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Jaki Byard

A musician that has spanned the generations of Jazz is Jaki Byard. Jaki Byard was born John Arthur Byard, Jr. on June 15, 1922 in Worcester, Massachusetts. His father was a member of the marching hands at the turn of the 20th century and played the trombone. His mother played the piano for the African Methodist Episcopalian Zion Church (AME). His maternal grandmother played the piano for the silent picture shows (visual movies without sound before "talking movies" were invented). It was on that piano that Jaki began his musical odyssey.

When he was 8 years old, he started taking piano lessons from a piano teacher named Grace Johnson. The swing rhythm of the time and the lure of the big bands inspired Jaki throughout most of his career. At the age of 16, he played his first professional engagement. During WW II, Jaki was drafted into the army, but with luck and circumstance, he was able to join the army along with Earl Bostic, with whom he would later form a musical alliance with.

By the time he was in his late-thirties, Jaki had a recording contract with Prestige records who engaged him in many recording sessions which allowed him the freedom to have his own compositions heard. It was also around this time that he performed with Charles Mingus as part of an ensemble that featured among its players many fabulous musicians: Eric Dolphy, Jack De Johnette, Johnny Coles and Bobby Jones, who toured Europe and made some great sounds and history. During the 1960's, he saw great success, and all of his albums received mostly 3-4 star ratings in DownBeat magazine.

In 1966, he won the Down Beat Jazz Poll Award for most promising musician of that year. In 1979, his 21-piece big band, The Apollo Stompers was voted the Best House Band in New York City while playing at Ali's Alley, a club in downtown New York. On his own, Jaki was to win numerous awards and citations for his music and contributions to teaching and dance from many major academic institutions. He always felt "academia" as he put it was very important. A most cherished and proud moment for Jaki was when he was asked by Duke Ellington's son Mercer to sit in for Duke as part of his orchestra while the Duke was ill. He was presented with an award by the Duke Ellington Society for his performances.

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Radio & Podcasts

Jaki Byard, Gabor Szabo and Rare Carla Bley

Read "Jaki Byard, Gabor Szabo and Rare Carla Bley" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


An eclectic show from July 2021 that encompasses a range of music that includes Jaki Byard, Cowboys & Frenchmen, Little Miss Cornshucks and a rare Carla Bley track. Playlist Henry Threadgill Sextett “I Can't Wait Till I Get Home" from The Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings of Henry Threadgill & Air (Mosaic) 00:00 Arturo O'Farrill “Nightfall" from Virtual Birdland (Zoho) 00:58 Jesse Byrom-Carter “Hy Brasil" from The next tomorrow is yesterday (Self-Produced) 8:35 Host Speaks 14:53 Ran Blake ...

Album Review

Charles Mingus: @ Bremen 1964 & 1975

Read "@ Bremen 1964 & 1975" reviewed by Stefano Merighi


"In questo paese--sentenziò Charles Mingus--percepisco ancora intatto il puzzo delle camere a gas e dei campi di concentramento. Ma non fatevi troppi problemi: gli Stati Uniti d'America sono anch'essi un grande campo di concentramento." Il paese era la Germania Ovest, la città era Brema, l'anno il 1964. La dichiarazione è riportata da Joachim Ernst Berendt in un articolo del 1979 e ripresa come incipit dell'indimenticabile Charlie Mingus di Mario Luzzi (Lato Side, 1983) Dichiarazione ...

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Album Review

Charles Mingus: @ Bremen 1964 & 1975

Read "@ Bremen 1964 & 1975" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


It is 1964 and the big bass emperor rules the old continent as he commanded every stage he set foot on. So @ Bremen 1964 & 1975 just does not sound right. Charles Mingus Swings Bad Ass and Liberates Your Body and Your Mind @ Bremen sounds way more like it. For—as much as anything in his grand, sweeping arc serves to highlight how mercurial and spot-on his real time genius was—this previously unreleased four-disc joy bomb will certainly be ...

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Album Review

Charles Mingus: @ Bremen 1964 & 1975

Read "@ Bremen 1964 & 1975" reviewed by Chris May


Four hours of previously unissued, premier-league music by Charles Mingus is something to shout about, and @ Bremen 1964 & 1975 is about as good as the bassist and composer's posthumously released live albums get. Four CDs chronicle two extended, intense performances recorded in Germany by Radio Bremen. Both gigs featured all-star bands and both are typically and gloriously uplifting Mingus melanges of through-composition and in-the-moment improvisation touching on blues and roots, bop, hard bop, New Orleans marching band, swing, ...

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Album Review

Jaki Byard: A Matter of Black and White

Read "A Matter of Black and White" reviewed by Charles Walker


Curious title for this album. Sure, it's a nice pun on the pianistic adventures included, but with the possible exception of Duke Ellington or Mary Lou Williams, there was hardly another jazz pianist of the mid-20th Century who saw more gray areas in the music's broad landscape than the late Jaki Byard. In his trio sessions for Prestige, his work with Charles Mingus, or in his late-period solo recitals, anything from James P. Johnson's charging stride figures to Earl Hines' ...

