Happy Birthday to John Hicks, Frank Sinatra, Joe Williams, Tony Williams, Grover Washington, Nelson Harrison

[WASHINGTON DC JAZZ NETWORK]

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor.

Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became a successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, being the idol of the "bobby soxers." His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1954 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

He signed with Capitol Records and released several critically lauded albums (such as In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin' Lovers, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice 'n' Easy). Sinatra left Capitol to found his own record label, Reprise Records (finding success with albums such as Ring-A-Ding-Ding, Sinatra at the Sands and Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim), toured internationally, was a founding member of the Rat Pack and fraternized with celebrities and presidents, including President John F. Kennedy. Sinatra turned 50 in 1965, recorded the retrospective September of My Years, starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and scored hits with "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way".

Sinatra attempted to weather the changing tastes in popular music, but with sales of his music dwindling, and after appearing in several poorly received films, he retired in 1971. Coming out of retirement in 1973, he recorded several albums; scored a Top 40 hit with "(Theme From) New York, New York" in 1980; and toured both within the United States and internationally until a few years before his death in 1998.

Sinatra also forged a career as a dramatic actor, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here to Eternity, and he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for The Man with the Golden Arm. He also starred in such musicals as High Society, Pal Joey, Guys and Dolls and On the Town. Sinatra was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mr. Hicks, born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1941, was the eldest of five children. His parents, Reverend Doctor John J. Hicks and the former Pollie Louise Bledsoe of Atlanta, both deceased, moved to Los Angeles when Mr. Hicks was an infant. That is where Hicks received his first piano lessons under the tutelage of his mother. When Hicks was fifteen, the family moved to Saint Louis, Missouri in order for the Reverend Hicks to take over the pulpit of Union Memorial Methodist Church.

After graduating high school and attending Lincoln University, the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston, and Julliard School of Music in New York City, Hicks relocated to New York City from St. Louis by accepting his first road gig with Della Reese. That was over 40 years ago. John Hicks became so firmly established among the most in-demand, prolific jazz pianists and composers on the recording and live appearance scenes, critics permanently affixed the adjective "ubiquitous" to his name. As a leader or first-call sideman, playing inside or outside the chord changes, presenting sparkling ballads or burning up the keyboard at torrid tempos, Hicks was as versatile as he was omnipresent. He has graced the stages of Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Kennedy Center, Spivey Hall, and a host of international jazz festivals.

Mr. Hicks' varied influences include Fats Waller piano rolls, Methodist church music, George Gershwin, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk. Among his musical mentors were such immortals as Lucky Thompson, Miles Davis and Clark Terry. Hicks also played road gigs with blues legends Little Milton and Albert King as well as other jazz greats Al Grey, Johnny Griffin and Pharaoh Sanders before he arrived in New York in 1963. John then worked with, among numerous others, Kenny Dorham, Lou Donaldson and Joe Henderson before becoming a full-fledged member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. After two years with the seminal Messengers band, John joined the Betty Carter Trio, another important incubator for world-class beboppers. His productive stints with the vocalist Carter propelled John's career as a recording artist into national and international notice. Mr. Hicks had the opportunity to perform in such places as Italy, Japan, Australia, Israel, France, England, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Poland, South Africa, and Taiwan

The intervening year also saw Hicks performing live and on record with a galaxy of jazz giants that included Sonny Rollins, Carmen McRae, Freddie Hubbard, Frank Foster, Roy Haynes, Sonny Stitt, Jon Hendricks and James Moody. He additionally recorded several albums for both the Theresa (Evidence) and Disk Union with such cutting edge saxophone masters as David Murray, Ricky Ford & Arthur Blythe. He collaborated with fellow pianist Kenny Barron on an album on Candid. In the decade of the 90s, Hicks had further expanded his visibility and acclaim. His recorded works have included reunion meetings with Betty Carter to a solo concert at Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley, California to a variety of settings that have included artists Joshua Redman, Al Grey, Clark Terry, Ron Carter, Grady Tate, Charles Tolliver, Oliver Lake, Roy Hargrove, Gary Bartz, and Bobby Watson among others.

