CCS - Wade in the Water (RAK)

Arturo Sandoval (trumpet) - 1949 :: Birthday greetings to Arturo Sandoval. Arturo is a jazz trumpeter, pianist and composer. He was born in Artemisa, in the newest renamed Artemisa Province, Cuba.

Sandoval, while still in Cuba, was influenced by jazz legends Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown, and Dizzy Gillespie, finally meeting Dizzy later in 1977. Gillespie promptly became a mentor and colleague, playing with Arturo in concerts in Europe and Cuba and later featuring him in The United Nations Orchestra. Sandoval defected to the United States of America in Spain, while touring with Gillespie in 1990, and became a naturalized citizen in 1999.

After playing many instruments, he fell in love with the trumpet. In 1964, he began three years of serious classical trumpet studies at the Cuban National School of Arts. By the age of 16 he had earned a place in Cuba's all-star national band. By this time, he was totally immersed in jazz, with Dizzy Gillespie as his idol. In 1971 he was drafted into the military. Luckily, Sandoval was still able to play with the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna. Because of this he was able to continue his daily practice regimen.

In Cuba, Sandoval co-founded the band Irakere with Chucho Valdés and Paquito D'Rivera. They quickly became a worldwide sensation. Their appearance at the 1978 Newport Jazz Festival introduced them to American audiences and garnered them a recording contract with Columbia Records.

Sandoval was still exploring his musical possibilities and left the group in 1981 to form his own band. He continued to tour worldwide with his new group, playing a unique blend of jazz and Afro Cuban music. In addition to playing Afro Cuban jazz, he performed classical music with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London and the Leningrad Symphony in the former Soviet Union.

He enjoys a successful recording career that extends outside of mainstream jazz. He has recorded as a sideman with Johnny Mathis, Gloria Estefan, Kenny G, Paul Anka, Frank Sinatra, and Dave Grusin. He has also played in concerts with Woody Herman, Herbie Hancock, Woody Shaw, Stan Getz, Céline Dion, Tito Puente, and recently with Alicia Keys and Justin Timberlake.

Amos White - 1889-1980 ::  was an American jazz trumpeter.

White grew up an orphan in Charleston, South Carolina, where he played in the Jenkins Orphanage band in his teens in addition to traveling with minstrel shows and traveling circuses. After attending Benedict College, he returned to the orphanage to take a teaching position. During World War I White played in the 816th Pioneer Infantry Band in France, and settled in New Orleans after the war. Working as a typesetter, he played jazz in his spare time, working with Papa Celestin and Fate Marable among others. In the 1920s he appeared on many records by blues singers such as Bessie Smith and Lizzie Miles, and played in the Alabamians. In 1928 he became the leader of the Georgia Minstrels.

In the 1930s White moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he played with his own group and with local dance groups, including Felipe Lopez's. Later in the decade he relocated to Oakland, California, where he played locally into the 1960s in marching bands.

Don Lusher - 1923-2006 :: Don Lusher, born in Peterborough, started on trombone at six years old, becoming the third generation to play in the Peterborough Salvation Army Band, alongside his father and grandfather. During the war he served as a gunner signaller in the Royal Artillery and on being demobbed entered the music profession playing with the bands of Joe Daniels, Lou Preager, Maurice Winnick, The Squadronaires, Jack Parnell, Geraldo and eventually Ted Heath, by which time he was topping the music polls.

His best known solo features with Heath, both his own compositions, were Lush Slide and On With The Don, in which his seamless legato and apparently effortless control of high notes brought astonished gasps from trombonists the world over. He toured widely with Heath, including several visits to America, where the band seemed even more popular than at home.

His nine years as lead trombone with Ted Heath included several coast to coast tours of America where he took advantage of studying with Dick Nash and the late Will Bradley. He also met Tommy Dorsey and the members of his band at the Statler Hotel in New York.

As one of Britain's top session men he worked for some of the world's most prestigious Musical Directors and led the trombone section for Frank Sinatra's European tours. He was also much in demand as a soloist with Brass Bands, Wind Bands, Jazz Groups and Big Bands such as Manhattan Sound Big Band.

In 1975 he gave the first performance of Gordon Langford's Rhapsody For Trombone at the Royal Albert Hall. His interest in performing new works by young classical composers remained strong for the rest of his life. Later premieres included Gordon Carr's Trombone Concerto, Gareth Wood's Dance Sequence and Scott Stroman's Concertino for Trombone, Strings and Percussion.

At the other end of the musical spectrum, Lusher joined the trumpeter Kenny Baker and other long-time associates in a project entitled The Best Of British Jazz. This informal sextet would form up for brief concert tours, and was initially regarded by its members as a pleasant diversion from more weighty undertakings; but it proved so popular that it outlived many of its originators and remains popular today, 30 years after its inception.

Francy Boland - 1929-2005 :: Belgian pianist and composer Francy Boland teamed with American drummer Kenny Clarke to lead the Clarke-Boland Big Band, widely cited as the finest all-star ensemble of its kind ever assembled outside the U.S.

