Jazzerainious

Tip Bits

Roy Hardgrove


DID YOU KNOW, Roy Hargrove won his first Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album in 1998 for Habana with Crisol, the Afro-Cuban band he founded. He won his second Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album in 2002 for Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall with co-leaders Herbie Hancock and Michael Brecker.

Rochelle Ferrell


Since the age six years old, Rochelle Ferrell has been singing with the development of a six octave range. Her abilities has reached the whistle register. Ferrell's highest notes in "It Only Took A Minute" (1992) and in “I Can Explain” (2007-Live) have been described as "Minnie Riperton-level of singing.” She is proficient in violin and the piano and has been performing professionally on both instruments as well as a vocalist since her teenager age. After enrolling in the Berklee College of Music, and graduating a year later, acquiring the art of arrangement and developing her abilities in singing and songwriting, she secured a position teaching music for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts alongside the great Dizzy Gillespie.


George Duke


DID YOU KNOW, George Duke produced a wide and diverse range of projects -- including records by the Pointer Sisters, Barry Manilow, Smokey Robinson, Melissa Manchester, 101 North, George Howard, Gladys Knight, Najee, Take 6, Howard Hewett, Chanté Moore, Everette Harp, Rachelle Ferrell (his key collaborator in the early '90s), Gladys Knight, Keith Washington, Gary Valenciano, Johnny Gill, and Anita Baker -- in a wide range of styles. Many of these records charted highly.

Bob James


Of all the music Bob James have written, directed, produced and played throughout the years, one of his best works was Westchester Lady on the album All Around The Town. Four days in December of 1979, Bob assembled three different bands to play (and record) at three legendary venues in New York City to showcase his own diversity as a composer, arranger, and bandleader. The Bottom Line band is a smooth and funky sextet that includes saxophonists Wilbert Longmire and Mark Colby, James, drummer Idris Muhammad, bassist Gary King, and guitarist Hiram Bullock. The Town Hall gigs featured a larger band that included three pianists: James, Joanne Brackeen, and Richard Tee, as well as drummers Billy Hart and Steve Gadd and bassist Eddie Gomez. Finally, the Carnegie Hall show featured a yet larger orchestra that included Tom Scott, Earl Klugh, and Bullock on guitars, Muhammad, King, Tom Browne, Jim Pugh, and Dave Taylor, and others. Even though over 40 years ago, this unique combination produced a musical block buster album that can easily be the talk of a many jazz buffs conversations to this very day. Of course it's on Jazzerainious.

Note: Information provided in Tip Bits was provided by wikipedia and other information sites.