Tadd dameron biography
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What you play there is terribly important. He sometimes sat in with the band and taped not just the jazz proceedings, but the whole revue—comics, dancers, singers et al.
Unfortunately Swaggerty’s tape machine sounds as if it was placed too near to a bandstand air-conditioning unit. As such it can’t compare with works such as Lewis Porter’s exemplary bio of Coltrane and works of that caliber, but it’s serious in its effort to tell a story that well deserves telling.
After writing arrangements for Harlan Leonard's Rockets, main competitors to the band of Kansas City pianist Count Basie, Dameron emulated saxophone innovator Charlie Parker and headed for the jazz mecca of New York City. Barbara Winfield sang on two of the songs. This theme is extended in a written-out (not improvised) alto saxophone solo played most expressively by Sahib Shihab, and by the ensemble.
But that was it as far as I was concerned. But, one night. This piece builds to a genuine climax and Larry was right to ask Kenny to take a bow.
We conclude with a masterpiece- the mini-suite Fontainebleau inspired by a visit when Tadd was in France for the first time for the 1949 Paris Jazz Festival (where Miles Davis, James Moody and Kenny Clarke were sidemen in his group).
During the ‘60s he wrote for Blue Mitchell, Sonny Stitt, and Milt Jackson. I then realized that since the consumption of alcoholic beverages was prohibited in Ohio on Sundays, that we were in a genuine speakeasy.
I saw some musicians gathering on the elevated stage and Ralph told me to bring my horn; there was someone I should meet. This was a solid stamp of approval as far as I was concerned.
Dameron would find another young trumpeter after Navarro, who died in 1950 at 26. He used long phrases, strong upbeat rhythms, and chord changes of Bop, which Charlie Parker and Dizzy pioneered, in big band arrangements. See, I was just a composer.
that he didn’t want to play for anyone else. Many improvisers are locked into the habit of playing four- or eight-bar phrases, terminating their last phrase (on a 32 bar tune) at the end of bar 30 or so—or on bar 10 or so if it’s a blues. So this 1989 version was a very authentic Dameronia. Freddie, Sarah, and Billy, and tell them to think this way — sound the note, then bring it out.
Boxes of manuscripts, some without chord symbols, are still to be sorted and catalogued. It always had depth and personality – his personality. By the time he was 21, he was writing arrangements for Cleveland's Jeter-Pillars big band. Philly Joe Jones is one instance where all original recording had the exact instrumentation of Dameronia. .