Sonny Stitt (tenor and alto saxophonist) was born Edward Boatner Jr. on February 2, in 1924 in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. He had a musical background; his father, Edward Boatner, was a baritone singer, composer and college music professor, his brother was a classically trained pianist, and his mother was a piano teacher. Boatner was soon adopted by another family, the Stitts, who gave him his new surname. He later began calling himself “Sonny”.
In 1943, Stitt first met Charlie Parker, and as he often later recalled, the two men found that their styles had an extraordinary similarity that was partly coincidental and not merely due to Stitt’s emulation. Stitt’s improvisations were more melodic/less dissonant than those of Parker. Stitt’s earliest recordings were made in 1945 with Stan Getz and Dizzy Gillespie. He had also played in some swing bands, though he mainly played in bop bands. Stitt was featured in Tiny Bradshaw’s big band in the early forties. Stitt replaced Charlie Parker in Dizzy Gillespie’s band in 1945.
Stitt played alto saxophone in Billy Eckstine’s big band alongside future bop pioneers Dexter Gordon and Gene Ammons from 1945 until 1956, when he started to play tenor saxophone more frequently, in order to avoid being referred to as a Charlie Parker imitator. Later on, he played with Gene Ammons and Bud Powell. Stitt spent time in a Lexington prison between 1948–49 for selling narcotics.
Stitt, when playing tenor saxophone, seemed to break free from some of the criticism that he was imitating Charlie Parker’s style, although it appears in the instance with Ammons above that the availability of the larger instrument was a factor. Indeed, Stitt began to develop a far more distinctive sound on tenor. He played with other bop musicians Bud Powell and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, a fellow tenor with a distinctly tough tone in comparison to Stitt, in the 1950s and recorded a number of sides for Prestige Records label as well as albums for Argo, Verve and Roost. Stitt experimented with Afro-Cuban jazz in the late 1950s, and the results can be heard on his recordings for Roost and Verve, on which he teamed up with Thad Jones and Chick Corea for Latin versions of such standards as “Autumn Leaves.”
Stitt joined Miles Davis briefly in 1960, and recordings with Davis’ quintet can be found only in live settings on the tour of 1960. Concerts in Manchester and Paris are available commercially and also a number of concerts (which include sets by the earlier quintet with John Coltrane) on the record Live at Stockholm (Dragon), all of which featured Wynton Kelly, Jimmy Cobb and Paul Chambers. However, Miles fired Stitt due to the excessive drinking habit he had developed, and replaced him with fellow tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley. Stitt, later in the 1960s, paid homage to one of his main influences, Charlie Parker, on the album Stitt Plays Bird, which features Jim Hall on guitar and at Newport in 1964 with other bebop players including J.J. Johnson.
He recorded a number of memorable records with his friend and fellow saxophonist Gene Ammons, interrupted by Ammons’ own imprisonment for narcotics possession. The records recorded by these two saxophonists are regarded by many as some of both Ammons and Stitt’s best work, thus the Ammons/Stitt partnership went down in posterity as one of the best duelling partnerships in jazz, alongside Zoot Sims and Al Cohn, and Johnny Griffin with Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis. Stitt would venture into soul jazz, and he recorded with fellow tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin in 1964 on the Soul People album. Stitt also recorded with Duke Ellington alumnus Paul Gonsalves in 1963 for Impulse! on the Salt And Pepper album in 1963. Around that time he also appeared regularly at Ronnie Scott’s in London, a live 1964 encounter with Ronnie Scott, The Night Has A Thousand Eyes, eventually surfaced, and another in 1966 with resident guitarist Ernest Ranglin and British tenor saxophonist Dick Morrissey. Stitt was one of the first jazz musicians to experiment with an electric saxophone (the instrument was called a Varitone), as heard on the albums What’s New in 1966 and Parallel-A-Stitt in 1967.
In the 1970s, Stitt slowed his recording output slightly, and in 1972, he produced another classic, Tune Up, which was and still is regarded by many jazz critics, such as Scott Yanow, as his definitive record. Indeed, his fiery and ebullient soloing was quite reminiscent of his earlier playing. He also recorded another album with Varitone, Just The Way It Was – Live At The Left Bank in 1971 which was released in 2000.
