Jazziversaries March 11th
Astor Piazzolla (bandoneon) - 1921-1992 :: was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. A virtuoso bandoneónist, he regularly performed his own compositions with a variety of ensembles.
In 1936, while living at Mar del Plata he began to play in a variety of tango orchestras and around this time he discovered the music of Elvino Vardaro’s sextet on the radio. Vardaro’s novel interpretation of tango made a great impression on Piazzolla and years later he would become Piazzolla’s violinist in his Orquesta de Cuerdas and his First Quintet.
Inspired by Vardaro’s style of tango, and still only 17 years old, Piazzolla moved to Buenos Aires in 1938 where, the following year, he realized a dream when he joined the orchestra of the bandoneónist Anibal Troilo, which would become one of the greatest tango orchestras of that time. Piazzolla was employed as a temporary replacement for Toto Rodríguez who was ill, but when Rodríguez returned to work Troilo decided to retain Piazzolla as a fourth bandoneónist. Apart from playing the bandoneón, Piazzolla also became Troilo’s arranger and would occasionally play the piano for him.
After leaving Troilo’s orchestra in the 1940s, Piazzolla led numerous ensembles beginning with the 1946 Orchestra, the 1955 Octeto Buenos Aires, the 1960 “First Quintet”, the 1971 Conjunto 9 (“Noneto”), the 1978 “Second Quintet” and the 1989 New Tango Sextet. As well as providing original compositions and arrangements, he was the director and bandoneón player in all of them. He also recorded the album Summit (Reunión Cumbre) with jazz baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan. His numerous compositions include orchestral work such as the “Concierto para bandoneón, orquesta, cuerdas y percusión”, “Doble concierto para bandoneón y guitarra”, “Tres tangos sinfónicos” and “Concierto de Nácar para 9 tanguistas y orquesta”, pieces for the solo classical guitar—the Cinco Piezas (1980), as well as song-form compositions that still today are well known by the general public in his country, like “Balada para un loco” (Ballad for a madman) and Adiós Nonino (dedicated to his father) which he recorded many times with different musicians and ensembles. Biographers estimate that Piazzolla wrote around 3,000 pieces and recorded around 500.
In the summer of 1985 he appeared with his Quinteto Tango Nuevo at the Almeida Theatre in London for a week-long engagement. On September 6, 1987, his quintet gave a concert in New York’s Central Park, which was recorded and, in 1994, released in compact disk format as The Central Park Concert.
Bobby Lyle (piano) 1944 :: Happy birthday to pianist Bobby Lyle.
He had his first gig at 16 and played in the 1960s with Gene and Jerry Hubbard in the Bobby Lyle Trio. They were very popular at the Blue Note on Plymouth Avenue on Minneapolis' North Side, and at the Ebony Lounge on University Avenue in St. Paul. When Ramsey Lewis left the Young Holt Unlimited Trio which he started and made famous, Lyle took over as the keyboard player.
He moved to Los Angeles in 1974 and soon went on the road with Sly and the Family Stone. During this time he also had a stint with the Ronnie Laws band. This led to a meeting with Wayne Henderson of the Jazz Crusaders who then took him to Capitol Records for his first solo recording deal in 1977. After three albums ("The Genie", "New Warrior", and "Night Fire"), Capitol abandoned their jazz division. Without a record deal, Lyle returned to his sideman work in 1981 with George Benson. In that same year he was a guest artist on the Yellowjackets debut LP.
Extensive tours with Bette Midler, Al Jarreau, and Anita Baker (all as musical director) occupied most of his time in the eighties. While performing with saxophonist Gerald Albright in 1987, Bobby came to the attention of Sylvia Rhone, then VP of Jazz and Urban music at Atlantic Records. This resulted in a recording deal in 1988 which spawned six albums in nine years. In the meantime, Lyle continued to tour with his own bands as well as with Bette Midler. He received an Emmy nomination for his musical direction on her HBO Special, "Diva Las Vegas" in 1997.
Bobby McFerrin (vocal) - 1950 :: Birthday greetings to Bobby McFerrin. As a vocalist, McFerrin often switches rapidly between modal and falsetto registers to create polyphonic effects, performing both the main melody and the accompanying parts of songs. He makes use of percussive effects created both with his mouth and by tapping on his chest. McFerrin is also capable of multiphonic singing, as observed in his song “Drive” from the 2005 DVD Live in Montreal.
A notable document of McFerrin’s approach to singing is his 1984 album The Voice, the first solo vocal jazz album recorded with no accompaniment or overdubbing.
