#stix hooper

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Randy Crawford - Same Old Story (Same Old Song) (Warner Bros.)

prod. Wilton felder, Stix Hooper & Joe Sample, 1980.

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The Jazz Crusaders: Looking Ahead

Despite their success in the ‘70s as The Crusaders, the Jazz Crusaders were an incredibly underrated group. Many claim a geographic snobbery by the New York jazz power base for the Houston-born, Los Angeles-resident band was a factor. In the ‘90s, I produced reissues of a lot of their live albums on Pacific Jazz with wonderful bonus material and finally in 2005, I gathered and remixed all of their Pacific Jazz Quintet studio sessions with a nice chunk of previously unissued items for a Mosaic set. But recognition for this unique group never blossomed the way it should have.

-Michael Cuscuna

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B.B. King – “Never Make a Move Too Soon” Song written by Will Jennings and Stix Hooper

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Happy birthday Stix Hooper

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Street Life / Crusaders

Street Life feat. Randy Crawford

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the crusaders “unsung heroes”

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Jazziversaries August 15th set 2

Oscar Peterson (piano) 1925-2007 :: Oscar Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the “Maharaja of the keyboard” by Duke Ellington, “O.P.” by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won eight Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career. He is considered to have been one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, having played thousands of live concerts to audiences worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years.

At the age of nine Peterson played piano with control that impressed professional musicians. For many years his piano studies included four to six hours of practice daily. Only in his later years did he decrease his daily practice to just one or two hours.

In 1940, at fourteen years of age, Peterson won the national music competition organized by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. After that victory, he dropped out of school and became a professional pianist working for a weekly radio show, and playing at hotels and music halls.

An important step in his career was joining impresario Norman Granz’s labels (especially Verve) and Granz’s “Jazz at the Philharmonic” project. Granz discovered Peterson in a peculiar manner. As the impresario was being taken to the Montreal airport by cab, the radio was playing a live broadcast of Peterson at a local night club. Granz was so smitten by what he heard that he ordered the driver to take him to the club so that he could meet the pianist. In 1949, Granz introduced Peterson at a Carnegie Hall Jazz at the Philharmonic show in New York.

So was born a lasting relationship and Granz remained Peterson’s manager for most of his career. Through Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic he was able to play with the major jazz artists of the time. Some of his musical associates included Ray Brown, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Milt Jackson, Herb Ellis, Barney Kessel, Ed Thigpen, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Louis Armstrong, Stéphane Grappelli, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Clark Terry, Joe Pass, Anita O’Day, Fred Astaire, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, and Stan Getz.

Peterson redefined the jazz trio by bringing musicianship of all three members to the highest level. The definitive trio with Ray Brown and Herb Ellis was, in his own words, “the most stimulating” and productive setting for public performances as well as in studio recordings.

In the early 1950s, Peterson began performing with Ray Brown and Charlie Smith as the Oscar Peterson Trio. Shortly afterward the drummer Smith was replaced by guitarist Irving Ashby, formerly of the Nat King Cole Trio. Ashby, who was a swing guitarist, was soon replaced by Barney Kessel. Kessel tired of touring after a year, and was succeeded by Herb Ellis. As Ellis was white, Peterson’s trios were racially integrated, a controversial move at the time that was fraught with difficulties with segregationist whites and blacks.

When Herb Ellis left the group in 1958, Peterson and Brown believed they could not adequately replace Ellis. Ellis was replaced by drummer Ed Thigpen in 1959. Brown and Thigpen worked with Peterson on his famous albums Night Train and the successful Canadiana Suite. Brown and Thigpen left in 1965 and were replaced by bassist Sam Jones and drummer Louis Hayes (and later, drummer Bobby Durham). The trio performed together until 1970.

