#lew soloff

[jazzplusplus]

1983 - Miles Davis Septet and the Gil Evans Orchestra - Yomiuriland Open Theater East - Tokyo

Miles Davis (tp), Bill Evans (sax), John Scofield (g), Mike Stern (g), Tom Barney (b), Al Foster (dr), Mino Cinelu (perc)

Gil Evans (dir, kbd), Lew Soloff (tp), Miles Evans (tp), Tom Malone (tb), David Sanborn (as), Peter Levin (synth), Hiram Bullock (g), ...

[rainingmusic]

Blood Sweat and Tears - You've Made Me So Very Happy

[mosaicrecords]

Fred Lipsius: A Musical Genius?

The word genius is certainly thrown around too easily. But Fred Lipsius is an excellent alto saxophonist. Along with Randy Brecker (and later Lew Soloff) he was the true jazz voice in Blood, Sweat & Tears. This article in Patch.com fills in the rest of his career. Like other musicians who tour with crossover bands or make their living in the studio world, Lipsius’s jazz abilities has gone largely unnoticed.

-Michael Cuscuna

Read from the Boston MA Patch… Follow: Mosaic Records Facebook Tumblr Twitter

[rainingmusic]

Blood, Sweat, and Tears - Go Down Gamblin'

[simonwest369]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTrLU88HCNE)

[onett199x]

Carla Bley | The Carla Bley Big Band Goes To Church

I did want to hear more of Carla Bley’s music, but I hadn’t counted on finding a second one of her albums almost immediately at the bookstore.  This was less than $2.50!  

I think this album is also a lot more indicative of the kind of music to expect from Carla Bley, or at the very least it’s much more straightforward of a big band recording than Escalator Over The Hill was.  This is actually a live recording, and I think that leads to one of my few complaints about this album - the quiet parts are too quiet and the loud parts are too loud.  It’s like when you turn up the TV to hear the quiet dialogue on the TV show, and then it cuts to commercial and startles the shit out of you.  I would turn it up to hear the piano or organ, and then trombonist Gary Valente would come back in at full blastissimo and I’d have to turn the volume way back down to not hurt my ears.  That’s more of a problem with a recording than the actual music, but it does affect my enjoyment of it.  I guess that’s really my main complaint.  The music itself, like I said, is really enjoyable.  The first track, Setting Calvin’s Waltz, is a super-lengthy blues tune that gives several members of the band a chance to perform solos, and then the next tune is a three-part suite that starts with Exaltation, which just sounds like a straight-up church hymn, followed by the spiritual jazz-esque Religious Experience, and ending with the funky Major.  The other four tracks aren’t quite as experimental, but the last track, Who Will Rescue You?, was great.  It’s one of those tunes that starts with a slow intro and then kicks into an upbeat groove after the intro is over, kind of like a New Orleans jazz funeral.  

Anyway, this album’s definitely gotten me more interested in Carla Bley’s music now that I know she doesn’t just play the weird avant-garde stuff.  Really a cool big band album, and from the 90s!  Not exactly a decade remembered for swinging big bands, but there ya go.

[de-salva]

Personnel:

Gil Evans - piano & electric piano; Steve Lacy - soprano saxophone; Arthur Blythe - alto & soprano saxophone; Lew Soloff - trumpet; Earl McIntyre - trombone; Peter Levin - keyboards; Don Pate - bass; Noel McGhee - drums

[blewnotes]

Jazziversaries February 20 #1

Nancy Wilson (vocal) - 1937 :: Happy jazziversary wishes to singer Nancy Wilson. Nancy is an American singer with more than 70 albums, and three Grammy Awards. She has been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, cabaret and pop; a “consummate actress”; and “the complete entertainer.” The title she prefers, however, is song stylist.

She has received many nicknames including “Sweet Nancy”, “The Baby”, “Fancy Miss Nancy” and “The Girl With the Honey-Coated Voice”.

When Nancy met Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, he suggested that she should move to New York City, believing that the big city would be the venue in which her career could bloom. In 1959, she relocated to New York with a goal of obtaining Cannonball’s manager John Levy as her manager and Capitol Records as her label.

Within four weeks of her arrival in New York she got her first big break, a call to fill in for Irene Reid at “The Blue Morocco”. The club booked Wilson on a permanent basis; she was singing four nights a week and working as a secretary for the New York Institute of Technology during the day. John Levy sent demos “Guess Who I Saw Today”, “Sometimes I’m Happy”, and two other songs to Capitol. Capitol Records signed her in 1960.

Nancy’s debut single, “Guess Who I Saw Today”, was so successful that between April 1960 and July 1962 Capitol Records released five Nancy Wilson albums. Her first album, Like in Love, displayed her talent in Rhythm and Blues, with the hit R&B song “Save Your Love for Me.”

Adderley suggested that she should steer away from her original pop style and gear her music toward jazz and ballads. In 1962, they collaborated and produced the album Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley, which propelled her to national prominence.

After doing numerous television guest appearances, Wilson eventually got her own series on NBC, The Nancy Wilson Show (1967–1968), which won an Emmy in 1975.

