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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.

In February of 1988, he was also presented with an award from the Mayor for Outstanding Contribution in Black Music and Presence in Boston (the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award). He has the key to Worcester, New Orleans, and many peoples hearts. In 1995, a year after the death of his beloved wife, Louise (my mother), he was presented with an award by then Mayor Rudolph Guliani for his work with the Apollo Stompers in recognition of Harlem Week and its 100th anniversary. And while Jaki won many awards, the most cherished for him was the honor he gave to himself and others when he could write a tune for someone he loved or for a passing whimsy or idea that would send him to the piano with a pencil and composition paper, and it was this love that he did transmit through all of his performances dosed with his outstanding wit and humor.

The sixties and seventies saw a moderate amount of success on the entertainment level. Jaki turned back to teaching and academia in the late mid 1970s, '80s and '90s with occasional recordings in between. In the early 1970's he accepted a position at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts where he would stay for over a decade teaching both in the curriculum and privately. Some of the other schools that he taught at were The Hartt School of Music, Northeastern University, Bismark State College, Alma Lewis School of Fine Arts in Boston, The New School in New York City, The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music in Flushing, and lastly The Manhattan School of Music in New York City. He also never had enough time for his parcel of private students who would gladly, trek out to his home in Hollis, Queens for their one on one lessons.

Around 1979-1982 Jaki, along with some other local musicians (among them, percussionist/composer/friend! JR Mitchell, bassist Peck Morrison, vibraphone keyboard player Dwight Gassoway, saxophone player Harold Ousley and bassist Larry Ridley) formed an organization called the Unification of Concerned Artists in the hopes of creating more recognition and engagements for New York-based musicians whose gigs were just too far and few between. As with most endeavors of this sort, things panned out well for a while, but somehow survival happens and time had to be spent on that. I used to transcribe the minutes at the monthly meeting of the Board of Trustees, and in retrospect I can say that we really did try to create some openings. I think that if more time could have been devoted to his effort, it, too would have succeeded.

Jaki's career that spanned over six decades was still going strong. He was still recording and still arranging, composing and teaching. In February of 1999, he was invited to conduct a seminar and play at the Berkley School of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. He never did make it to that engagement. However you define success, for Jaki Byard, being able to play his music for the joy, the creativity, the fun and the teaching of it was all that really mattered to him. Jaki Byard died (tragically) on February 11, 1999. He was 76 years young and still had much to offer the music and artistic community.

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Eric Dolphy: Outward Bound To Out To Lunch Revisited

Read "Outward Bound To Out To Lunch Revisited" reviewed by Stefano Merighi

by Stefano Merighi
May 10, 2024

Il valore incalcolabile dell'opera di Eric Dolphy sta passando un po' in secondo piano nel nostro tempo di ascolti rapidi e deconcentrati. Ben venga allora questa edizione, anche se rimane la perplessità dell'accorpare due dischi che pochissimo hanno in comune e che sono comunque ancora a disposizione negli ottimi originali. Dal 1960 al 1964 (anno della scomparsa), Dolphy ha attraversato un mondo sonoro denso, sfaccettato, rimanendo se stesso sia accanto a Mingus che a Russell, sia nelle sabbie ...

Album Review

Eric Dolphy: Outward Bound To Out To Lunch Revisited

Read "Outward Bound To Out To Lunch Revisited" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
April 17, 2023

Ask any jazz aficionado for their favourite jazz albums of the '60s and the chances are that, alongside such decade-defining choices as Jimmy Giuffre's Free Fall (Columbia, 1963), John Coltrane's A Love Supreme (Impulse, 1965), Andrew Hill's Point of Departure (Blue Note, 1965) and Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity (ESP, 1965), they will select Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch (Blue Note, 1964). Now the Dolphy classic has been reissued on Ezz-thetics alongside one of his older recordings, Outward Bound (Prestige, 1964), ...

Radio & Podcasts

Jaki Byard, Gabor Szabo and Rare Carla Bley

by Jerome Wilson
October 5, 2022

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

by Stefano Merighi
March 1, 2021

"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 ...

Album Review

Charles Mingus: @ Bremen 1964 & 1975

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

by Mike Jurkovic
December 8, 2020

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 ...

Album Review

Charles Mingus: @ Bremen 1964 & 1975

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

by Chris May
November 13, 2020

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

by Charles Walker
April 11, 2011

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' ...

Performance / Tour

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

Source: Braithwaite & Katz Communications
February 24, 2022

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 ...
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Video / DVD

Jaki Byard: Anything for Jazz

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
December 14, 2018

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

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
August 25, 2015

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 ...
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Contest

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

Source: All About Jazz
May 1, 2013

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 ...
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Recording

Tommy Flanagan + Jaki Byard

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
April 10, 2013

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

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity
February 18, 2013

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

Source: Chris Rich
May 5, 2011

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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