Stitt joined the all-star group Giants of Jazz, which also featured Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Kai Winding and bassist Al McKibbon) and made albums for Atlantic Records, Concord Records and Emarcy Records. His last recordings were made in Japan. In 1982, Stitt suffered a heart attack, and he died on July 22 in Washington, D.C.
Fresh Air Weekend is a new program airing on WNCU every Sunday, beginning January 10, from 9-10 pm. It will highlight some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for the weekend. Interviews will feature writers, filmmakers, actors, and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. Many of the most popular reviewers from the weekday Fresh Air can also be heard on Fresh Air Weekend, sharing insights into recent movies, music, and books. And there’s more… special segments, including reviews of recently released videos, have been added to the program for additional weekend appeal.
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Grachan Moncur III was born in New York City at Sydenham Hospital on June 3, 1937 into a musical family that included his Uncle Al Cooper, leader of the Savoy Sultans, and Grachan’s father, Grachan Brother Moncur II who played bass as a member of Savoy Sultans. His father also played with such notables as Billie Holiday, Diana Washington, and pianist Teddy Wilson among others.
Grachan’s early musical studies started at Laurinburg Institute under the musical direction of Frank H. McDuffie Jr. and Phillip Hilton, a very advanced trombonist and student. His trombone playing began with the all-state marching band and he eventually became a member of the jazz combo. He rapidly moved forward to become leader of the Laurinburg Jazz Septet, and musical director of Laurinburg’s traveling musical revue that included singers, dancers and a variety of talented performers.
After graduating from Laurinburg Institute he attended the Manhattan School of Music and the Juillard School of Music. While achieving academic training he also performed as leader and co-leader with various groups that included such stars Wayne Shorter, Gary Bartz, and Blue Mitchell along with jamming at jazz spots such as Birland, the Open Door; The Five spot; Turbo Billage; Cafe Bohemia and Count Basies. Grachan continued his career with fabulous Ray Charles Orchestra. He worked with the group from 1959 until 1961. At a Ray Charles show at the Apollo Theatre which included the Jazztet, Grachan’s outstanding solo performances were observed by Benny Golson and he was immediately recruited as the trombonist into the Art Farmer/Benny Golson Jazztet. He performed with the Jazztet until it disbanded in 1962.
Shortly thereafter Grachan became musical director of the Jackie McLean Quintet that included Bobby Hutcherson (vibes), Eddie Khan (bass), and Tony Williams (drums). Grachan inherited the leadership of the group at the departure of Jackie McLean. The group performed for several years under Grachan’s leadership at such famous clubs as the Blue Coronet in Brooklyn and Slugs in the Village. Under Grachan’s leadership on various occasions, the group included Herbie Hancock and Clifford Jarvis.
During the Jackie McLean/Grachan Moncur III era, historical Jazz albums were recorded, One Step Beyond, Evolution, Destination Out, Some Other Stuff, and the classic jazz series double album Hipnosis, were all recorded during this period of Grachan’s development. These albums on the Blue Note label featured Grachan as a trombonist and composer and lead to the acceptance of what has been termed “Avant Garde” opening the door for other musicians to record “new music” on the Blue Note Label.
Grachan’s exceptional talents afforded him an opportunity to act as well exhibit his musical genius as trombonist, composer, and actor in James Baldwin’s Broadway production of Blues for Mr. Charlie. During this period he also worked with the great Sonny Rollins playing a stint at the Plugged Nickle in Chicago, the Village Vanguard in New York City and concerts in the New York metro area. At the conclusion of “Blues for Mr. Charlie”s European tour, Grachan began playing with the Joe Henderson/Kenny Dorham Sextet. After two decades of performing with some the world’s greatest jazz musicians, composing traditional and avant garde compositions, Grachan embarked on a new and challenging mission. His appointment to the largest Art Institute (Newark Community School of the Arts) in New Jersey as composer in residence, where he taught aspiring musicians in addition to composing, gave him time to reflect on his past and prepare for his future.
