Scott LaFaro born 3 April 1936

Rocco Scott LaFaro (April 3, 1936 – July 6, 1961) was an American jazz double bassist known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio. LaFaro broke new ground on the instrument, developing a countermelodic style of accompaniment rather than playing traditional walking basslines, as well as virtuosity that was practically unmatched by any of his contemporaries. Despite his short career and death at the age of 25, he remains one of the most influential jazz bassists, and was ranked number 16 on Bass Player magazine's top 100 bass players of all time.

LaFaro was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of a big band musician. He was five when his family moved to Geneva, New York. He started playing piano in elementary school, bass clarinet in middle school, and tenor saxophone when he entered high school. He took up double bass at 18 before entering college because learning a string instrument was required of music education majors. After three months at Ithaca College, he concentrated on double bass. He played in groups at the College Spa and Joe's Restaurant on State Street in downtown Ithaca.

Beginning in 1955, he was a member of the Buddy Morrow big band. He left that organization to work in Los Angeles. LaFaro spent most of his days practicing his instrument. He practiced from sheet music for the higher-pitched clarinet to improve his facility with the upper register for bass. Fellow bassist Red Mitchell taught him how to pluck strings with both the index and middle fingers independently. He joined Chet Baker' group (1956-7). For much of 1958, LaFaro was with pianist/vibraphonist Victor Feldman's band, also recording with Hampton Hawes.

                        Here's "Onilosor" from above album.

                                  

LaFaro started his professional career playing a German-made Mittenwald double bass, but it was stolen in the spring of 1958.Shortly after, he acquired a bass made in 1825 in Concord, New Hampshire, by Abraham Prescott. The top of the instrument is a three-piece plate of slab-cut fir; the back is a two-piece plate of moderately flamed maple with an ebony inlay at the center joint; the sides are made of matching maple. It has rolled corners on the bottom and very sloped shoulders on the top, making it easier to get in and out of thumb position. LaFaro continued to play this bass until his death.

Bill Evans said of LaFaro's Prescott bass: "It had a marvellous sustaining and resonating quality. He would be playing in the hotel room and hit a quadruple stop that was a harmonious sound, and then set the bass on its side and it seemed the sound just rang and rang for so long."

After playing briefly in Chicago with Ira Sullivan he accompanied Sonny Rollins and Harold Land in San Fransisco, then with Barney Kessel and played in a group at the Lighthouse Café in Hermosa Beach, California. In 1959, after working with bandleader Stan Kenton, vibraphonist Cal Tjader, and clarinettist Benny Goodman, LaFaro returned east and joined Bill Evans, who had recently left the Miles Davis Sextet. 

With Evans and drummer Paul Motian he developed the counter-melodic style that would come to characterize his playing. Evans, LaFaro, and Motian were committed to the idea of three equal voices in the trio, working together for a singular musical idea and often without any musician explicitly keeping time. By late 1960, LaFaro was in demand as a bassist.

1961 was LaFaro's busiest year, juggling the projects of Getz, Evans, and Ornette. He replaced Charlie Haden as Ornette Coleman's bassist in January 1961. For a time, Haden and LaFaro shared an apartment. He also played in Stan Getz's band between jobs with the Bill Evans trio. Around this time, he received a greeting card from Miles Davis that suggested Davis wanted to hire him. In June 1961, the Bill Evans trio began two weeks of performances at the Village Vanguard in New York City. The trio attracted attention for its style. The last day was recorded for two albums, Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby, which are considered among the finest live jazz recordings.

On July 3, he played Newport with Stan Getz; it would be the final performance of Scott LaFaro. On July 5 he visited his mother in Geneva, and stayed until it was very late. He was invited to spend the night, but said no; he had to get back to New York. In the early hours of July 6, Frank Ottley and Scott LaFaro died when Scott’s car left the road, hit a tree, and caught fire. This happened in Seneca, New York, on U.S. Route 20 between Geneva and Canandaigua. According to Paul Motian, the death of LaFaro left Bill Evans "numb with grief," "in a state of shock," and "like a ghost." Obsessively, he played "I Loves You, Porgy," a tune that had become synonymous with him and LaFaro. Evans stopped performing for several months.

Evans said that LaFaro had been "one of the most, if not the most outstanding talents in jazz." Legendary bassist Ray Brown added, "This was one of the most talented youngsters I've seen come up in a long time. For his age, he really had it covered. ... It's a shame, really a shame. It's going to set the instrument back ten years." Motian noted, "We were supposed to make a record date as the Miles Davis Trio, it was all set up, and then Scott got killed and the whole thing got forgotten."LaFaro's departure was sudden, violent, and unexpected, but his influence had already begun, and its spell would hold sway over jazz bassists for decades to come.