McFerrin’s song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” was a No. 1 U.S. pop hit in 1988 and won Song of the Year and Record of the Year honors. McFerrin has also worked in collaboration with instrumental performers, including pianists Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Joe Zawinul, drummer Tony Williams, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
In addition to his vocal performing career, in 1994, Mr. McFerrin was appointed as creative chair of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He makes regular tours as a guest conductor for symphony orchestras throughout the United States and Canada, including the San Francisco Symphony (on his 40th birthday), the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and many others. In McFerrin’s concert appearances, he combines serious conducting of classical pieces with his own unique vocal improvisations, often with participation from the audience and the orchestra. For example, the concerts often end with McFerrin conducting the orchestra in an a cappella rendition of the “William Tell Overture,” in which the orchestra members sing their musical parts in McFerrin’s vocal style instead of playing their parts on their instruments.
For a few years in the late 1990s, he toured a concert version of Porgy and Bess, partly in honor of his father, who sang the role for Sidney Poitier in the 1959 film version, and partly “to preserve the score’s jazziness” in the face of “largely white orchestras” who tend not “to play around the bar lines, to stretch and bend”. McFerrin says that because of his father’s work in the movie, “This music has been in my body for 40 years, probably longer than any other music.”
McFerrin also participates in various music education programs and makes volunteer appearances as a guest music teacher and lecturer at public schools throughout the U.S. McFerrin has collaborated with his son, Taylor, on various musical ventures. Taylor has recently been singing, rapping, and playing minimal keyboard accompaniment with Vernon Reid (leader-guitarist of Living Colour) in the eclectic metal-fusion-funk group Yohimbe Brothers.
Leroy Jenkins (violin) - 1932-2007 :: was a composer and Avant-garde Jazz violinist and violist.
Jenkins was involved in the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) while a public school teacher in Chicago. He co-founded the Creative Construction Company with Anthony Braxton and others. He led the Revolutionary Ensemble and formed a trio with Anthony Davis and Andrew Cyrille.
During 1987 he toured Europe as part of Cecil Taylor’s group.
He gained recognition for music-theatre works such as The Mother of Three Sons (written in collaboration with Ann T. Greene), Fresh Faust and The Negros Burial Ground (in collaboration with Ann T. Greene), and The Three Willies (in collaboration with Homer Jackson).
Mercer Ellington (trumpet) - 1919-1996 :: was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and arranger.
Ellington was born in Washington, DC, the son of famous composer, pianist, and bandleader Duke Ellington and Edna Thompson. By the age of eighteen he had written his first piece to be recorded by his father (“Pigeons and Peppers”).
In 1939, 1946–1949, and 1959 he led his own bands, many of whose members went on to play with his father, or to achieve independent fame (notably Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Dorham, Idrees Sulieman, Chico Hamilton, Charles Mingus, and Carmen McRae). During the 1940s in particular he wrote pieces that became standards, including “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be”, “Jumpin’ Punkins”, “Moon Mist”, and “Blue Serge”. He also wrote the lyrics to Hillis Walters’ popular song, “Pass Me By” (1946), which was recorded by Lena Horne, Carmen McRae and Peggy Lee.
He composed for his father from 1940 to 1941, worked as road manager for Cootie Williams’ orchestra (1941 to 1943 and again in 1954), and returned to work for his father playing E-flat horn in 1950, and then as general manager and copyist from 1955 to 1959. In 1960 he became Della Reese’s musical director, then in 1962 went on take a job as a radio DJ in New York for three years. In 1965 he again returned to his father’s orchestra, this time as trumpeter and road manager.
When his father died in 1974, Ellington took over the orchestra, taking it on tour to Europe in 1975 and 1977 (his own son, Edward Ellington, played in the band in the late 1970s, and his other son, Paul Mercer Ellington, took it over at a later date). Ellington also has a daughter Mercedes Ellington.
In the early 1980s Ellington became the first conductor for a Broadway musical of his father’s music, Sophisticated Ladies. Before his death the Duke Ellington Orchestra included Barrie Lee Hall, Rocky White, Tommy James, Gregory Charles Royal, J.J. Wiggins, and Shelly Carrol among others. Mercer Ellington performed up to the day of his passing.
Harvey Mandel - 1945 :: Happy birthday to guitarist Harvey Mandel. Harvey is known for his innovative approach to electric guitar playing. A professional at twenty, he played with Charlie Musselwhite, Canned Heat, The Rolling Stones, and John Mayall before starting a solo career. Mandel is one of the first rock guitarists to use two-handed fretboard tapping.
His first record was the album Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite’s Southside Band in 1966 with Charlie Musselwhite. Described in 1997’s Legends of Rock Guitar as a “legendary” album, it was influential in bridging the gap between blues and rock and roll, with Mandel’s “relentless fuzztone, feedback-edged solos, and unusual syncopated phrasing.” He relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area, performing often at a club called The Matrix, where local favorites like Jerry Garcia or Elvin Bishop would sit in and jam. He then met up with pioneering San Francisco disc jockey and producer Abe ‘Voco’ Kesh (Abe Keshishian), who signed Mandel to Philips Records and produced his first solo album, Cristo Redentor in 1968.
