Herb Alpert born 31 March 1935

Herb Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American trumpeter who led the band Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s. 

Born  in the Boyle Heights neighbourhood of Los Angeles, California, Alpert grew up in a family of Jewish heritage with parents who had immigrated to the United States from Ukraine and Romania. Although his father worked as a tailor, he was also a gifted mandolin player. Alpert's mother also taught violin lessons, and both Herb and his brother David (a drummer) were introduced to music at a young age. Alpert first started out taking trumpet lessons at age eight, and by his teens was playing in dance bands and experimenting with recording equipment. 

Graduating high school in 1952, he did a two-year stint with the Sixth Army Band, after which he enrolled at the University of Southern California. While there, he spent two years as a member of the USC Trojan Marching Band. It was during this period that he befriended Lou Adler, teaming up with the budding lyricist and music impresario for a series of songs on Keen Records. Together, they scored several Top 20 hits, including Jan & Dean's "Baby Talk" and Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World." Working under the name Dore Alpert, the trumpeter also recorded his first album as a singer, issuing "Tell It to the Birds" on his and partner Jerry Moss' Carnival Records in 1960. Realizing the Carnival name was already in use, Alpert and Moss renamed their label A&M. 

The pairing between Alder and Alpert was short lived. Alpert left to form his own band. It was called Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. He also co-founded a recording entity with his friend Jerry Moss. They named it A&M Records. It is at this record company where Alpert did his recordings. He rose to fame with songs like The Lonely Bull, A Taste of Honey among others. His music was a blended flare of instruments. He experimented with Latin, Jewish, Mexican musical instruments. Alpert scored his first Top Ten hit album with 1964's South of the Border, a further collection of mariachi-influenced arrangements and pop covers by the Beatles, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and others. In 1965, his band was popular than the Beatles. They sold 13.5 million albums. He also had success as a solo musician. 

                             

In 1968, Alpert scored his first number one single (and the first number one for A&M) with a rare vocal turn on a rendition of Burt Bacharach's romantically laid-back anthem "This Guy's in Love with You." He disbanded the Tijuana Brass in 1969. With the absence of Tijuana, A&M record relied on budding musicians. It had a host of them. New names like Joe Cocker, Cat Stevens, The Carpenters and others came up. 

As A&M continued to thrive throughout the early '70s, Alpert shifted his focus somewhat from making his own music to his label duties. In 1973, he also wed former Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 singer Lani Hall. Nonetheless, he regularly recorded throughout the decade. He made another milestone in 1979. With his song The Rise, he got the number one spot as a vocalist and instrumentalist. As a solo artist, he incorporated other artists in his recordings. This helped him release hit singles from the1960s to the 1980s. 

Alpert's 1980 album, Beyond, was also a Top 40 success. It was followed by 1982's Fandango and 1985's Wild Romance, both of which found him further embracing a smooth crossover sound. Released in 1987, Keep Your Eye on Me included the Top Five single "Diamonds," which featured a guest vocal from Janet Jackson, one of A&M's major successes of the decade. In 1986, Alpert also established the Herb Alpert Foundation, a philanthropic organization dedicated to establishing educational, arts, and environmental programs for children.  

Following the sale of A&M to PolyGram in 1990 for a sum in excess of $500 million, Alpert and Moss founded Almo Sounds in 1994. There, he released 1997's Passion Dance and 1999's Colors. Among the artists signed to Almo were luminaries including Garbage, Gillian Welch, and Imogen Heap. Also during this period, he branched out into artistic venues, exhibiting his abstract expressionist paintings and co-producing a number of Broadway successes, including Angels in America and Jelly's Last Jam. 

In his music career, Alpert won 7 Grammy Awards. Some of them are Record of the Year, and Best Jazz Instrumentalist in 1965. The Best Non Jazz Instrumentalist in 1966 among others. He also has an honorary doctorate Degree from Berklee School of Music, for his support to the industry. At Hollywood Hall of Fame, he has a Star in his name. 

In 2007, Alpert and Lani Hall began touring regularly and recording together and in 2013 they released the third of their albums  Steppin' Out, which won a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental. Alpert was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama in 2013. In  2021 he released his latest studio album Catch the Wind, which featured renditions of such beloved songs as "Smile," "America the Beautiful," and the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby." Herb Alpert is currently touring across America and Canada and the UK with upcoming concerts.