Although his exhaustive discography is inclusive of nearly every modern-day jazz great, his most recent creative undertakings included memorial recordings with his own trio: "Music in the Key of Clark" (Sonny Clark) - High Note; "Impressions of Mary Lou" (Mary Lou Williams) - High Note; "Nightwind" (Erroll Garner) - High Note; "John Hicks Trio and Strings with Larry Willis and Elise Wood" - Mapleshade; "So In Love" with Richard Davis - King Records; "Live in Taiwan" and "Beautiful Friendship" with flutist Elise Wood - Hiwood. Of particular note as a leader is his recording "Something to Live For: A Billy Strayhorn Songbook", which features some of Hicks' most lyrical work.

The years of the past decade have seen an increasing focus of solo work, trio work and his Quintet and Sextet. Teaming up with a diverse array of musicians had become a Hicks trademark. It also infused his playing with a unique characteristic: a relaxed confidence so total that at times it belies the passion he brings to a song. In all these realms, he has brought together outstanding musicians all whom share with him excellence in the creation and delivery of the universal language. Among those with whom he worked are Curtis Lundy, David Murray, Elise Wood, David Newman, Hannibal Peterson, Cecil Brooks III, Walter Booker, Billy Bang, Sonny Fortune, Frank Wess, Louis Hayes, Buster Williams, George Mraz, Idris Muhammad, Mickey Bass, Lester Bowie, and a host of luminaries in the jazz genre.

Mr. Hicks is survived by his wife, flutist Elise Wood of New York City; his daughter and granddaughter, Naima Yemenejah and Chintamini Hicks of Atlanta; his son, Jamil Malik Hicks; his only surviving brother, Raiford Emerson Hicks; two sisters, Mrs. Paula Hicks Neely (Louis) and Ms. Emma Hicks Kirk (Ronald) of Stockbridge, Georgia; nieces Lotus Eldona Hicks, Amina Kirk Thornton, Akosua Biney, Oresala Hicks and Khaliyah Hicks; nephews Tyler Hicks, Jameel Hicks, Hakim Vines, Raiford Hicks, Jr., Kwesi Balewa Kirk; aunts; Dorothy Ransom, Eartha Cheeseborough of Jacksonville, Florida, Mrs. Thelma Lawrence of New York City; and uncle John Emmett Brown of Jacksonville; and his special cousin Mrs. Debra Lawrence Cowan of New York City. John was loved, admired, and respected by a host of other relatives and friends too numerous to name.

Williams was born Joseph Goreed in the small farming town of Cordele, Georgia. His father, Willie Goreed, left the family early on, but Williams' mother, Anne Beatrice Gilbert, who was 18 when she had her only child, provided a strong emotional bond until her death in 1968. Soon after Williams was born, his mother moved them in with her parents, who had enough money to support an extended family. During this time, Anne Gilbert was saving for a move to Chicago. Once she had made the move — alone — she began saving the money that she earned cooking for wealthy Chicagoans so that her family could join her. By the time Williams was four, he, his grandmother, and his aunt had joined his mother in Chicago, where they would live for many years.

Probably most important to Williams' later life was the music scene — fueled largely by African-American musicians — that thrived in Chicago in the early 1920s. Years later, he recalled going to the Vendóme Theatre with his mother to hear Louis Armstrong play the trumpet. Chicago also offered a host of radio stations that featured the then-rebellious sounds of jazz, exposing Williams to the stylings of Duke Ellington, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Big Joe Turner, and many others. By his early teens, he had already taught himself to play piano and had formed his own gospel vocal quartet, known as "The Jubilee Boys", that sang at church functions.

During his mid-teens Williams began performing as a vocalist, singing solo at formal events with local bands. The most that he ever took home was five dollars a night, but that was enough to convince his family that he could make a living with his voice; so, at 16, he dropped out of school. After discussing it with his family, he began using the name "Williams" as a stage name, and he began marketing himself in earnest to Chicago clubs and bands. His first job was at a club called Kitty Davis's. Williams was allowed to sing with the band in the evening and keep the tips, which would sometimes amount to $20.

Williams had his first real break in 1938 when clarinet and saxophone player Jimmie Noone invited him to sing with his band. Less than a year later, the young singer was earning a reputation at Chicago dance halls and on a national radio station that broadcast his voice from Massachusetts to California. He toured the Midwest in 1939 and 1940 with the Les Hite band, which accompanied the likes of Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. A year later, he went on a more extensive tour with the band of saxophonist Coleman Hawkins.