Most recently he has made quest appearances with Change of the Century Orchestra. The orchestra is dedicated to the memory of John Coltrane and was founded by Philly Joe Jones and Sunny Murray. He also devotes time to college appearances and ethnic performances.
Grachan feels his maturity has enhanced his capabilities and commitment to jazz and looks forward to future tours and recording with his own ensemble as well as continuing his educational activities.
Allen Toussaint, the ever-elegant New Orleans performer, producer and composer of such R&B classics as “Working in the Coal Mine,” “Mother-in-Law,” “It’s Raining” and “Southern Nights,” died Tuesday (Nov. 10), while on tour in Madrid. He was 77 years old.
Fans have reason to be shocked by the news because tickets went on sale just days ago for a concert featuring Mr. Toussaint and fellow composer and performer Paul Simon at Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre in New Orleans on Dec. 8. The event was to benefit the New Orleans Artists Against Hunger and Homelessness charity organization, which Mr. Toussaint co-founded in 1985.
Considered by many to be the dean of the New Orleans music scene, having influenced the careers of countless musicians and performers, Mr. Toussaint gave his last performance on Monday at Madrid’s Teatro Lara. Madrid emergency services spokesman Javier Ayuso said rescue workers were called to Mr. Toussaint’s hotel early Tuesday morning and managed to revive him after he suffered a heart attack. But Ayuso said Mr. Toussaint stopped breathing during the ambulance ride to a hospital and efforts to revive him again were unsuccessful.
Mr. Toussaint, who helped to define the New Orleans sound as a songwriter and composer, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2009, and the Blues Hall of Fame in 2011. In 2013, he received the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama.
“He was like a one man Motown,” said Quint Davis, president of Festival Productions Inc.-New Orleans and the producer and director of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, at which Mr. Toussaint regularly performed. “There was that period of time with Ernie K-Doe, Benny Spellman, Lee Dorsey and Irma Thomas where he wrote, produced, played on a whole era of New Orleans music, a lot of which went national.
“He was all of those things, a composer, a songwriter, an instrumentalist, a vocalist, a studio producer — brilliant. And in last few years, he really adopted playing live for people.”
Despite international renown, Mr. Toussaint was a regular sight in the Mid-City and Gentilly neighborhoods in years past. He was known for his stately posture, unhurried speech, elegant suits, sandals with socks, and a Rolls Royce marked with license plates that read “Piano” and “Tunes.”
“He was his own living art form, the way he dressed, like somebody from another era, century, always had some incredible combination of jacket and shirt and tie,” Davis said of Mr. Toussaint’s personal style. “Always. He was a living piece of art. The tie and the shirt was a poem every time.”
Mr. Toussaint was born in 1938 in the Gert Town neighborhood, to Clarence Toussaint and Naomi Neville. By his mid-teens, he was honing his driving, dancing piano style as he stepped into the New Orleans R&B nightclub scene. New Orleans musical lore has it that Mr. Toussaint substituted for Huey “Piano” Smith at a performance with Earl King’s band when he was a mere 17 years old.
The consummate composer, arranger and accompanist, Mr. Toussaint spent most of the 1960s behind the scenes at Minit Records and other recording companies. New Orleans and national performers made a string of his tunes famous.
The Irma Thomas ballad “It’s Raining” was composed by Mr. Toussaint under his mother’s name. He wrote Ernie K-Doe’s Billboard chart-topping song “Mother-in-Law,” Lee Dorsey’s “Working in the Coal Mine,” and Benny Spellman’s “Fortune Teller.”
“One thing I can say about him, is he helped a lot of people in this town,” said New Orleans singer and guitarist Deacon John Moore. “He was a scholar and gentleman. I don’t know where they would be if he hadn’t written those songs. I see him and I say, ‘I can never thank you enough for making me a part of rhythm and blues history. That’s something they can’t take away from me.'”
Moore affectionately recalls that, even at an early age, Mr. Toussaint was well aware of his image.
