Don Grusin was born April 22, 1941 in Denver, Colorado; his older brother is arranger-composer-keyboardist Dave Grusin. After graduating from the University Of Colorado Boulder, Don Grusin worked as an economics professor in Guadalajara, Mexico and Foothill College in Southern California. A talented keyboardist, Grusin switched to music, working with Azteca and the Quincy Jones […]

Green Dolphin Street Bassist Paul Chambers was born April 22, 1935 in Pittsburgh, PA, but was raised in Detroit. He started studying classical bass as a teenager with a bassist from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Thad Jones and Barry Harris were the first to recognize his jazz chops and employ him. In 1955, he joined […]

The YouTube stamp says that this was the final performance of Latin jazz composer Tito Puente. It was not. (YouTube is not always the most reliable source of info.) Ernesto Antonio “Tito” Puente was born April 20, 1923 in Harlem, New York. Perhaps not surprisingly, he was a very active child endlessly banging on pots […]

Lionel Hampton and his orchestra appear on “The Big Record” in 1957 hosted by Patti Page. Legendary vibraphonist and bandleader Lionel Leo Hampton was born April 20, 1908 in Louisville, Kentucky. He moved quite a bit before the family finally settled in Chicago. Already a professional drummer in his teens, he moved to California around […]

Flautist and tenor saxophonist Herbert Jay Solomon, known by his stage name “Herbie Mann”, was born April 16, 1930 in Brooklyn, New York. A State Department sponsored tour of Africa opened his ears to different musics around the world which became his passion leading him to explore Afro-Cuban and Brazilian music. In the 1950s Herbie […]

Pianist and percussionist Victor Stanley Feldman was born April 07, 1934 in Edgware, London, England. Born into a musical family Victor Feldman was found to be a child prodigy when he was seven. His father founded London’s Feldman Swing Club in 1942 an establishment featuring performances from his talented sons. Victor began playing drums in […]

Pianist and composer Randy Weston was born April 6, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. Piano lessons started early. Wynton Kelly was a cousin. After working with artists like Kenny Dorham and Cecil Payne in the early 1950s, he launched his career as a leader. In the late 1940s he ran a restaurant frequented by bebop […]

Guitarist and vocalist John Paul Pizzarelli Jr.was born April 6, 1960 in Paterson, New Jersey. Son of jazz patriarch Bucky Pizzarelli, John has appeared on over 140 albums and nearly forty of his own. He also frequently works with a jazz quartet consisting of his brother Martin Pizzarelli on bass, Larry Fuller piano, and Tony […]

Tenor-saxophonist Michael Brecker was born on March 29, 1949 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Brecker started on the clarinet at eight, alto sax in eighth grade and tenor when he was 15. After a year at Indiana University, he moved to New York in 1969, worked with the early jazz-rock group Dreams (which also included his older […]

Pianist and singer Nathaniel Adams Coles (“Nat King Cole”) was born on March 17, 1919 in Montgomery, Alabama. Nat Cole (he changed his last name from Coles early in his career) was raised in Chicago, was influenced as a pianist by Earl Hines, and led the Royal Dukes in 1934 when he was 15; he […]