(Edited from SunSigns & AllMusic)

 

Harold Burrage born 30 March 1931

Harold Edwin Burrage (March 30, 1931 – November 26, 1966) was an American blues and soul singer, pianist, songwriter, and record producer. 

A chameleon-like singer who was remarkably versatile stylistically, adapting his delivery to suit both the era as well as the record labels he was recording for, though he had little commercial success to show for it. By the 1960’s, though still recording, he was transitioning into producing when he was felled by a heart-attack robbing the music world of a unique talent.  Burrage was born in Chicago and would remain a resident of the city his whole life and during that life would absorb seemingly all of its musical influences which came out on his own recordings. 

He got his professional start on Decca Records as a 19 year old in 1950 with a with a jumping "Hi-Yo Silver" with Horace Henderson's band in support. The record company was trying very tentatively to try their hand at rock ‘n’ roll, albeit with a pure jazz band backing him. After that early effort it’d be three years before he was back in the studio recording for Aladdin (1951) and States Records (1954). Ironically those dead-end one-off releases would be the only times he really worked for high profile record companies. 

He put in his longest stint starting in 1956 with Chicago blues label Cobra Records and while he never became a pure blues artist himself, he adapted some traits of it occasionally notably on “Satisfied” as well as being backed by some of the city’s best blues musicians, such as Otis Rush on guitar. Burrage also cut the amusing "You Eat Too Much" , backed by a solid combo featuring guitarist Wayne Bennett and bassist Willie Dixon. Jody Williams added stinging guitar to Burrage's 1957 Cobra offering "Messed Up," while "Stop for the Red Light," his third Cobra 45, was a novelty complete with auto-wreck sound effects. "Betty Jean," his last Cobra single, is unabashed rock & roll, with Otis Rush on guitar. 

                             

Burrage himself often backed those same blues acts on piano in the studio, earning a steady income as a session musician since his own records weren’t big sellers. Yet as a singer he showed he could easily handle whatever style was in vogue at the time, from his Amos Milburn takeoff in 1953 to a Fats Domino approach on “She Knocks Me Out”. He took on a breathy hiccuping style most often associated with rockabilly on his 1956 track “Messed Up” while channeling Larry Williams on “Betty Jean” in 1958. Throughout it all Little Richard was never far from his mind on many of the songs he tackled during this era. 

Maybe that versatility and lack of originality was the problem in establishing himself as a viable singer in his own right but he finally seemed to come into his own late in the decade when he emphasized the gospel-esque emotion on 1959’s “Crying For My Baby” on Vee-Jay. This was a breakthrough record of sorts as it coincided with the rise of this type of singing which would dominate black rock ‘n’ roll over the next decade and stuck with that more or less for the rest of his career.  He continued in the same style in his brief associations for the Paso and Foxy record labels. 

Burrage with Otis Clay

Burrage revamped his vocal approach considerably when recording rather prolifically for One-derful's M-Pac! subsidiary during the early to mid-'60s eventually scoring his lone national hit in 1965 with “Things Ain’t What They Used To Be”. His only national hit as singer was the 1965 Chicago soul song "Got to Find a Way", which reached number 31 on the US Billboard R&B chart. By now he was ensconced in the city’s thriving soul scene and was acting as a mentor to up and comers Otis Clay and Tyrone Davis when in 1966, at the age of 35, he died of a heart-attack in Davis’s apartment, a tragic end for someone who had managed to survive in a professional sense all of the stylistic shifts rock ‘n’ roll had undergone almost since its inception. 

(Edited from bio by Sampson @ SpontaneousLunacy, AllMusic & All About Jazz)

Astrud Gilberto born 29 March 1940

Astrud Gilberto (born March 29, 1940) is a Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer. She gained international attention in the 1960s following her recording of the song "The Girl from Ipanema". 

She was born Astrud Evangelina Weinert, the daughter of a Brazilian mother and a German father, in the state of Bahia, Brazil. She was raised in Rio de Janeiro. Her father was a language professor, and she became fluent in several languages. She immigrated to the United States in the early 1960s, where she resides since then. 

