Max Roach “The Freedom Now Suite”
Max Roach was born on January 10, 1924 in the Township of Newland Pasquotank County, North Carolina. His family moved to Brooklyn New York when he was 4. His mother sang gospel music and by 10 years old Roach was playing the drums with gospel bands. He was influenced by gospel music. At 16, he [...]
Clifford Brown “Lady Be Good”
Clifford Brown was born in Wilmington, Delaware on October 30, 1930. He started playing the trumpet when he was 13. He also studied some piano. He played in the high school band. In his late teens, Brown started doing gigs in Philadelphia where he caught the attention of fellow trumpet players Dizzy [...]
Charlie Parker “Celebrity”
Charlie Parker was born to Charles Sr. and Addie Parker on August 29, 1920. He grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. Parker had no formal training in music and started playing the saxophone at 11. He didn’t have his own saxophone so he used rented school instruments. He played baritone with the school band [...]
Keith Jarrett “Mandala”
Keith Jarrett was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania on May 8, 1945. He started playing the piano when he was 3 and performed in his first concert when he was 6. The concert ended with two of his compositions. Jarrett studied classical music, but was very interested in jazz. In his late teens he turned down [...]
Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker “Hot House”
John Birks Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina in 1917. His father was a band leader who encouraged his children to learn to play musical instruments. Gillespie could play the piano by age 4 and taught himself to play the trombone. He switched to playing trumpet when he was 12.
Gillespie got his first [...]
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers “Night in Tunisia”
Before I start this post, I wanted to say that I realized last night that I’d already put up a performance of “Donna Lee” this week. Sorry about that. Maybe I should change the name of the blog to “Stop and Hear Donna Lee”.
Art Blakey was born in 1919 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Raised by [...]
Jaco Pstorius “Donna Lee”
John Francis Pastorius III was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania on December 1, 1951. His family moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida where he took up the drums. From an early age he love sports and that’s how he got his nickname. It was originally Jocko but he later changed it to Jaco. After breaking his [...]
Bud Powell “Blues in the Closet”
Born on September 27, 1924, Bud Powell came from a musical family. His father was a stride pianist and band leader. His grandfather played flamenco guitar. His older brother played the trumpet, and his younger brother played piano. Powell studied classical piano, but from a young age loved to play stride piano. When he [...]
Charles Mingus “Flowers for a Lady”
Charles Mingus was born in Nogales, Arizona in 1922, but spent most of his childhood years in the Watts area of Los Angeles. He tried playing the trombone and the cello before finally settling on the bass. Mingus was influenced by gospel music at a early age. His family attended church regularly and his mother [...]
Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter “Footprints”
Herbie Hancock was born in Chicago in 1940. He started playing classical piano at seven. He was considered a child prodigy and played a piece with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age 11. He was always very interested in jazz and used to study jazz recordings. He started playing jazz in high school. Hancock was [...]
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