Jazziversaries October 24th
Odean Pope (saxophone) 1938 :: Birthday greetings to Odean Pope.
Odean Pope is an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
He played briefly in the 1960s with Jimmy McGriff, and late in the 1960s he began working with Max Roach, including on tours of Europe in 1967-68. He was a member of Philadelphia group Catalyst in the early and mid-1970s, and assembled the Saxophone Choir, which consists of nine saxophones and a rhythm section (piano, bass and drums), in 1977. He became a regular member of Roach's quartet in 1979 and has recorded extensively with him, in addition to numerous releases as a leader.
Pope has publicly spoken about his bipolar disorder, which he has had for over 30 years.
Pope was quoted in 2001 as saying, “Every time I pick that horn up there's always something that I discover I can do differently if I really seek. If you were on planet Earth for, like, 2 billion years, I feel as though there's always something new that you can find to do. There's no end.”
Rick Margitza (sax, tenor) 1961 :: Many happy returns to Rick Margitza.
Rick Margitza is an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
Margitza's paternal grandfather, a Hungarian Gypsy violinist, taught him to play the violin at the age of four. His father also played violin with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Following this he played piano and oboe, and settled on tenor sax while in Fordson high school. He attended several colleges - Wayne State University, Berklee College of Music, University of Miami and Loyola University New Orleans. He toured with Maynard Ferguson and Flora Purim in the 1980s, and moved to New York City in 1988, where he played with Miles Davis.
Between 1989 and 1991, Margitza released three sessions for Blue Note Records, and has recorded copiously thereafter, including with Eddie Gomez, Tony Williams, Bobby Hutcherson, Maria Schneider, McCoy Tyner and Chick Corea. He has also composed a saxophone concerto and two symphonies for orchestra.
Since moving to Paris in 2003, he has performed with Martial Solal, François Moutin, Louis Moutin, Ari Hoenig, Franck Amsallem, Jean-Michel Pilc and Manuel Rocheman.
Willie Mabon (piano) 1925 - 1985 :: Willie Mabon was an American R&B singer, songwriter and pianist.
Willie James Mabon had become known as a singer and pianist by the time he moved to Chicago in 1942. He formed a group, the Blues Rockers, and in 1949 began recording for the Aristocrat label, and then Chess. His style contrasted with many Chess artists – it was cool and jazzy, emphasising piano and saxophone rather than guitar and harmonica.
His biggest success came in 1952 when his debut solo release, "I Don't Know", topped the Billboard R&B chart for eight weeks. He picked it up from the older boogie-woogie pianist, Cripple Clarence Lofton. It was one of the most popular releases of its era, becoming Chess's biggest hit in the period before Chuck Berry's and Bo Diddley's success. It also became one of the first R&B hit records to be covered by a leading white artist, Tennessee Ernie Ford. Mabon's original was played on Alan Freed's early radio shows and also sold well to white audiences, crossing over markets at the start of the rock and roll era.
Mabon returned to the top R&B slot in 1953 with "I'm Mad", and had another hit with the Mel London penned "Poison Ivy" in 1954. However, his career failed to maintain its momentum, and record releases in the late 1950s on a variety of record labels were largely unsuccessful. After a lull he repeated the process more modestly in the early 1960s with "Got To Have Some" and "I'm The Fixer".
After moving to Paris in 1972, Mabon toured and recorded in Europe as part of promoter Jim Simpson's American Blues Legends tour, recording The Comeback for Simpson's Big Bear Records label, and his 1977 album on Ornament Records. He also performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
Jimmy Dawkins (guitar) 1936 -2013 :: James Henry "Jimmy" Dawkins was an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist and singer. He was generally considered a part of the "West Side Sound" of Chicago blues. He was born in Tchula, Mississippi in 1936.
He moved to Chicago in 1955. He worked in a box factory, and started to play local blues clubs, gaining a reputation as a session musician.