In 2008, Bill Evans's final bassist, Marc Johnson, played LaFaro's restored bass on an Evans tribute album recorded by Johnson's wife, Eliane Elias, titled Something for You: Eliane Elias Sings & Plays Bill Evans. On March 5, 2014, the City Council of Geneva, New York approved making April 3 Scott LaFaro Day. On April 4, 2014, a ceremony to rename a downtown street Scott LaFaro Drive took place.

(Edited from Wikipedia, Jazz Improv Magazine & New Grove Dictionary of Jazz) 

Serge Gainsbourg born 2 April 1928

Serge Gainsbourg (2 April 1928 – 2 March 1991) was a French singer-songwriter, actor and director, notorious for his voracious appetite for alcohol, cigarettes, and women, his scandalous, taboo-shattering output made him a legend in Europe but only a cult figure in America, where his lone hit "Je T'Aime...Moi Non Plus" stalled on the pop charts -- fittingly enough -- at number 69.  Gainsbourg's extremely varied musical style and individuality make him difficult to categorize. His legacy has been firmly established, and he is often regarded as one of the world's most influential popular musicians.

Born Lucien Ginzberg in Paris, his parents were Russian Jews who fled to France following the events of the 1917 Bolshevik uprising. After studying art and teaching, he turned to painting before working as a bar pianist on the local cabaret circuit. Soon he was tapped to join the cast of the musical Milord L'Arsoille, where he reluctantly assumed a singing role; self-conscious about his rather homely appearance, Gainsbourg initially wanted only to carve out a niche as a composer and producer, not as a performer.

In 1945, Gainsbourg's father enrolled him in Beaux-Arts de Paris, a prestigious art school. Serge later transferred to the Académie de Montmartre, where he met his first wife, Elisabeth "Lize" Levitsky, the daughter of Russian aristocrats and a part-time model. Serge and Lize were married on November 3, 1951, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1957. By 1958 he made his recording debut with the album Du Chant a la Une; while strong efforts like 1961's L'Etonnant Serge Gainsbourg and 1964's Gainsbourg Confidentiel followed, his jazz-inflected solo work performed poorly on the charts, although compositions for vocalists ranging from Petula Clark to Juliette Greco to Dionne Warwick proved much more successful.

                                 

Gainsbourg married a second time on 7 January 1964, to Françoise-Antoinette "Béatrice" Pancrazzi, with whom he had two children: a daughter named Natacha and a son, Paul. He divorced Béatrice in February 1966. 

In the late '60s, he befriended the actress Brigitte Bardot, and later became her lover; with Bardot as his muse, Gainsbourg's lushly arranged music suddenly became erotic and delirious, and together, they performed a series of duets, including "Bonnie and Clyde," "Harley Davidson," and "Comic Strip" celebrating pop culture icons.

Gainsbourg's affair with Bardot was brief, but its effects were irrevocable: after he became involved with constant companion Jane Birkin, they recorded the 1969 duet "Je T'Aime...Moi Non Plus," a song he originally penned for Bardot complete with steamy lyrics and explicit heavy breathing. Although banned in many corners of the globe, it reached the top of the charts throughout Europe, and grew in stature to become an underground classic later covered by performers ranging from Donna Summer to Ray Conniff.

Serge with Jane Birkin

Gainsbourg returned in 1971 with Histoire de Melody Nelson, a dark, complex song cycle which signalled his increasing alienation from modern culture: drugs, disease, suicide and misanthropy became thematic fixtures of his work, which grew more esoteric, inflammatory, and outrageous with each passing release. Although Gainsbourg never again reached the commercial success of his late-'60s peak, he remained an imposing and controversial figure throughout Europe, where he was both vilified and celebrated for his shocking behaviour, which included burning 500 francs on a live television broadcast and recording a reggae version of the sacred "La Marseillaise." 

Money to burn

Along with his pop music oeuvre, Gainsbourg scored a number of films, and also directed and appeared in a handful of features, most notably 1976's Je T'Aime...Moi Non Plus, which starred Birkin and Andy Warhol mainstay Joe Dallesandro. Having previously turned down the offer to score the popular softcore pornography film Emmanuelle (1974), he agreed to do so for one of its sequels Goodbye Emmanuelle in 1977. Jane Birkin left Gainsbourg in 1980, but the two remained close, with Gainsbourg becoming the godfather of Birkin and Jacques Doillon's daughter Lou and writing her next three albums. Gainsbourg's final reggae recording, Mauvaises nouvelles des étoiles (1981), was recorded at Compass Point Studios in The Bahamas. Bob Marley, husband to The I Threes singer Rita Marley, was reportedly furious when he discovered that Gainsbourg had made his wife Rita sing erotic lyrics.