Astrud was first introduced to the World at large in 1964 through “The Girl From Ipanema,” the Grammy-winning recording with Stan Getz and her then-husband João Gilberto (the father of Bossa Nova). The fact that Astrud seldom grants interviews made it possible for many untruthful versions on how her guest appearance in the Getz & Gilberto album came about to be printed here and there, such as that she was “discovered” by Creed Taylor, or by Stan Getz, or yet, by Jobim, when the only truth is that she was invited to participate in the album by João Gilberto, who has great admiration for her singing talents. 

                              

Astrud’s recordings exposed the nations of the World to the sensuality of Brazilian music and to her unique vocal interpretations of American music, such as “The Shadow of your Smile,” “It Might as well be Spring,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Look to the Rainbow,” “Love Story”, etc… Following the hit with “Ipanema” her recording career quickly took off. Her first solo effort, “The Astrud Gilberto Album” was an immediate best-seller and was itself nominated as album of the year. 

Her next albums were all chart-toppers and were released on a yearly schedule. Her talents were much in demand in other areas as well as she appeared in two motion pictures, “The Hanged Man” and “Get Yourself a College Girl.” She made appearances in all of the popular US television shows of the time, and had TV specials built around her in Europe, Japan and Africa. For many years she was the voice of Eastern Airlines, having recorded award-winning commercials. 

In the early seventies Astrud revealed another facet of her talents, her songwriting, which was introduced on the albums “Astrud Gilberto Now” (1972) and “That Girl From Ipanema” (1977). In 1976, one of her compositions, “Live Today” (co-written with Jerome Schur), received an award at the Tokyo Music Festival.  In the early eighties, Astrud Gilberto formed a group, a sextet comprised of piano, bass, drums, trombone, guitar and percussion. Her son, Marcelo Gilberto, joined her group as bassist. With this group format, she toured Europe, Japan, Canada, and the United States. With the aid of Marcelo’s valuable musical contributions, she polished the group’s arrangements and entered a different phase in her career, as her music became more diversified and her songwriting more proliferous. 

Seeking for a way to overcome her stage fright, which was sometimes overwhelming, Astrud attended the Stella Adler School of Acting, for a couple of years, in the early eighties. The experience was helpful. Although still shy, Astrud learned to control the stage fright to the extent that she can “live with it”.  Her album “Astrud Gilberto Plus The James Last Orchestra” released in 1987, solidified her career as songwriter. The release of this album combined with the reissuing of some of her early records as CDs has created a whole new generation of fans for Astrud Gilberto all over the world, in addition to her already large number of followers.

In 1990 Astrud toured extensively, developing her live show and writing new material. In 1992, Astrud received the “Latin Jazz USA Award for Lifetime Achievement” for her outstanding contribution to Latin jazz music. In 1995 in a sold-out Thursday night appearance, Astrud Gilberto became the first “Jazz” Artist to sing at the trendy “House of Blues” in Los Angeles, which had until then presented Blues and Rock acts, exclusively. She has also broken house records at the very popular “Jazz Cafe” club in London. 

Astrud Gilberto’s sold-out performances at the “House of Blues” and her legendary shows at NYC’s SOB’s continued to be musical “happenings” to her fans up until 2001. The following year  in which she was admitted to the International Latin Music Hall of Fame, Gilberto announced she was taking “indefinite time off” from public performances after four decades playing clubs and festivals. Her second marriage, to Nicholas LaSorsa, ended more than four decades ago and she remained in Philadelphia living in privacy. 

In retirement, she grew interested in philosophy, painting and campaigning against cruelty to animals, insisting that she did not miss the “stage fright” and her ill-treatment by record companies. The past few years, though, have reportedly been extremely difficult for Gilberto, who turns 83 today. Her experiences in the music business have deeply affected her and damaged her trust in people. She now lives in isolation, in her apartment overlooking a river, with the company of a cat and visits and calls from her children. 

(Edited from Jazz Blues News & The Independent)

Tete Montoliu born 28 March 1933

Vicenç Montoliu i Massana, better known as Tete Montoliu (28 March 1933 – 24 August 1997) was a Spanish jazz pianist from Catalonia, Spain. Born blind, he learnt braille music at age seven. His styles varied from hard bop, through afro-Cuban, world fusion, to post bop. He recorded with Lionel Hampton in 1956 and played with saxophonist Roland Kirk in 1963. He also worked with leading American jazz musicians who toured in, or relocated to Europe including Kenny Dorham, Dexter Gordon, Ben Webster, Lucky Thompson, and Anthony Braxton. Tete Montoliu recorded two albums in the US, and recorded for Enja, SteepleChase Records, and Soul Note in Europe. 

