Nick Brignola

Nick Brignola’s 45-yr profession brought him into connection with some of the most accomplished mainstream improvisers of his generation. Mainly recognized using the baritone saxophone, he also performed and documented using alto and soprano in addition to flute and clarinet. By no means exactly famous within the U.S. however greatly valued by jazz enthusiasts in the home and by the worldwide jazz community most importantly (specifically during his last 10 years of activity), Brignola slice a lot more than 20 albums like a head and proved helpful steadily being a reputed sideman and highlighted visitor soloist until quickly before his loss of life in 2002. Blessed in Troy, NY, on July 17, 1936, he used the clarinet when he was 11, and in addition attempted alto and tenor saxophones and flute. Star provides it the baritone got into his lifestyle when he had taken his alto to some music shop for fix and was lent the only real person in the saxophone family members that that they had readily available. Brignola’s first main influence over the big horn was Duke Ellington’s esteemed anchor guy Harry Carney, a Boston indigenous who individually tutored and inspired the aspiring musician, who acquired developed on big rings and bebop. What is apparently the earliest exemplory case of Nick Brignola on record is normally New Styles in Jazz, an recording from the Reese Markewich Quintet dating from 1957. This music group grew from Markevich’s Tag V, a college or university group that Brignola became a member of while learning music at Ithaca University and performed with in the Café Bohemia in Greenwich Town. Largely autodidactic, youthful Brignola gained a Benny Goodman scholarship or grant at Boston’s Berklee University of Music in 1958. Throughout that yr he documented with trumpeter Natural herb Pomeroy in Boston and initiated a lifelong a friendly relationship with drummer Dick Berk while seated in with vibraphonist Cal Tjader in the Blackhawk in SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA. Brignola blew his horns with Woody Herman & His Swingin’ Herd inside a performance which was taped for Canadian tv in 1964 and released on Dvd movie in 2005. His initial record being a head, THAT IS It!, documented in 1967 and released by himself Priam label, provides since turn into a collector’s item. Brignola proved helpful a whole lot with ex-Mingus trumpeter Ted Curson. They toured European countries in 1967 and made an appearance on the Newport and Monterey Jazz Celebrations. In 1969, Brignola led a power jazz fusion music group that opened up for Blood, Perspiration & Tears and Kitty Stevens. He’s also recognized to possess gigged with music artists as stylistically different as pianist Thelonious Monk; guitarist Wes Montgomery; drummers Elvin Jones and Pal Full; clarinetist Barney Bigard; saxophonist Dewey Redman; and trumpeters Mls Davis, Clark Terry, Doc Cheatham, and Chet Baker. Brignola produced his first significant appearance within a documenting studio room in 1976 when he was noticed as an associate of Curson’s seven-piece device on the Internal City record Jubilant Power. Just as amazing was Baritone Madness, documented in Dec 1977 in tandem along with his idol Pepper Adams alongside Curson, pianist Derek Smith, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Roy Haynes. Through the calendar year 1978 Brignola collaborated with guitarist Sal Salvador and tenor saxophonist Sal Nistico; the next calendar year he masterminded Burn off Brigade, a three-baritone blowing program with Ronnie Cuber and Cecil Payne, and documented with trombonist Expenses Watrous. The first ’80s noticed Brignola dealing with the Doug Sertl Big Music group and trumpeter Bobby Shew. In August 1987 he became a member of his longtime friend Dick Berk’s Jazz Adoption Company to get a tribute recording to Tin Skillet Alley songwriters Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. This is accompanied by the to begin many collaborations with alto saxophonist Phil Woods, an appearance using the Big Music group Charlie Mingus live in the Theater Boulogne-Billancourt in Paris, and a set of amazing quartet albums offering pianist Kenny Barron with bassists Dave Holland and George Mraz and drummers Jack port DeJohnette and Billy Hart. It wasn’t before 1990s that Brignola started to attain recognition commensurate along with his capabilities and achievements. Two exciting quartet sets had been documented live at Lovely Basil in NEW YORK, several projects included trumpeters Claudio Roditi and Randy Brecker, and tribute albums had been focused on Gerry Mulligan and Lee Morgan. In 1993 he revisited the plugged-in textures of his erstwhile fusion music group by forming an organization called Endangered Varieties (no regards to the likewise called Chicago-based rappers). After seated in with Frank Mantooth’s big music group, a stop by at European countries in March 1994 allowed Brignola to record reside in Munich with Chris Barber’s Jazz & Blues Music group (a Continental model largely made up of Dutchmen), also to end up being highlighted with Ronnie Cuber in an organization led by Netherlandish pianist Rein de Graaff over the record Baritone Explosion! Brignola documented with performing guitarist Michael Jerling, cabaret-style jazz vocalist Spider Saloff, vibraphonist Dave Pike, and guitarist Randy Johnston. He was noticed on guitarist Tony Purrone’s salute to saxophonist Jimmy Heath and another Gerry Mulligan tribute record, this time with the Three Baritone Saxophone Music group offering Brignola, Cuber, and Gary Smulyan. Nick Brignola’s last accomplishments included composing supportive liner records for Latina by Proxy, an record by Seattle-based soprano and baritone saxophonist Wenda Zonnefeld, and reducing an record with Toronto jazz trio D.E.W. East (Alex Dean, Barry Elmes, and Steve Wallace). Over the record Tour de Drive, destined to become his last documenting, Brignola was supported by guitarist Chuck D’Aloia, bassist Eddie Gomez, drummer Costs Stewart, along with a percussionist discovered just as Café. Nick Brignola trained music theory and jazz background at schools within commuting range of his house in Eagle Mills, not really definately not his birthplace in Troy, NY. He dropped his struggle with tumor on Feb 8, 2002, in Albany. THE FACULTY of Saint Rose, where he helped to determine jazz studies within the curriculum, right now has a scholarship or grant called after him.