On the night that Henry Vestine quit Canned Heat, Mandel was in their dressing room at the Fillmore West. Mike Bloomfield joined them for the first set, and Mandel came in for the second set. His third performance with the band was the Woodstock Festival in 1969. During this same period, with Canned Heat bandmates Larry Taylor and Fito de la Parra, Mandel contributed to the ‘Music From Free Creek’ super session project. Mandel stayed with Canned Heat for a year, touring and recording material which appeared on three albums. “Let’s Work Together”, a song by Wilbert Harrison which was included in the album Future Blues became an international hit. He is also on the Live in Europe album prior to Alan Wilson’s death.
With Canned Heat bassist Larry Taylor, Mandel joined John Mayall’s band for the next two years. He is heard playing on the two albums of that period USA Union and Back to the Roots. In 1972, he teamed up with Don “Sugarcane” Harris, Randy Resnick on guitar, Victor Conte on bass, plus Paul Lagos on drums, and formed the band Pure Food and Drug Act, which released one album, Choice Cuts.
When The Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor left the band, Mandel was auditioned as his replacement and he recorded two tracks with the Stones for their 1976 album Black and Blue, “Hot Stuff” and “Memory Motel”. During the 1970s Mandel released the albums Baby Batter, The Snake and Shangrenade, in the latter employing the technique of two-handed tapping. He has also released an instructional video titled Harvey Mandel: Blues Guitar & Beyond.
Miff Mole (trombone) - 1898-1961 :: Irving Milfred Mole, better known as Miff Mole was a jazz trombonist and band leader. He is generally considered as one of the greatest jazz trombonists and credited with creating “the first distinctive and influential solo jazz trombone style.” His major recordings included “Slippin’ Around”, “Red Hot Mama” in 1924 with Sophie Tucker on vocals, “Miff’s Blues”, “There’ll Come a Time (Wait and See)”, on the film soundtrack to the 2008 movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and “Toddlin’ Blues” and “Davenport Blues”, recorded in 1925 with Bix Beiderbecke and Tommy Dorsey as Bix Beiderbecke and His Rhythm Jugglers.
In 1926–9 Mole and trumpeter Red Nichols led a band called “Miff Mole and His Little Molers”. They recorded frequently until 1930.
Miff Mole and his band the Molers backed Sophie Tucker who was known as “The Last Of The Red Hot Mammas” and who was one of the most popular singers of the Teens and 1920s. Mole and his band supported her on her 1927 Okeh recordings of “After You’ve Gone”, “Fifty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong”, “I Ain’t Got Nobody”, and “One Sweet Letter From You”. Miff Mole and his band, which included Eddie Lang, Jimmy Dorsey, Red Nichols, and Vic Berton, also backed her during her live performances.
In addition to the groups under his own name, Mole was prominently identified from 1925 to 1929 with various recording bands led by cornetist Red Nichols: The Red Heads, The Hottentots, The Charleston Chasers, The Six Hottentots, The Cotton Pickers, Red and Miff’s Stompers, and especially Red Nichols and His Five Pennies. These bands recorded for a variety of different labels such as Perfect, Domino, Pathé, Edison, OKeh and Victor, though the Five Pennies name was only used for their recordings on Brunswick. The original Five Pennies band consisted of Nichols on cornet, Mole on trombone, Jimmy Dorsey on clarinet and alto sax, Eddie Lang on guitar, Arthur Schutt on piano and Vic Berton (who came up with the name for the group) on drums, but over time the personnel changed and expanded dramatically. Among the musicians who passed through the Five Pennies were clarinetist Pee Wee Russell, violinist Joe Venuti, bass sax player Adrian Rollini, tuba and bass player Joe Tarto, trombonist-arranger Glenn Miller, and extra trumpet players such as Leo McConville and Charlie Teagarden.
When Jack Teagarden arrived in New York in 1928, he quickly replaced Mole as the new role model for trombonists, with a more legato, blues-oriented approach. Mole, having started working for radio in 1927 (at WOR), changed his focus to working with NBC (1929–38). In 1938–40 he was a member of Paul Whiteman’s orchestra, but his style by then had changed under the influence of Teagarden. In 1942–3 Mole played in Benny Goodman’s orchestra, and between 1942–7 he led various dixieland bands. He worked in Chicago in 1947–54.
Due to bad health, Mole played very sporadically during his last years.
Birthday greetings to all you celebrating today. May the day be kind and generous to you and shower you with love and affection. Let the coming year lead you where it will.
Thanks to AAJ & JBC for the guidance,
Respect to the YouTube Massive for the uploads,
Hi-5 Inspiration Crew, thank you for the follows and doing all that good stuff you do,
And thanks to YOU for being curious enough to take a peek to see whats goin' on.
Until whenever, Go placidly, be water, walk tall, speak low and always Keep your head to the sky!