In 1942, Lionel Hampton hired him to fill in for his regular vocalist, both for the Hampton orchestra's home performances at the Tic Toc Club in Boston and for their cross-country tours. Williams' work with Hampton ended when the band's former singer returned, but by that time Williams was in great demand, his fame particularly burgeoning back in Chicago. In the mid-'40s he toured with Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy (making his first recording with that band). From 1951 through 1953, he recorded with Red Saunders and his band for OKeh Records and Blue Lake Records.

He got his big break in 1954, when he was hired as the male vocalist for with Count Basie Orchestra. He remained with Basie until 1961, garnering some of the best exposure a blues and jazz singer could have. His first LP, Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings, appeared in 1955, containing definitive versions of Memphis Slim's "Every Day I Have the Blues" (already his signature song) and "Alright, Okay, You Win." "Every Day" hit number two on the R&B charts, and sparked another LP—1957 The Greatest! Count Basie Swings/Joe Williams Sings Standards—spotlighting Williams' command of the traditional-pop repertory. After 1955, the Basie group stopped every year at the Newport Jazz Festival, one of the biggest events on the jazz calendar. In 1955, Williams won Down Beat magazine's New Star Award. That same year, he won Down Beat's international critics' poll for Best New Male Singer, as well as their readers' poll for Best Male Band Singer--citations he would continue to accumulate throughout his career. The years 1956, 1957, and 1959 also found the ensemble touring Europe, where the popularity of jazz had skyrocketed.

He appeared with Count Basie and his Orchestra in the 1957 rock and roll movie Jamboree (1957 film), released by Warner Brothers.

In the 1960s Williams worked mostly as a single, often accompanied by top-flight jazzmen, including Harry Edison, Clark Terry, George Shearing and Cannonball Adderley. In 1962 Williams sings along with Jimmy Rushing with Count Basie & His Orchestra at the Newport Jazz Festival. In 1971, he and pianist George Shearing collaborated on a recording, The Heart and Soul of Joe Williams. He became a familiar face on television, appearing on such variety programs as Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, Steve Allen, Joey Bishop, Merv Griffin, and Mike Douglas shows. Williams gained further notoriety when Bill Cosby cast him as Heathcliff Huxtable's father-in-law "Grandpa Al" Hanks in a recurring role on the hit 1980s sitcom The Cosby Show.

Williams sang the lead in 1975 in Cannonball Adderley's musical play Big Man (based on the John Henry legend) in Carnegie Hall. Helped by his brother Nat Adderley, composed music for a full-blown, nearly-hour-long theater piece, which he called a "folk musical", the subject is John Henry, the mythical black hero.

Williams continued to perform regularly at jazz festivals, both in the U.S. and aboard, as well as on the nightclub circuit. Williams had performed at the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival 12 times, spanning from 1959 thru 1993, sharing the stage with jazz greats such as Sarah Vaughan, Dianne Reeves, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson, Miles Davis, Cal Tjader, Carmen McRae, Herbie Hancock, Nat Adderley, and Dizzy Gillespie. [8] During the 1980s Williams appeared at Chicago's, Playboy Jazz Festival ten times.

He was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1983, next to Basie's. When Basie died in 1984, Williams sang a rendition of Duke Ellington's "Come Sunday" at his funeral. The 1984 movie All of Me starring Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin gives credit to Williams as performer of the title track. In 1985, Williams received a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocalist for the album I Just Want to Sing. In 1991 Williams attended his own gala tribute, "For the Love of Joe", which celebrated the contribution that he had made and was still making to music. In 1992, he won his second Grammy Award, for the release Ballad and Blues Master—"I Just Want to Sing." In 1997, Williams sang a duet with Nancy Wilson during the opening show of the San Francisco Jazz Festival, singing the song "You're Too Good to Be True."[9]

Williams enjoyed a successful career and worked regularly until his death. Williams died at age 80, on March 29, 1999 in Las Vegas, Nevada. He collapsed on a city street a few blocks from his home after walking out of Sunrise Hospital, where he had been admitted for a respiratory ailment. The hospital had reported him missing several hours before his body was found. "He's an adult and chose to leave," Ann Lynch, vice president for human services at the hospital, said. "We don't confine people here. Upon finding him missing, the facility was checked, and then the police were notified to continue the search." Ron Flud, the Clark County Coroner, said Mr. Williams had apparently died of natural causes.

Tony Williams was regarded by many shrewd observers as the greatest jazz drummer of his era. He was both an inspiration and a profound influence to countless young drummers, and his innovative explorations, notably with the classic Miles Davis Quintet of the Sixties, were a major factor in shaping the development not only of small-group jazz, but also jazz-rock fusion.