Born November 6, 1929, in Namur, Belgium, François Boland began playing piano at age eight, later studying at the Music Conservatory. He first earned notice after joining the Bob Shots in 1949, playing alongside a who's who of Belgian jazz greats including tenorist Bobby Jaspar, vibraphonist Fats Sadi, and guitarist René Thomas. Boland recorded six LPs with the Bob Shots, all of them in Paris.

When the group dissolved, he and several bandmates remained in France, and in 1954 he signed on as the pianist and arranger behind trumpeter Aimé Barelli. In 1956 Boland joined trumpeter Chet Baker's quintet, and when Baker returned to the U.S. he took the pianist with him. Boland remained overseas for two years, during that time writing for Benny Goodman, Count Basie, and Mary Lou Williams. Upon returning to Europe, he settled in Germany, joining Kurt Edelhagen's orchestra as well as playing with the West Deutsche Radio Big Band.

In the spring of 1961, Boland met with drummer Clarke, and together they assembled an octet to record the Blue Note LP The Golden Eight. The collaboration proved so powerful that Italian producer Gigi Campi encouraged the duo to extend their partnership full-time, resulting in the creation of the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band. An international group featuring musicians from the U.S., Britain, Germany, Austria, and Sweden, its ranks included some of the finest players of the post-bop era, including Ronnie Scott, Tony Coe, Derek Humble, Nat Peck, and Karl Drewo. (Guests on their 30-odd LPs include Stan Getz, Johnny Griffin, and Zoot Sims.) In all, the Clarke-Boland Big Band remained a going concern for over 11 years, despite the financial obstacles and ego issues implicit in keeping this kind of all-star international enterprise afloat -- Boland's arrangements deftly wed the intellectual rigors of bebop with the physical energy of swing, and his "Sax No End" emerged as a modern standard.

Following a 1972 date in Nuremburg, the Clarke-Boland Big Band split. Boland settled in Geneva, entering semi-retirement but still writing and arranging, most notably at the request of Sarah Vaughan. In 1984, he was tapped to spearhead One World, One Peace, which set to music the poems of Pope John Paul II. Boland died in Geneva on August 12, 2005.

Ray Conniff - 1916-2002 :: was an American bandleader and arranger best known for his Ray Conniff Singers during the 1960s.

Conniff was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and learned to play the trombone from his father. He studied music arranging from a course book.After serving in the U.S. Army in World War II (where he worked under Walter Schumann), he joined the Artie Shaw big band and wrote many arrangements for him. After his stint with Shaw he was then hired by Mitch Miller, then head of A&R at Columbia Records, as their home arranger, working with several artists including Rosemary Clooney, Marty Robbins, Frankie Laine, Johnny Mathis, Guy Mitchell and Johnnie Ray. He wrote a top 10 arrangement for Don Cherry's "Band of Gold" in 1955, a single that sold more than a million copies.

Among the hit singles he backed with his orchestra (and eventually with a male chorus) were "Yes Tonight Josephine" and "Just Walkin' in the Rain" by Johnnie Ray; "Chances Are" and "It's Not for Me to Say" by Johnny Mathis; "A White Sport Coat" and "The Hanging Tree" by Marty Robbins; "Moonlight Gambler" by Frankie Laine; "Up Above My Head," a duet by Frankie Laine and Johnnie Ray; and "Pet Me, Poppa" by Rosemary Clooney. He also backed up the albums Tony by Tony Bennett, Blue Swing by Eileen Rodgers, Swingin' for Two by Don Cherry, and half the tracks of The Big Beat by Johnnie Ray.

In these early years he also produced similar-sounding records for Columbia's Epic label under the name of Jay Raye (which stands for "Joseph Raymond") amongst them a backing album and singles with Somethin' Smith and the Redheads, an American male vocal group.

Between 1957 and 1968, Conniff had 28 albums in the American Top 40, the most famous one being Somewhere My Love (1966). He topped the album list in Britain in 1969 with His Orchestra, His Chorus, His Singers, His Sound, an album which was originally published to promote his European tour (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) in 1969. He also was the first American popular artist to record in Russia—in 1974 he recorded Ray Conniff in Moscow with the help of a local choir. His later albums like Exclusivamente Latino, Amor Amor and Latinisimo made him very popular in Latin-American countries, even more so after performing in the Viña del Mar International Song Festival. In Brazil and Chile he was treated like a young pop superstar in the 1980s and 1990s when he was in his 70s and 80s. He even played live with his orchestra and eight-person chorus in large football stadiums as well as in Viña del Mar.

Conniff commented, "One time I was recording an album with Mitch Miller - we had a big band and a small choir. I decided to have the choir sing along with the big band using wordless lyrics. The women were doubled with the trumpets and the men were doubled with the trombones. In the booth Mitch was totally surprised and excited at how well it worked." Because of the success of his backings Mitch Miller and the new sound Conniff created Miller allowed him to make his own record, and this became the successful 'S Wonderful, a collection of standards that were recorded with an orchestra and a wordless singing chorus (four men, four women).

Well,sort of a big band day today!

And in Keeping with that theme I think we'll have a bit of Dizzy and Arturo from the United Nations Orchestra! Why not?

All you November 6th Jazzlings, have a wonderful day and an eben better year ahead.

Remember that life is what YOU make it!

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