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Air Force’s Airmen of Note and, in the ‘60s, he led and arranged for the U.S. In the 1950s, he returned to the service as an arranger for the U.S. After serving in the Army and graduating with a music degree from Duquesne University, Nestico played in big bands led by Charlie Barnet, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, and Gene Krupa. At 17, he joined the ABC Radio Orchestra in Pittsburgh. He was born on February 6, 1924, in Pittsburgh and began playing trombone in his high school orchestra at age 13. Nestico, who died on January 17, 2021, at the age of 96, in Carlsbad, CA, was best known for his 17 years as an arranger for the Count Basie Orchestra. Sammy Nestico, it seems, was born to swing.” That’s how AllAboutJazz’s Jack Bowers described Nestico in December 2005 while reviewing his Basie-cally Sammy album, “a warmhearted homage to the Count with Germany’s superlative SWR Big Band. “Some people are born to rule, others to serve. Air Force Academy Band before a show at the Lila Cockrell Theatre in San Antonio on July 22. Johnson is survived by his longtime partner, Nancy Olewine.īandmaster Sammy Nestico rehearses with The Falconaires from the U.S. But, it’s also a strong piece with a robust and inventive tuba solo from Johnson.”: Reviewing it for AllAboutJazz, Roger Farbey wrote that,“The opening title track is worth the entrance fee alone just for its astounding, albeit brief, collective ascending glissando at the very end of the number. In 2017, Gravity – with some long-standing members still in the band – recorded an album, Testimony, on the Tuscarora Records label.
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Johnson continued recording and performing until illness forced him to stop in 2018. The New York Times’ Robert Palmer, reviewing a Gravity performance in 1977, described its “fresh sound” and “sunny good humor and affection for the jazz-and-blues tradition.” Johnson, he wrote, “combines New Orleans phrasing, avant-garde shrieks, blues riffing, and multi-noted bebop flurries in a consistently exciting and wildly original style.”
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But, in the hands of 55-year-old Johnson and his five tuba-mates, plus rhythm section, the instrument becomes a melody maker.” Jim Santella, reviewing it for AllMusic, pointed out that “the tuba has its place in music: the rhythm, the pulse, the bottom harmony. He left SNL in 1980, freelanced, and revived Gravity, which made its first album, Gravity!!!, on the Verve label, in 1995. He was also a member of bassist Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, became a charter member of the Saturday Night Live band, and toured with Buddy Rich and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. In the ‘70s, Johnson continued to play with Mingus as well as big bands led by Gil Evans and pianist Carla Bley. In 1968, Johnson formed a tuba ensemble originally named Substructure and renamed Gravity in 1972. At the same time, he played baritone sax in a band led by alto saxophonist Hank Crawford.
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A year later, pianist Jaki Byard recommended him to bassist Charles Mingus who hired him as a tuba player. After graduating from high school and spending four years in the Navy, he moved to New York to pursue a jazz career. ”īorn on August 7, 1941, in Montgomery, AL, Johnson, who grew up in Massillon, Ohio, a Canton suburb, taught himself to play the baritone saxophone at age 13, moving onto tuba a year later. Howard pretty much singlehandedly, through self-determination, pushed forward the instrument, demanding that he be allowed to express himself in many, many different facets. In 2018, classical composer Joseph Daley described Johnson to Jazz Times as “the Muhammad Ali of the tuba. (Continued from the February issue of Jersey Jazz Magazine)Ĭonsidered the preeminent tuba player in modern jazz, Howard Johnson died on January 11, 2021, at the age of 79, in New York City.