Although born in Chicago, Williams family moved to the Boston area when he was two, and he grew up there. His father, Tillmon Williams, played saxophone, and he encouraged his son's musical interests from a very early age. That included taking the boy to sit in at gigs in clubs around the area, where he became something of child prodigy, and was said to be well known enough by the age of 11 to visit the clubs and play on his own.

He took lessons from a fine locally-based jazz drummer, Alan Dawson, and by the age of 15 had shared a band stand with both Art Blakey and Max Roach. By then, he was already well known in the area as a freelance musician, and in 1959 began an important association with Sam Rivers, one of the most distinctive and forward-thinking jazz musicians in Boston. The saxophonist became something of a mentor to the young drummer.

He played for a short time with alto saxophonist Jackie McLean in 1962 (and returned for the recording of One Step Beyond in 1963), an association which brought him to the notice of Miles Davis. The trumpeter was in the throes of putting together a band to replace the great quintet and sextet of the late-50s, a legendary outfit which had recorded such classics as Milestones and Kind of Blue, as well as the famous collaborations with Gil Evans on Sketches of Spain and Porgy and Bess.

The drummers in those bands, Jimmy Cobb and Philly Joe Jones, had been important influences on Williams's developing style, which would seem to indicate a daunting prospect for the 17-year old drummer. Lack of confidence, however, did not seem to play much part in his make-up. In a 1979 interview, he said that Miles's offer "felt like the most natural thing in the world for me. I was prepared. I knew all of his music. I had studied everything he had done up to that point. I felt deep down that I was without question the best drummer for the job."

In his Autobiography, Miles described the revelation of finding the drummer in typically colourful fashion. His initial approach had to await the fulfillment of the drummer's committments to McLean, but Miles was not a man to be put off when his mind was made up, and he accepted Williams's assurance that "he had Jackie's blessing to join my band after they finished those gigs. Man, just hearing that little motherfucker made me excited all over again. Like I said earlier, trumpet players love to play with great drummers and I could definitely hear right away that this was going to be one of the baddest motherfuckers who had ever played a set of drums."

Miles paired Williams with bass player Ron Carter and pianist Herbie Hancock, and laid the foundation for a band which, completed by saxophonist Wayne Shorter (Sam Rivers occupied that chair briefly in 1964), set about redefining the roles of soloist and rhythm section in small group jazz, in what developed as an increasingly fierce dialogue. According to Miles, "Tony was the fire, the creative spark" which launched the band into new areas of creation, and the full impact of his energising enthusiasm and innovative approach to the drums became evident as he more than confirmed Miles's (and his own) judgement of his capabilities.

Along with Elvin Jones, who was finding his own distinctive path through the dense musical maelstrom of the John Coltrane Quartet, Williams revolutionised jazz drumming. He could play conventional jazz patterns with breathtaking precision and lightness of touch, but had also absorbed something of the early free-form experiments of the 1960s (in part from Sam Rivers) into his playing, and brought that freedom to bear in a way which none of Miles's great drummers of the previous decade had attempted.

Some players found both his intensity and his unconventional handling of time and assymetric rhythmic accents disconcerting, but Miles revelled in the challenge, and the quintet provided Williams with the perfect setting in which to develop his increasingly individual musical voice. He became an equal creative partner with the horn players, and shifted the whole emphasis of the drummer's role in the process.

He remained with Miles throughout the decade, until the middle of 1969, but was also playing and recording with other leaders in those years, including the saxophonist Eric Dolphy (he was the drummer on the classic Out To Lunch album of 1964, one of the crucial documents of the era), pianist Herbie Hancock, and his old mentor, Sam Rivers. He recorded as a leader in his own right for Blue Note, beginning with the album Life Time in 1964, a name which he would revive for the first group of his post-Miles career.

When Williams left the group in 1969, Miles was moving into the jazz-rock fusion era. The drummer had played on the sessions which became In A Silent Way, widely regarded as the harbinger of fusion, and decided to try his own hand in the new music. He formed the first of several versions of Lifetime, with guitarist John McLaughlin, the brilliant organ player Larry Young (also known as Khalid Yasin), and, following the break-up of Cream, Scottish bass player Jack Bruce. The band was highly regarded by critics and other musicians, but never achieved the kind of commercial success enjoyed by Miles himself, his fellow quintet members Wayne Shorter (in Weather Report) and Herbie Hancock, or McLaughlin in his subsequent Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Disillusioned, the drummer withdrew from performing for a couple of years in the mid-70s, then returned to an acoustic jazz setting in 1976 with the stellar VSOP band, a virtual reformation of the Davis quintet which reunited him with Hancock, Shorter and Carter, plus trumpeter Freddie Hubbard (a later line-up included the then up-and-coming trumpet star Wynton Marsalis, and Williams also featured on Marsalis's debut album in 1981).

