Stax, he became an R&B star, with over a dozen chart successes, such as "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone", which reached No. 23 on the Hot 100 chart, "Cheaper to Keep Her" (Mack Rice) and record producer Don Davis's penned "I Believe in You (You Believe in Me)", which reached No. 11 on the Hot 100 chart. "I Believe in You (You Believe in Me)" also sold in excess of one million units, and was awarded gold disc status by the R.I.A.A. in October 1973. Taylor, along with Isaac Hayes and The Staple Singers was one of the label's flagship artists. He appeared in the documentary film, Wattstax, which was released in 1973.
After Stax folded in the mid 1970s, Taylor switched to Columbia Records, where he made his best known hit, "Disco Lady", in 1976. It spent four weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and six weeks on the Billboard R&B chart in the U.S. It peaked at #25 in the UK Singles Chart in May 1976. "Disco Lady" was the first certified platinum single (two million copies sold) by the RIAA.
After a brief stint at Beverly Glen Records, Taylor signed with Malaco Records after the label's founder Tommy Couch and producing partner Wolf Stephenson heard him sing at blues singer Z. Z. Hill's funeral in the spring of 1984.
Backed by members of The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section as well as in-house veterans like former Stax keyboardist Carson Whitsett and guitarist/bandleader Bernard Jenkins, Malaco gave Taylor the type of recording freedom that Stax had given him in the late 1960s and early 1970s, enabling him to record ten albums for the label in his sixteen-year stint.
In 1996, Taylor's eighth album for Malaco, Good Love!, reached number one on the Billboard Top Blues Albums chart (#15 R&B), and was the biggest record in Malaco's history.
Taylor's final song was "Soul Heaven", in which he dreamed of being at a concert featuring deceased soul music icons Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, and MGs drummer Al Jackson, Jr., among others. In one verse, Taylor sang, "I didn't want to wake up/I was havin' such a good time".
Kidd Jordan (saxophone) 1935 :: Many happy returns to Kidd Jordan. Kidd is an American jazz saxophonist and music educator from New Orleans, Louisiana.
After completing a music degree at Southern University in Baton Rouge, he relocated to New Orleans. He taught at Southern University at New Orleans from 1974 to 2006.
Jordan's first instruments were C-melody and alto saxophones. While in high school, Jordan began performing "stock arrangements for three or four saxophones" with some older musicians, and immersed himself in the music of Charlie Parker. Jordan read transcribed solos in Down Beat magazine but also learned Parker's music by ear. He credits tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet with first giving him the idea of playing free improvisation, but was more profoundly affected by the free jazz of Ornette Coleman (who had previously performed in the area with blues bands).
Jordan majored in music education at Southern University, attending the school at the same time as Alvin Batiste (his brother-in-law). He moved to New Orleans in 1955, and began playing frequent R&B gigs with musicians such as Guitar Slim, Ray Charles, Big Maybelle, Big Joe Turner, Chuck Willis (with George Adams on baritone) and Choker Campbell. Jordan has described these gigs as being "satisfying for me, because there was a feeling that you'd get from dealing with that. I've played with some of the great female vocalists, from Gladys Knight to Aretha Franklin, or Big Maybelle, Little Esther, Lena Horne, and there's an aesthetic in dealing with those people that a whole lot of people don't get to. And the aesthetic from the Blues is a part of the thing that I want to have in my playing. I don't care how out it gets."
Jordan performs on tenor, baritone, soprano, alto, C-melody and sopranino saxophones, as well as contrabass and bass clarinets. He has performed and recorded with a wide selection of musicians in styles ranging from R&B to avant-garde jazz, including Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, William Parker, Alvin Fielder, Archie Shepp, Fred Anderson, Ornette Coleman, Ellis Marsalis, Cannonball Adderley, Ed Blackwell, and Cecil Taylor. In 2008 he was awarded a lifetime recognition honor by the Vision Festival.
In his performances and recordings his music is entirely improvised: "Everything you hear on my albums is improvised." he explains. "It's collective improvisation, but there are no tunes. I tried writing down ideas a long time ago but I don't do that anymore.".
The French Ministry of Culture recognized Jordan as a Knight (Chevalier) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1985. The French government bestowed him with their highest artistic award for his impetus as a visionary educator and performer.
Stanley Cowell (piano) 1941 :: Birthday shout out to Stanley Cowell! Stanley is an American jazz pianist and founder of the Strata-East Records label. Stanley Cowell, who has been described as "the intellectual pianist", is a classically trained musician who was a featured soloist for the Toledo Youth Orchestra at 15.
He played with Roland Kirk while studying at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and later with Marion Brown, Max Roach, Bobby Hutcherson, Clifford Jordan, Harold Land, Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz. Cowell played with trumpeter Charles Moore and others in the Detroit Artist's Workshop Jazz Ensemble in 1965-66.
Stanley went on to work with, amongst others, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Bobby Hutcherson and Charles Tolliver; with whom he founded Strata-East Records in the early seventies. The label that released Gil Scott Herons classic 1974 album "Winter in America" from which came the hit single "The Bottle".
During the late 1980s Cowell was part of a regular quartet led by J.J. Johnson.
Cowell teaches in the Music Department of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
Happy birthday to all May 5th Jazzlings! Heree's wishing you all a great day and an awesome year ahead!
Thanks as always to AAJ & JBC for the guidance.
Respect to the YouTube Massive for the amazing uploads.
Hugs, cuddles and shouler bumps with the Inspiration Crew! Thank you for following people!
And thanks to YOU for jus' passin' thru'