In 1969, thanks to the efforts of his friend Magic Sam, he released his first album Fast Fingers on Delmark Records, winning the "Grand Prix du Disque" from the Hot Club de France. In 1971 Delmark released his second album All For Business with singer, Andrew "Big Voice" Odom, and the guitarist, Otis Rush. Dawkins also toured in the late 1970s backed up by James Solberg (of Luther Allison and The Nighthawks fame) on guitar and Jon Preizler (The Lamont Cranston Band, The Drifters), a Seattle based Hammond B-3 player known for his soulful jazz influenced style. Other musicians that toured with Jimmy Dawkins in the late 1970s were Jimi Schutte (drummer), Sylvester Boines (bass), Rich Kirch and Billy Flynn (guitars). With this combination of musicians Dawkins also toured Europe.
Dawkins began to tour in Europe and Japan and recorded more albums in the United States and Europe. Dawkins also contributed a column to the blues magazine Living Blues. In the 1980s he released few recordings, but began his own record label, Leric Records, and was more interested in promoting other artists, including Taildragger, Queen Sylvia Embry, Little Johnny Christian and Nora Jean Wallace.
Sonny Terry (harmonica) 1911 - 1986 :: Saunders Terrell better known as Sonny Terry, was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.
Terry was born in Greensboro, GA. His father, a farmer, taught him to play basic blues harp as a youth. He sustained injuries to his eyes and lost his sight by the time he was 16, which prevented him from doing farm work himself, and in order to earn a living Terry was forced to play music. He began playing in Shelby, North Carolina. After his father died, he began playing in the trio of Piedmont blues-style guitarist Blind Boy Fuller. When Fuller died in 1941, he established a long-standing musical relationship with Brownie McGhee, and the pair recorded numerous songs together. The duo became well-known among white audiences, as they joined the growing folk movement of the 1950s and 1960s. This included collaborations with Styve Homnick, Woody Guthrie and Moses Asch, producing Folkways Records (now Smithsonian/Folkways) classic recordings.
In 1938 Terry was invited to play at Carnegie Hall for the first From Spirituals to Swing concert, and later that year he recorded for the Library of Congress. In 1940 Terry recorded his first commercial sides. Some of his most famous works include "Old Jabo" a song about a man bitten by a snake and "Lost John" in this he demonstrates his amazing breath control
Despite their fame as "pure" folk artists, in the 1940s, Terry and McGhee fronted a jump blues combo with honking saxophone and rolling piano that was variously billed as Brownie McGhee and his Jook House Rockers or Sonny Terry and his Buckshot Five.
Terry was also in the 1947 original cast of the Broadway musical comedy, Finian's Rainbow. He also appeared in The Colour Purple directed by Steven Spielberg. With Brownie McGhee, he appeared in the 1979 Steve Martin comedy The Jerk. Terry collaborated with Ry Cooder on "Walkin' Away Blues" as well as a cover of Robert Johnson's "Crossroad Blues" for the 1986 film Crossroads.
Terry died from natural causes at Mineola, New York, in March 1986, the year he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. He died three days before Crossroads was released in theaters.
Wendell Marshall (bass, acoustic) 1920-2002 :: Wendell Marshall was an American jazz double-bassist.
Marshall was Jimmy Blanton's cousin. He studied at Lincoln University, then served in the Army during World War II. Following his discharge, he played with Stuff Smith, then relocated to New York City, where he began playing with Mercer Ellington. From 1948 to 1955 he played with Duke Ellington.
Following his time with the Duke, Marshall played in pit orchestras on Broadway and freelanced with Mary Lou Williams, Art Blakey, Donald Byrd, Milt Jackson, and Hank Jones among others. He retired in 1968.
Birthday greetings to all you October 24th Jazzlings! May your day be special and the coming year one full of opportunity for you!
Thanks to AAJ & JBC for the guidance,
Respect to the YouTube Massive for the uploads,
Hi-5 with the Inspiration Crew, thanks for the follows and doing what you do!
And thanks to you for jus' passin' thru'