“He had a tomato-red Cadillac convertible, double parked outside of the Dew Drop inn” Moore said. “He was rather flamboyant. He was a real sharp dresser, always Mr. GQ, with nice clothes, expensive clothes.”
Mr. Toussaint took a hiatus from his burgeoning career in 1963 to serve in the armed forces, but his momentum was uninterrupted. In 1964, trumpet maestro Al Hirt covered Toussaint’s jaunty instrumental “Java,” which became a No. 1 hit. In 1965, Mr. Toussaint’s “Whipped Cream” not only became the title track on a Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass album, it later became the bachelorettes theme of the television game show “The Dating Game.”
The 1970s saw the emergence of the singer-songwriter, and Mr. Toussaint stepped into the spotlight with two solo albums “From a Whisper to a Scream” and “Southern Nights,” which showcased his mellow, whispered vocals and keyboard command. The records were marvelous though little heard by mainstream music lovers. Some of the songs, however, became hits when covered by pop stars, including Mr. Toussaint’s strange, psychedelic “Southern Nights,” which became a country rock anthem when recorded by Glen Campbell. Mr. Toussaint’s plangent “What Do You Want the Girl to Do” became a rollicking finger-snapper for Boz Scaggs.
North Carolina Central University’s Jazz Studies Program presents Keep The Vision Alive, a Nov. 22 concert featuring award-winning Department of Music artists-in-residence Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo.
The benefit concert begins at 6 p.m. at the Carolina Theatre in downtown Durham and will include performances by the NCCU Jazz Ensemble and NCCU Vocal Jazz Ensemble.
Marsalis is a three-time Grammy Award-winning saxophonist, composer, bandleader and music educator who began his jazz career in 1984 with the release of his first album, Scenes in the City. He is well known for his work as leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet and as the original bandleader for “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” In 2002, Marsalis established his record label Marsalis Music. He has been an artist-in-residence with NCCU’s jazz program since 2005.
NCCU artist-in-residence and jazz pianist Joey Calderazzo began playing at age seven. His outstanding jazz career includes work with the Michael Brecker Quintet, the Branford Marsalis Quartet and others. In June 2011, Calderazzo and Marsalis released their first album as a duo, “Songs of Mirth and Melancholy,” on Marsalis Music.
NCCU was the first university in the state to offer the Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Studies. The program has added a comprehensive vocal jazz component and the Master of Music in Jazz Composition and Jazz Performance. Alumni from the Jazz Studies Program include professors at the college and university levels, teachers of primary and secondary music education and production and performance artists.
Tickets for this exciting night of music may be purchased online at http://bit.ly/1H4dTWF or by calling 1-800-745-3000.
For more information, please contact: Dr. Ira Wiggins at [email protected] or 919-530-7214 and Dr. Lenora Helm Hammonds at [email protected] or 919-530-6653.
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Born in 1962 in Philadelphia, Darrell Grant moved to Denver as a young child. Starting piano lessons before his teens, Grant was a prodigy and at the age of 15 joined the Boulder, CO-based Pearl Street Jazz Band, a young but internationally renowned traditional New Orleans-style combo. Pearl Street Jazz Band toured worldwide and Grant was with the group for two years.
At 17, Grant won a scholarship to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. He focused on performance studies over theory, which he covered in his graduate studies in jazz theory and composition at the University of Miami.
Relocating to New York in the mid-’80s, Grant took on a series of low-profile sideman gigs. After a long stint playing with Betty Carter, Grant worked with luminaries like Chico Freeman and Greg Osby before finally stepping out as a bandleader for the first time.
His first release, 1994’s Black Art was well-reviewed and sold respectably, and the following year’s The New Bop was an even bigger critical success.
The title sums up his simultaneously backward-looking and forward-thinking aesthetic. Grant is steeped in the traditions of bop and post-bop jazz, and a cerebral, Bill Evans-like edge to his soloing that suggests a working knowledge of 20th century classical composers as well. All of these influences combine into a style that’s solidly traditional and is uniquely individual.