In 1964, Nancy won her first Grammy Award for the best rhythm and blues recording for the album How Glad I Am. She was featured as a “grand diva” of jazz in a 1992 edition of Essence. In the same year, she also received the Whitney Young, Jr. Award from the Urban League.

Wilson was the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships award in 2004, the highest honors that the United States government bestows upon jazz musicians.

Anthony Davis (piano) 1951 :: Jazziversary greetings to Anthony Davis. Anthony Davis  is an American jazz pianist, composer, and student of gamelan music. Davis is best known for his operas including X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X , which was premiered by the New York City Opera in 1986, Amistad , which premiered with the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1997, and Wakonda's Dream, which premiered at Opera Omaha in 2007.

Davis taught at Yale University and Harvard University, and has played with Anthony Braxton and Leo Smith. In 1981, Davis formed an octet called Episteme. He also wrote the incidental music for the Broadway version of Tony Kushner's Angels in America. He incorporates several styles including jazz, rhythm 'n' blues, gospel, non-Western, African, European classical, Indonesian, and experimental music.

Davis has received acclaim as a free-jazz pianist, a co-leader or sideman with various ensembles. Such ensembles include those that featured Smith as bandleader from 1974 to 1977.

Davis is professor of music at the University of California, San Diego. His opera Wakonda's Dream is a tale of a contemporary Native American family and the history that affects them.

His latest opera, Lilith (libretto by Allan Havis)' had its world premiere at the Conrad Prebys Music Center in UCSD on December 4, 2009. The story is about Adam's first wife, set in a modern era.

Iain Ballamy (sax, tenor) - 1964 :: Happy jazziversray to Iain Bellamy. Iain is a British composer, soprano, alto and tenor saxophone player. He discovered saxophone in 1978 with three lessons and his first professional gig was in 1980. He played Ronnie Scotts as Iain Ballamy Quartet at age 20. He was a founding member of Loose Tubes in 1984. First recording with Billy Jenkins 1985 and first solo album, Balloon Man, 1988.

During his career he has performed or recorded with a wide range of top musicians including Gil Evans, Hermeto Pascoal, New York Composers Orchestra, Carla Bley, Dewey Redman, George Coleman, London Sinfonietta, Françios Jeanneau, Daniel Humair, Mike Gibbs, Randy Weston, Karnataka College of Percussion, Sax Assault,Jazz Train, Freebop, Nishat Khan, R.A.Ramamani, T.A.S. Mani, Clare Martin, Human Chain, Dr. L. Subramaniam, Tom Robinson, Charlie Watts Orchestra, Jeremy Stacey, Randy Weston,Joanna MacGregor, Delightful Precipice, Bill Bruford, Django Bates, Mark Wingfield, Jane Chapman, Bryan Ferry, Everything But The Girl, Food, Food for Quartet, Loose Tubes, Oxcentrics, Ian Shaw, Slim Gaillard, Ultramarine, Ashley Slater, Hungry Ants, Ronnie Scott, Gordon Beck, Britten Sinfonia, and Gay Dad.

In 1999, Ballamy founded the record label Feral Records in partnership with graphic artist and filmmaker Dave McKean.

In 2005 he composed the musical score for the movie MirrorMask. He  also composed the score for Luna, which is also directed by Dave Mckean.

Ballamy is an agony uncle for Jazz UK Magazine with his column “In the Saxophonists Chair”.

Leroy Jones   (trumpet) 1958 :: Many happy jazziversary returns to Leroy Jones. Leroy is a jazz trumpeter from New Orleans, Louisiana. Jones began playing trumpet at the age of ten, and by the time he was 13 was leading the Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band, a group of young musicians organized by guitar- and banjo-player Danny Barker. When the musicians' union forced Barker to disband the group in 1974, Jones became a union musician and took over the running of the group, renamed the Hurricane Brass Band, himself.

In 1975 or 1976 he left the group, touring for a time with Eddie Vinson and Della Reese before forming his own group, the Leroy Jones Quintet.

In 1991 Jones joined the big band of Harry Connick, Jr., and the exposure with Connick's band (including the opportunity for the Leroy Jones Quintet to open for Connick, which they did in 1994), led to Jones' releasing his first album under his own name; Mo' Cream From The Crop came out on the Columbia Records label in 1994. The Leroy Jones Quintet continues to tour and record, and since 2004 Jones has also appeared with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Dr. John

Lew Soloff (trumpet) - 1944 :: Many happy returns to trumpeter Lew Soloff. Lew is likely best known for his work with Blood, Sweat & Tears from 1968 to 1973. Prior to this, he worked with Machito, Gil Evans, Tony Scott, and Tito Puente.

He has also been a longtime member of the Manhattan Jazz Quintet.

In the 1980s he was a member of Members Only, a jazz ensemble who recorded for Muse Records. He currently resides in New York City. Lew makes frequent guest appearances with jazz orchestras all over the world, such as the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the Magic City Jazz Orchestra.