Melissa was born in Chile in 1988, starting on the Alto Sax aged just six! She moved onto the Tenor Sax in her teens after hearing the sound of Sonny Rollins, (her first tenor was her grandfather’s Selmer Mark VI.)
Destined to be one of the most important jazz saxophonists of the 21st Century, start listening to Melissa today!
A student of the Warne Marsh school, Mark was born in Ohio, but raised in Southern California. He started learning the Clarinet in Primary School and moved onto the Alto Saxophone in his teens. Turner studied at California State University, before the Berklee College of Music, where he graduated in 1990.
Born in Norway in 1947, Garbarek has become the ‘voice’ of the ECM label. His trademark sharp-edged, bright tone coupled with his use of minimalism has made him popular with fans and musicians alike.
I first became aware Garbarek in the 90’s through his work with the Hilliard Ensemble, but it was my college sax tutor Mike Haughton who really inspired me to check out more Garbarek. I’ve used Garbarek as an inspiration for work at St. Paul’s Cathedral and Ely Cathedral, (see below for the soundcloud clips.)
Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, Woods began playing the saxophone at the age of 12, and was at first an admirer of Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges. He had a few private lessons in his mid-teens with the pianist Lennie Tristano, and then attended the Manhattan School of Music and then Julliard, (where he studied Clarinet, not saxophone!)
He got his big break playing with Dizzy Gillespie’s Big Band in the 1950’s and then went on to make a number of small band recordings in the late 50’s early 1960’s. A move to Paris with Chan Richardson, (Charlie Parker’s former common law wife) led to a more experimental Avant Garde output. He returned to New York in the late 70s, taking on more commercial work, including the incredible sax solo on Billy Joel’s Just the Way You Are.
A fine teacher, Woods put his efforts into teaching jazz in the 80s and 90s and became increasingly bestowed with honours for his contribution to music.
Phil Woods died aged 84 on 29th September 2015.
Dexter was born on February, 27th 1923. His His father, Dr. Frank Gordon, was one of the first African American doctors in Los Angeles who arrived in 1918 after graduating from Howard Medical School in Washington, D.C. Among his patients were Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton.
Gordon was one of the first tenor players to translate what Charlie Parker had done on the Alto Saxophone, but he also owes a huge debt to Lester Young. Dexter Gordon spent time in and out of prison for drug abuse and other misdemeanours, but in the 1960s signed for Blue Note records and recorded some of the best albums on the iconic label.
A visit to England in the mid 60’s led to a 14 year stay in Europe where Dexter recorded for many small, independent European labels. A triumphant return to New York in 1976 heralded a renaissance for Dexter Gordon that lasted until his death in 1990.
Born in 1926 in Badin, North Carolina, Lou Donaldson grew up playing church music. His father was a minister and his mother a music teacher and it was whilst serving in the Navy during the Second World War that he was introduced to the Be Bop music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
Donaldson is best known now for his soulful, funky 1960s recordings that feature some of the greatest soul jazz players ever to record. These include guitarists Grant Green, Melvin Sparks, Jimmy Ponder and George Benson, organists John Patton, Billy Gardner, Lonnie Smith, Charles Earland and Leon Spencer, Jr., drummers Ben Dixon (one of the great underrated groovers), and Leo Morris/Idris Muhammad, whose work on the kit defined the funky boogaloo soul jazz sound of the late 1960s. Records like Good Gracious (1963, Blue Note), Musty Rusty (1965, Cadet), Alligator Bogaloo [sic], Mr. Shing-a-ling (1967, Blue Note) and Hot Dog (1970, Blue Note), among others, are quintessential examples of the jukebox, funky, soulful 1960s jazz that came to define “rare grooves” in the soul jazz revival period of the 1990s.
He was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame on October 11, 2012.[9] Also in 2012, he was named a NEA Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, United States’ highest honor in jazz music.[10]