1997’s Twilight Stories was released on Joel Dorn’s 32 Jazz label; Grant’s appearance on that label, devoted primarily to classic reissues, cemented the esteem in which bop devotees hold him.
Grant’s Smokin’ Java, included his first published piece of prose, a thinly veiled autobiography about the cross-country move of a jazz pianist from New York to the Pacific Northwest. The lighthearted, twisty compositions reflect the bright, tongue-in-cheek tone of the short story, for which the album functions as a suitably caffeinated soundtrack.
The ambitious double-disc suite called Truth and Reconciliation appeared from Origin Records in 2007.
Darrell Grant is current on faculty at Portland State University.
Legendary jazz vocalist Mark Murphy has died in New Jersey after a lengthy illness that kept him from performing since 2012. He was 83.
Manager Jean-Pierre Leduc says Murphy died Thursday at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood.
Murphy was raised in Syracuse, New York, where he was discovered at a jam session by Sammy Davis Jr. in 1953.
He was a six-time Grammy Award nominee who sang with a wide range of techniques, from scatting and vocalese to spoken word. He released more than 40 recordings since making his debut with the 1956 album “Meet Mark Murphy.”
He worked as an actor in London in the 1960s before returning to the U.S., where he began recording highly acclaimed albums for the Muse label including tributes to Jack Kerouac and Nat King Cole.
Today the National Endowment for the Arts announced the 2016 NEA Jazz Masters: Gary Burton, Pharoah Sanders, and Archie Shepp, with the 2016 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy to Wendy Oxenhorn.
In addition, the NEA announced it will collaborate with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for the 2016 NEA Jazz Masters events, which will take place in Washington, DC, in April 2016.
Phil Woods, an alto saxophonist revered in jazz circles for his bright, clean sound and his sterling technique — and widely heard on songs by Billy Joel, Paul Simon and others — died on Tuesday in East Stroudsburg, Pa. He was 83.
The cause was complications of emphysema, Joel Chriss, his longtime booking agent, said.
Mr. Woods was one of the leading alto saxophonists in the generation that followed Charlie Parker, who had set an imposing new bar for the instrument while defining the terms of bebop. Rigorous, complex and brisk, bebop’s stylistic language would be a constant for Mr. Woods throughout his prolific career, as both a leader and a sideman.
For much of that career, he was a sought-after section player in big bands because of his ability, unusual at the time, to read sheet music with as much breezy authority as he brought to his solos. He recorded with the composer-arrangers Oliver Nelson, Michel Legrand and George Russell, among many others, and helped the trumpeter Clark Terry establish his Big Bad Band.
One of Mr. Woods’s early supporters was Quincy Jones, who in 1956 brought him on a State Department-sponsored tour with the trumpeter and bebop pioneer Dizzy Gillespie. Mr. Woods quickly became a Gillespie protégé, and in some respects a surrogate for Parker, Gillespie’s former front-line partner, who had died in 1955.
Parker’s nickname was Bird, and for a while Mr. Woods was known to some, admiringly if a little back-handedly, as “the new Bird.” The association was solidified when he married Parker’s widow, Chan, in 1957. (That marriage ended in divorce.)
On the recommendation of the producer Phil Ramone, an old classmate at the Juilliard School, Mr. Woods was featured on Mr. Simon’s 1975 album, “Still Crazy After All These Years,” playing a quicksilver bebop cadenza on the song “Have a Good Time.” That same year he played a solo on the Steely Dan tune “Doctor Wu.” And in 1977 Mr. Woods was prominently featured on Mr. Joel’s ballad “Just the Way You Are,” which became a Top 10 hit and won two Grammy Awards.
Philip Wells Woods was born on Nov. 2, 1931, in Springfield, Mass. After inheriting a saxophone at age 12, he began taking lessons at a local music shop and discovered that he was a quick study with a gifted ear. His first hero on the alto saxophone was Benny Carter, followed soon thereafter by Johnny Hodges, a star soloist in the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and then Parker.
While still in high school, Mr. Woods often took the bus to New York City, haunting jazz clubs and studying with the pianist-composer Lennie Tristano. He also studied classical music at Juilliard for four years.