Montoliu was born blind, in the Eixample district of Barcelona, Spain, and died in the same city. He was the only son of Vicenç Montoliu (a professional musician) and Àngela Massana, a jazz enthusiast, who encouraged her son to study piano. Montoliu's earliest piano teaching took place under the tutelage of Enric Mas at the private school for blind children he attended from 1939 to 1944. In 1944, Montoliu's mother arranged for Petri Palou to provide him with formal piano lessons. 

From 1946 to 1953, Montoliu studied music at the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu in Barcelona, where he also met jazz musicians and became familiar with the idiom in jam sessions. During the early stages of his career, Montoliu was particularly influenced by the music of U.S. jazz pianist Art Tatum, although he soon developed his own style. (Coincidentally, Tatum was also impaired with extremely limited vision). Montoliu began playing professionally at pubs in Barcelona, where he was noticed by Lionel Hampton on 13 March 1956. Montoliu toured with Hampton through Spain and France and recorded Jazz Flamenco. 

He was also lucky that another great musician, the Barcelona-based saxophonist Don Byas, encouraged him to play withn the mythical club "Jamboree" in Barcelona's Plaza Reial. After which Tete has played with nearly every great jazz master: saxophonists John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Ben Webster, and Stan Getz; the trumpet players, Chet Baker or Paquito D'Rivera; the drummer, Elvin Jones and the violinist, Stephane Grappelli among others. At the end of the fifties, he gave his first recitals in New York, at the famous club, "Up of the Gate" and was distinguished as the best European jazz pianist by his own colleagues. 

                    

In 1967, Montoliu performed in New York City with bassist Richard Davis and drummer Elvin Jones. Two concerts at the Village Gate in April were recorded for the Impulse! label, but an album was never released. He frequently appeared in Madrid during the 1960s at the Whiskey Jazz Club with musicians Pedro Iturralde and singer Donna Hightower. 

During the 1970s, Montoliu travelled extensively throughout Europe. During the 1980s, he performed in concerts with musicians such as Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, George Coleman, Joe Henderson, Dizzy Gillespie, Chick Corea, Hank Jones, Roy Hargrove, Idris Muhammad, Herbie Lewis and Jesse Davis, among others. 

In 1996 he received one of the many tributes to his career with a concert at the Teatro Monumental in Madrid accompanied by Gary Bartz and Tom Harrell. In November of that year he suffered a sudden cardiac arrhythmia that required the implantation of a pacemaker. His ailment is complicated when lung cancer is detected. Despite this, the best example of the musical greatness of Montoliu's last days was the concert in March 1997at the Palau de la Música in Barcelona to celebrate his 64th birthday, a masterful performance in which he performed songs from Ellington, Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, and Thelonious Monk. 

Among his main recorded works are more than sixty records recorded in different formats, including "Body & Soul" (Black Lion, 1971), "Tete!" (Steple Chase, 1974; "Tete a Tete" (Steple Chase, 1976), "Lunch in LA"original Jazz, 1979)."The Man From Barcelona" (1990) and finally the extraordinary live show in Madrid, "Tete en el San Juan" (Melopea, 1997). 

He died in August 1997 from lung cancer, at the age of 64. After his death, the "Tete Montoliu Jazz Awards Biennial" was created. Tete Montoliu had, among other awards, the National Music Award, the Cross of Sant Jordi from the Generalitat of Catalonia, the Medal of Merit from the Barcelona City Council. 

(Edited from Wikipedia. L’Ostia Music & Commune of Icaria blogs)

 

Hal Kemp born 27 March 1904

Hal Kemp (March 27, 1904 – December 21, 1940) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, composer, and arranger. 

Born James Hal Kemp in Marion, Alabama in 1905, he became focused on music early in life and put together his first band in 1919, at around the same time he entered high school. An alto sax player and clarinetist, he ended up leading the Carolina Club Orchestra -- the band of the University of North Carolina -- as a student, all of 19-years-old. A booking on a transatlantic ocean cruise led them to make their recording bow in London (where visiting American bands were a hot commodity, even then). The cruise itself was as much a lark as a professional stepping stone for the student band, whose members all figured to be doing something else professionally. 