Gainsbourg posed in drag for the cover of 1984's Love on the Beat, a collection of songs about male hustlers, and made sexual advances towards Whitney Houston on a live TV broadcast. He also created a furore with the single "Lemon Incest," a duet with his daughter, the actress Charlotte Gainsbourg. His 1986 film Charlotte for Ever further expanded on the themes found in "Lemon Incest". He starred in the film alongside Charlotte as a widowed, alcoholic father living with his daughter. An album of the same name by Charlotte was also written by Gainsbourg. His sixteenth and final studio album, You're Under Arrest (1987), largely retained a funky new wave sound of Love on the Beat, but also introduced hip hop elements.

In December 1988, while a judge at a film festival in Val d'Isère, he was extremely intoxicated at a local theatre where he was to do a presentation only to stagger offstage and collapse in a nearby seat. Subsequent years saw his health deteriorate, undergoing liver surgery in April 1989. In his ill health, he retired to a private apartment in Vézelay in July 1990, where he would spend six months.

Gainsbourg, who smoked five packs of unfiltered Gitanes cigarettes a day, died from a heart attack at his home on 2 March 1991, aged 62. He was buried in the Jewish section of the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris. His funeral brought Paris to a standstill, and French President François Mitterrand said of him, "He was our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire... He elevated the song to the level of art." Gainsbourg's home at the well-known address rue de Verneuil is still covered in graffiti and poems.

(Info edited from All Music & Wikipedia) 

Duke Jordan born 1 April 1922

Irving Sidney "Duke" Jordan (April 1, 1922 – August 8, 2006) was regarded as one of the great early American bebop pianists and composers. The sound that he helped to create in the post-war era was something new in the American landscape, and it remains a cornerstone of jazz.

Jordan was born in New York and raised in Brooklyn where he attended Boys High School. He studied classical music privately at an early age and performed with the trombonist Steve Pulliam at the New York World's Fair in 1939. Before his 21st birthday he was playing piano in big bands, including the Al Cooper's Savoy Sultans, the house orchestra at the Savoy Ballroom, in its day the world’s most famous dance hall. Gillespie once called the Savoy Sultans “the swingiest band there ever was.”  An imaginative and gifted pianist, Jordan also worked with Roy Eldridge's Big Band in 1946.

                               

While performing at the Three Deuces in New York in 1946 he was heard by Charlie Parker, who invited him to join a newly formed group with Miles Davis, Max Roach and Tommy Potter. He participated in Parker's Dial sessions in late 1947 that produced "Dewey Square", "Bongo Bop", "Bird of Paradise", and the ballad "Embraceable You". His work with Parker, recorded for the Dial and Savoy labels, soared with a lilting intensity. It was hard-driving and lyrical, heady and heartfelt, said Ira Gitler, a jazz critic who heard Mr. Jordan and Parker in 1947, at the Onyx Club and the Three Deuces, two long-vanished nightclubs on West 52nd Street in Manhattan. A handful of recordings from 1947 and 1948 are considered masterpieces. They include “Crazeology,” and “Scrapple From the Apple.”

He played with Parker regularly until autumn 1948 and occasionally thereafter. He also played with Sonny Stitt and Gene Ammons (1950-51). Engagements with Stan Getz (1949, 1952-3) proved unsatisfying because he was given few opportunities to play solos. In 1952 he married the talented jazz singer Sheila Jordan, who often said that she loved Charlie Parker so much that she married his piano player. Their interracial marriage was unusual in the 1950’s, when segregation remained legal, and miscegenation was a crime in some states. The marriage did not last long, but their union produced a daughter, Tracey J. Jordan, who became a music promoter.

After periods accompanying Stitt and Getz, he performed and recorded in the trio format. He started recording as a leader in 1954, debuting his most famous composition, “Jor-Du,” the following year. Another of his compositions, "No Problem", has been recorded several times, notably by Art Blakey, under the title "No Hay Problema", and Chet Baker as well as others. From 1955 to 1962 he often played in bop groups with Cecil Payne, both as a leader and as a sideman. They performed and recorded with Rolf Ericson in Sweden (1956) and were engaged to play in the theatre production "The Connection", which toured Europe. After periods accompanying Stitt and Getz, he performed and recorded in the trio format. In 1959 he composed parts of the score to Roger Vadim's film "Les Liasons Dangereuses (1960).

Jordan, like many of his contemporaries, developed a heroin habit and by the mid 1960’s, was reduced to driving a taxicab in New York. By the 1970's he rehabilitated himself and resumed his career with a performance in New York (1972).Later he toured Scandinavia (1973-4, 1977-8) and Japan (1976,1982). He had began a new life as a leader of trios and quartets in Copenhagen, where he settled permanently in 1978. 

He recorded more than 30 albums for the Danish label Steeple Chase Records and performed in concerts and at jazz festivals worldwide. His first record date for the company was in 1973. He was reported not to have changed his style over the course of his career.

Duke Jordan died on August 8,2006 in Valby, Denmark, a suburb of Copenhagen. He was 84, and he had lived in self-imposed exile from the United States since 1978, continuing to perform in the musical tradition he helped create.

(Edited from New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Wikipedia & New York Times)