He moved to France in 1968, frustrated with a working life dominated by commercial jingles and other work for hire. He found success almost immediately, touring with a band he called the European Rhythm Machine.
After five years, Mr. Woods returned to the United States an accomplished solo artist. From 1974 on, he led a band with the bassist Steve Gilmore and the drummer Bill Goodwin; in recent years the group has also included Brian Lynch on trumpet and either Bill Charlap or Bill Mays on piano. Mr. Woods also became a mentor to young musicians like the alto saxophonist Grace Kelly, with whom he released an album, “The Man With the Hat,” in 2011.
Mr. Woods won four Grammy Awards, beginning in 1975 with “Images,” an orchestral album he made with Mr. Legrand. In 2007 he was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master and received a Living Jazz Legend Award from the Kennedy Center.
Mr. Woods, who lived in Delaware Water Gap, Pa., is survived by his wife, Jill Goodwin; a son, Garth; three stepdaughters, Kim Parker and Allisen and Tracy Trotter; and a grandson.
Mr. Woods often declared, with a touch of self-deprecation, that he was more a stylist than an innovator. While he wrote dozens of compositions, they often pointed in the direction of his influences; they include “Charles Christopher” (Parker’s given name) and “All Bird’s Children.”
His final concert, early this month in Pittsburgh, was a tribute to the album “Charlie Parker With Strings.” Backed by a local rhythm section and members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, he brought his oxygen tank with him onstage.
Sonny Stitt (tenor and alto saxophonist) was born Edward Boatner Jr. on February 2, in 1924 in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. He had a musical background; his father, Edward Boatner, was a baritone singer, composer and college music professor, his brother was a classically trained pianist, and his mother was a piano teacher. Boatner was soon adopted by another family, the Stitts, who gave him his new surname. He later began calling himself “Sonny”.
Stitt joined Miles Davis briefly in 1960, and recordings with Davis’ quintet can be found only in live settings on the tour of 1960. Concerts in Manchester and Paris are available commercially and also a number of concerts (which include sets by the earlier quintet with John Coltrane) on the record Live at Stockholm (Dragon), all of which featured Wynton Kelly, Jimmy Cobb and Paul Chambers. However, Miles fired Stitt due to the excessive drinking habit he had developed, and replaced him with fellow tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley. Stitt, later in the 1960s, paid homage to one of his main influences, Charlie Parker, on the album Stitt Plays Bird, which features Jim Hall on guitar and at Newport in 1964 with other bebop players including J.J. Johnson.
Grachan Moncur III was born in New York City at Sydenham Hospital on June 3, 1937 into a musical family that included his Uncle Al Cooper, leader of the Savoy Sultans, and Grachan’s father, Grachan Brother Moncur II who played bass as a member of Savoy Sultans. His father also played with such notables as Billie Holiday, Diana Washington, and pianist Teddy Wilson among others.
Shortly thereafter Grachan became musical director of the Jackie McLean Quintet that included Bobby Hutcherson (vibes), Eddie Khan (bass), and Tony Williams (drums). Grachan inherited the leadership of the group at the departure of Jackie McLean. The group performed for several years under Grachan’s leadership at such famous clubs as the Blue Coronet in Brooklyn and Slugs in the Village. Under Grachan’s leadership on various occasions, the group included Herbie Hancock and Clifford Jarvis.
Born in 1962 in Philadelphia, Darrell Grant moved to Denver as a young child. Starting piano lessons before his teens, Grant was a prodigy and at the age of 15 joined the Boulder, CO-based Pearl Street Jazz Band, a young but internationally renowned traditional New Orleans-style combo. Pearl Street Jazz Band toured worldwide and Grant was with the group for two years.
His first release, 1994’s Black Art was well-reviewed and sold respectably, and the following year’s The New Bop was an even bigger critical success.
Phil Woods, an alto saxophonist revered in jazz circles for his bright, clean sound and his sterling technique — and widely heard on songs by Billy Joel, Paul Simon and others — died on Tuesday in East Stroudsburg, Pa. He was 83.