In 1969 Peterson recorded Motions and Emotions, featuring orchestral arrangements of pop songs such as The Beatles’ “Yesterday” and “Eleanor Rigby”. In the fall of 1970, Peterson’s trio released the successful album Tristeza on Piano. Jones and Durham left in 1970. In the 1970s Peterson formed another landmark trio with virtuoso guitarist Joe Pass and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass. This trio emulated the success of the 1950s trio with Brown and Ellis, gave acclaimed performances at numerous festivals, and made best-selling recordings, most notably the 1978 double album recorded live in Paris. In 1974 Oscar added British drummer, Martin Drew, and this quartet toured and recorded extensively worldwide.

His work earned him eight Grammy awards over the years and he was elected to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1978. He also belongs to the Juno Awards Hall of Fame and the Canadian Jazz and Blues Hall of Fame.

Peterson received the first Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award from Black Theatre Workshop (1986), Roy Thomson Award (1987), a Toronto Arts Award for lifetime achievement (1991), the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award (1992), the Glenn Gould Prize (1993), the award of the International Society for Performing Artists (1995), the Loyola Medal of Concordia University (1997), the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1997), the Praemium Imperiale World Art Award (1999), the UNESCO Music Prize (2000), the Toronto Musicians’ Association Musician of the Year award (2001), and an honorary LLD from the University of the West Indies (2006).

In 1999, Concordia University in Montreal renamed their Loyola-campus concert hall Oscar Peterson Concert Hall in his honour.

Buster Brown (vocals) 1911-1976 ::  Buster Brown was an American blues and R&B singer best known for his hit, “Fannie Mae” . In the 1930s and 1940s he played harmonica at local clubs and made a few non-commercial recordings. These included “I’m Gonna Make You Happy” (1943), which was recorded when he played at the folk festival at Fort Valley (GA) State Teachers College, and was recorded by the Library of Congress’ Folk Music Archive.

Brown moved to New York in 1956, where he was discovered by Fire Records owner Bobby Robinson. In 1959, at almost fifty years of age, Brown recorded the rustic blues, “Fannie Mae”, which featured Brown’s harmonica playing and whoops, which went to # 38 in the U.S. Top 40, and to #1 on the R&B chart in April 1960.

His remake of Louis Jordan’s “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby” reached # 81 on the pop charts later in 1960, but did not make the R&B chart. “Sugar Babe” was his only other hit, in 1962, reaching # 19 on the R&B chart and # 99 on the pop chart.

In later years he recorded for Checker Records and for numerous small record labels. He also co-wrote the song “Doctor Brown” with J. T. Brown, which was later covered by Fleetwood Mac on their 1968 album, Mr. Wonderful.

Stix Hooper (drums) 1938 ::  Many happy jazziversary returns to Stix Hooper. One of the original Jazz Crusaders, Stix Hooper remains a well-respected drummer.

He started playing drums early on in his native Houston. When he was 16 he put together his own group, originally known as the Swingsters. Later on the group changed its name to The Modern Jazz Sextet, the Night Hawks, and by the late ’50s the Jazz Crusaders.

Trombonist Wayne Henderson, tenor saxophonist Wilton Felder, and pianist Joe Sample became co-leaders of the quintet (which had a variety of bassists through the years).

The band’s unusual trombone/tenor front line and its ability to play soulful hard bop kept it popular and generally creative throughout the 1960s. In 1971 the Jazz Crusaders became the Crusaders and soon Henderson dropped out and the music became more R&B-oriented.

Hooper stuck with the group until 1983, when his departure signaled the beginning of the end since his distinctive drumming was a large (if underrated) part of the band’s sound.

Stix Hooper, released albums of his own for MCA and Artful Balance in the 1980s and has made occasional guest spots on other dates, including sessions led by Grant Green and George Shearing.

At the close of the new millennium’s first decade, the drummer established Stix Hooper Enterprises and released three CDs under that imprint: Mainstream Straight-Ahead, Jazz Gems, and Many Hats.

Among the numerous acknowledgements and accolades Stix has garnered are 12 Grammy nominations, No. 1 awards from various music media, named one of the top drummers/musicians by Downbeat, Playboy Magazine and other publications, received an invitation to the White House, keys to major US cities and several international honors.