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Album Review

Jaki Byard: Sunshine of My Soul: Live at the Keystone Korner

Read "Sunshine of My Soul: Live at the Keystone Korner" reviewed by George Kanzler


Pianist Jaki Byard (1922-1999) is the first one you hear on 2007's great vault discovery, the previously unheard Charles Mingus Sextet with Eric Dolphy, Cornell 1964 (Blue Note). A favorite of Mingus, who famously disliked most piano players, Byard played with a wide range of jazz musicians and was an acclaimed teacher whose students included Fred Hersch, DD Jackson and Jason Moran. And as the music/jazz teacher at the Music Critic Association/Smithsonian jazz fellows seminars/workshops in the early 1970s, his ...

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Not For Sale

Jaki Byard at the Chicago Jazz Festival - September 6, 1992

Read "Jaki Byard at the Chicago Jazz Festival - September 6, 1992" reviewed by Ken Dryden


I was introduced to the work of pianist Jaki Byard through his work as a sideman with Eric Dolphy and Charles Mingus. Both his eclectic style and sense of humor appealed to me, so I soon found myself snapping up every record and CD in which he took part, even getting an opportunity to do liner notes for the long hidden tapes which made up the Jaki Byard Quartet with Joe Farrell: The Last From Lennie's , issued by Prestige ...

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Performance / Tour

New England Conservatory Jazz Orchestra Celebrates The Centennial Of Massachusetts Jazz Master Jaki Byard on March 3

New England Conservatory Jazz Orchestra Celebrates The Centennial Of Massachusetts Jazz Master Jaki Byard on March 3

Source: Braithwaite & Katz Communications

The Music of Jaki Byard" concert will highlight the multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger’s big band repertoire and his legacy at NEC World premiere of new work by composer Carl Atkins written in honor of Byard. International broadcast on Saturday, April 9 The NEC Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Ken Schaphorst celebrates the centennial of Jaki Byard in a live concert on Thursday, March 3, 2022 at 7:30 p.m. at Jordan Hall, 290 Huntington Avenue, Boston. Byard was one of ...

Video / DVD

Jaki Byard: Anything for Jazz

Jaki Byard: Anything for Jazz

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Back in the early 1980s, I'd head down to Barry Harris's Jazz Cultural Theater on New York's Eighth Avenue in the 20s to hear Jaki Byard & the Apollo Stompers. As I recall, you never knew who you'd see in the band. There often were guys in the trumpet section who played Broadway shows. But the biggest surprise of all was hearing Byard play the piano. There was a lot of abstraction in his attack, but there always was a ...

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Recording

Monday Recommendation: The Jaki Byard Project

Monday Recommendation: The Jaki Byard Project

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

The Jaki Byard Project, Inch By Inch, Yard Byard (GM Recordings) An album in tribute to a prodigious pianist—without a pianist; it must have seemed a good idea when flutist Jamie Baum conceived it. And it was. Ms. Baum, drummer George Schuller and guitarist Jerome Harris studied with Byard at the New England Conservatory. He died in 1999. Byard’s compositions and the inspiration of his genius as an arranger influenced their musical development. They recruited bassistUgonna Okegwo and multiple reed ...

Contest

Enter the "Tommy Flanagan/Jaki Byard - The Magic of 2" Giveaway at All About Jazz!

Enter the "Tommy Flanagan/Jaki Byard - The Magic of 2" Giveaway at All About Jazz!

Source: All About Jazz

All About Jazz members are invited to enter the Resonance Records “Tommy Flanagan/Jaki Byard - The Magic of 2“ giveaway contest starting today. We'll select THREE winners at the conclusion of the contest on June 1st. Click here to enter the contest

(Becoming a fan of Tommy Flanagan at AAJ automatically enters you in the contest.)

Good luck! Your Friends at Resonance Records About The Magic of 2

Two titans of jazz piano are captured in flight on ...

Recording

Tommy Flanagan + Jaki Byard

Tommy Flanagan + Jaki Byard

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Piano duets date back to the days when the instrument developed its curves. In fact, I've long wondered whether the piano's undulating casing design was fashioned specifically so two instruments could be spooned for musical dialogue. [Pictured above, from left: Jaki Byard and Tommy Flanagan] One of the earliest recorded jazz piano duets was a series by stride artist Albert Ammons—who was teamed in the late 1930s with Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis. As recording technology improved through the ...

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Recording

Resonance Records To Release "Tommy Flanagan/Jaki Byard: The Magic Of 2," April 9

Resonance Records To Release "Tommy Flanagan/Jaki Byard: The Magic Of 2," April 9

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

Two titans of jazz piano are captured in flight on the new Resonance Records album, Tommy Flanagan/Jaki Byard: The Magic of 2. Scheduled for April 9 release as a CD with 24-page booklet, a digital download with digital booklet, and a deluxe limited edition 2-LP set, The Magic of 2 presents a 1980 concert recorded at San Francisco’s celebrated Keystone Korner and the second entry in Resonance’s Keystone Discoveries series. “It’s a revelation, how well they played together,” says Keystone’s ...

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Education

Local Jazz History at the Boston Public Library for Jazz Week from JazzBoston

Local Jazz History at the Boston Public Library for Jazz Week from JazzBoston

Source: Chris Rich

A sense of place and history always attends Jazz Week. Booker Ervin was a mail man not far from where I live in the 60s. Johnny Hodges was born over in Cambridgeport. This year focuses on a region and two pianists. Both Events will be at the Main Branch Library in Copley Square. “North Shore Jazz, Then and Now," will occur on Thursday, May 5 at 6pm in the Rabb Room at Boston Public Library. Henry Ferrini and Jenny Chava ...

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