But then fate played a hand: on the return trip, they were lucky enough to have the Prince of Wales (later the abdicated Edward VIII) as a fellow passenger who was a music enthusiast and drummer, and he sat in with them; in those days, the United States had such an inferiority complex that anything the British "royals" did was news -- the Carolina Club Orchestra didn't know it, but every day they were at sea they were getting mentioned in the press in every major city in America, and the capper was when the prince praised their music. 

Upon docking, Kemp and company found offers waiting for them, and agents eager to represent them. Once the little matter of finishing his education was completed in 1926, he formed Hal Kemp & His Orchestra, whose ranks included Skinnay Ennis, Bunny Berigan, and John Scott Trotter. The group was a jazz outfit plain and simple during the second half of the '20s, and earned a good living at it. Only with the advent of the '30s, and the accompanying economic upheaval of the Great Depression did they move into more subdued, directly dance-oriented work. 

It suited the mood of the public which, between the wrecked economy and the uncertain politics -- a detached, inept president and a divided Congress -- and Prohibition making much entertainment a criminal enterprise, started buying less challenging, more soothing dance records; jazz still sold, but sweet sounds were easier to put over, and Kemp & His Orchestra proved every bit as adept at that as they'd been at the hotter music of the prior decade. An engagement at the Blackhawk Restaurant in Chicago from 1932 through 1934, coupled with eight hours of radio broadcasts each week, turned them into a national phenomenon and opened their way to the best night spots in the country, at the very time when they landed a recording contract with Brunswick. 

                              

Most of the vocals on their recordings were by Skinnay Ennis, whose vocal style and the arrangements by Trotter, which featured staccato triplets by the trumpeters and clarinets played through megaphones, gave Kemp's records a distinctive sound. The group thrived in the second half of the '30s, until the departure of Trotter in 1936-- who became Bing Crosby's music director -- deprived them of his arrangements, and Ennis' exit took away a popular vocalist. 

Kemp and his orchestra had a number of hit records, including "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" (1933), "In the Middle of a Kiss" (1935), "There's a Small Hotel" (1936), "When I'm With You" (1936), "This Year's Kisses" (1937), and "Where or When" (1937). From 1937, Kemp recorded for Victor Records. His other recordings included "Got A Date With An Angel", "Heart Of Stone", "Lamplight", "The Music Goes 'Round And Around", "You're The Top", "Bolero", "Gloomy Sunday", "Lullaby Of Broadway", and many others. 

Kemp made a brief foray into Hollywood when the band appeared in the moderately successful RKO movie "Radio Revels", released early in 1938 that helped sustain his following, and the addition of the singing group the Smoothies added new variety to their sound, but inevitably the tide ran against the group. Kemp saw his bookings and record sales decline, and by the end of '40s was in the process of trying to decide whether to adopt a swing sound during the approaching new year, At 35, he was still a young man and had a long future to look forward to, and he'd almost completely altered the band's lineup between 1938 and 1940. In the latter year he served as a guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony, partially fulfilling his secret ambition to be a symphony conductor. 

Kemp’s last engagement was at the Cocanut Grove in Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel in 1940. The band closed on December 19 and Hal decided to drive overnight to be in San Francisco the next day where they were due to open at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. While driving to the gig in San Francisco that night in a thick fog, his car was hit head-on by a truck, and he died two days later. Ironically, the Kemp Orchestra charted three hits in the first half of 1941, "It All Comes Back to Me Now," "So You're the One," and "Walkin' by the River," and singer Bob Allen held the band together for part of this period. By 1942, however, the Kemp Orchestra, like its late leader, were part of history, though their sound was never totally forgotten -- their records were too good for that. In 1992, Hal Kemp was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame. 

(Edited from A|llMusic article by Bruce Elder & Wikipedia)

Flip Phillips born 26 March 1915

Joseph Edward Filippelli (March 26, 1915 – August 17, 2001), known professionally as Flip Phillips" was an American jazz tenor saxophone and clarinet player. He is best remembered for his work with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts from 1946 to 1957. For over 50 years was an excellent tenor saxophonist equally gifted on stomps, ballads, and standards. Phillips recorded an album for Verve when he was in his 80s. 