The drummer continued to lead his own groups in the 1980s, and recorded a number of albums as leader for Blue Note. In the 1990s, he toured and recorded with the four members of the quintet once again, this time as an overt Miles Davis tribute band, with Wallace Roney on trumpet, although internal tensions within the band grew increasingly discernible.

Ironically, his death after what should have been a routine operation came at a time of renewed recording activity, with the release of an orchestral fusion album, Wilderness, on his own Ark 21 label, and an acoustic jazz trio album. In a final twist of irony, the latter album marked his return to Columbia, the label which issued the Miles Davis albums which posterity will see as the most important of his many contributions to contemporary jazz.

One of the most popular saxophonists of all time, Grover Washington, Jr. was long the pacesetter in his field. His roots were in R&B and soul-jazz organ combos, but he also fared very well on the infrequent occasions when he played straight-ahead jazz. A highly influential player, Washington pushed himself with the spontaneity and risk-taking of a masterful jazz musician.

Grover Washington, Jr.'s, father also played saxophone and was his first influence. The younger son started playing music when he was ten, and within two years was working in clubs. He picked up experience touring with the Four Clefs from 1959-1963 and freelancing during the next two years, before spending a couple years in the Army. He moved to Philadelphia in 1967, becoming closely identified with the city from then on, and worked with several organists, including Charles Earland and Johnny Hammond Smith, recording as a sideman for the Prestige label.

His biggest break occurred in 1971, when Hank Crawford could not make it to a recording date for Creed Tasylor's Kudu label; Washington was picked as his replacement, and the result was Inner City Blues, a big seller. From then on he became a major name, particularly after recording 1975's Mister Magic and Feels So Good, and later 1980's Winelight; the latter included the Bill Withers hit "Just the Two of Us."

Although some of his recordings since then found him coasting a bit, Washington usually stretched himself in concert. He developed his own personal voices on soprano, tenor, alto, and even his infrequently-used baritone. Grover Washington Jr. recorded as a leader for Kudu, Motown, Elektra, and Columbia and made notable guest appearances on dozens of records ranging from pop to straightforward jazz. He died of a sudden heart attack on December 17, 1999 while taping an appearance on CBS television's The Saturday Early Show; Washington was 56. The posthumous Aria was issued early the following year.

Nelson E. Harrison, Ph. D., ASCAP, clinical psychologist, educator, composer, arranger, trombonist, clinician, veteran of the Count Basie Orchestra (1978-81); played with Kenny Clarke, Billy Eckstine and Earl "Fatha" Hines, Jay McShann, Slide Hampton; recorded with Walt Harper, Nathan Davis and Count Basie; co-leader of jazz groups featuring Joe Harris and Andy Bey. Composer credits consist of over 400 original compositions including movie scores and soundtracks. He is featured on "Science and the Outer Streams," a live web cast on the subject "The Metaphysics of Music."

He has invented a unique 10 inch long, five pound brass instrument he calls the "Trombetto" on which he can play 6 octaves chromatically. Details can be found at: http://www.windworld.com/emi/index.htm.

He is a member of the African American Jazz Caucus (AAJC) affiliate of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) and a contributing partner with the Afro-Centric curriculum for jazz and the Living Encyclopedia of Global African Music projects that include the Pittsburgh Jazz Legacy as a component. He is a member of the Westinghouse High School Hall of Fame and the East Liberty Gallery of Stars





Outer Streams, Metaphysics of Music Part 1 of 6 Jazz Composer and Performer Dr. Nelson Harrison explains the metaphysics of music. Music can be "a metaphysics based on the cooperation between what we know and what we don't." Dr. H

Metaphysics of Music Part 2 of 6
Outer Streams, Metaphysics of Music Part 3 of 6
Outer Streams, Metaphysics of Music Part 4 of 6
Outer Streams, Metaphysics of Music Part 5 of 6
Outer Streams, Metaphysics of Music Part 6 of 6