One of three children, Phillips was born in Brooklyn, back when names ending in vowels were disadvantageous in America. Thus Salvatore Massaro became Eddie Lang, Anthony Scaccia became Tony Scott, Joseph Firantello became Joe Farrell, Anthony Allessandrini became Tony Aless, Luigi Balassoni became Louis Bellson and Joseph Edward Fillipelli became Flip Phillips. 

Phillips began studying clarinet when his cousin Frank Reda (a saxophone and clarinet player) gave him one in 1927. He began his professional career playing in the band at Schneider's Lobster House in Brooklyn (1934-9) and with trumpeter Frankie Newton (1940-41). He only switched to the tenor saxophone in his late 20s. Headhunted by Herman shortly afterwards in 1944, he became known across the United States for his contributions to The Good Earth, Apple Honey, Northwest Passage and many more. Few musicians in the band were influenced by the new bebop sounds, but Herman's knack of commissioning such talented young composer/ arrangers as Neal Hefti and Ralph Burns got the First Herd recognised as being in step with postwar progress. 

Igor Stravinsky was impressed enough to write his Ebony Concerto specifically for the Herd; the story goes that, at a rehearsal, Phillips, apparently not the quickest of sight-readers, was told by Stravinsky, "What you are playing is very nice, but what I have written is much better." 

When the pressure of being continuously on the road caused Herman to disband at the end of 1946, Phillips worked with small groups, often featuring another ex-Herman star in trombonist Bill Harris, and joined Norman Granz's Jazz At The Philharmonic for concerts and tours. (1946-57) At it’s peak as a high-profile roadshow, in which big-toned tenors were expected to egg the crowd on by indulging the instrument's capacity to emit honks, squeals and earthshaking belches,. one of the tunes used to bring the entertainment to a climax was Perdido, and a suitably rabble-rousing solo by Phillips, recorded at a JATP concert, linked the piece to him long after the event. 

                             

An impresario who earned the respect of musicians, Granz paid well, and would not allow his outfit to perform before racially segregated audiences. The show's worldwide popularity, boosted by a series of concert recordings and trips to Europe, spread the word about Phillips, and helped him win polls in Downbeat and Metronome magazines. 

Phillips  recorded extensively for Clef in the 1940s and 1950s, including a 1949 album of small-group tracks under his leadership with Buddy Morrow, Tommy Turk, Kai Winding, Sonny Criss, Ray Brown, and Shelly Manne. Following the example of the swing era's saxophone pioneer, Coleman Hawkins, Phillips extracted from the tenor a rounded, breathy tone that never weakened, even as the notes rained down. Especially in the early days, slow ballads were the occasions for heartfelt rhapsodising. 

He accompanied Billie Holiday on her 1952 album Billie Holiday Sings. During this period, he often shared the stage with other top tenors in the Granz stable, notably Lester Young and Ben Webster. They might have inspired his lighter touch on, respectively, blues and ballads, though Phillips was always able to adapt to his surroundings - with both Herman and JATP, he probably felt the need to blow at full throttle much of the time. 

After joining Benny Goodman for a European tour in 1959, he decided to give up full-time playing. With his wife Sophia, he settled in Florida, making a living from non-musical jobs. He managed a beachside housing development and indulged his hobbies of golf and wood work. He also took up the bass clarinet. But, by 1970, the jazz climate had altered in his favour. Bands were increasingly being formed by players of the past, and Phillips appeared at the Colorado Jazz Party (1970). He  rejoined Herman for a gig at the Newport festival (1972) and was a natural attraction at jazz parties run by wealthy aficionados. 

The arrival of musicians whose styles harked back beyond bebop, let alone beyond John Coltrane, found Phillips joining Scott Hamilton on two-tenor dates. He often teamed up with guitarist Howard Alden, a fixture on the neo-swing scene. Phillips thrived musically, showing he had lost nothing over the years, while adding the ease of expression that comes when you don't have to prove yourself to anyone. On his last record, made at the age of 84, he sounds ultra-relaxed in the company of Joe Lovano, himself a poll-winning tenor, and James Carter. 

He died in August 2001, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the age of 86. 

(Edited from Guardian obit by Ronald Atkins, Jazztimes, Wikipedia & New Grove Dictionary Of Jazz)