Ray Rivera

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ray Rivera (* 1929 in New York City ) is an American jazz musician (first bass, then guitar ) and singer-songwriter who worked in the fields of soul jazz , Latin jazz , ska , pop and easy listening .

Live and act

Rivera grew up in an orphanage on Long Island and with foster parents in the Bronx ; At the age of 14 he - recovered from pneumonia - began to write poetry and to appear as a singer in the New York jazz scene until the clarinetist Frank Gator brought him into his band as a vocalist at the end of the 1940s and let him play bass alongside. In the 1950s he performed at the Matty's Town Crest restaurant . He made his record debut with a session for Webb Records; This was followed by recordings with Hank Jones and Toots Thielemans as well as appearances with Babs Gonzales . In the late 1950s he appeared on the TV station WPIX on the TV show The Spotlight of Values and then recorded for MGM Records ( The Salt Mines ) and Decca Records ( Ho-Dee-Ing-Dong ). During this time he became a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). In 1963 Rivera switched from bass to guitar after meeting Kenny Burrell to introduce him to a song.

Rivera recorded over a dozen albums in the course of his career, but with mostly little commercial success; the recordings were mostly for small labels like Cadillac Records and Charlie Parker Records. On his most successful album The Now Sound of the Ray Rivera Orchestra , which was released by MGM in 1971, he played with guitarist Eumir Deodato and percussionist Pucho. His most critically acclaimed album was Let Me Hear Some Jazz , which was released on Insight Records in 1980; it was nominated for a Grammy Award .

He was best known as a songwriter. In the mid-1960s he wrote compositions for musicians in the spectrum of jazz, latin, salsa, country, blues and rock music. During this time he worked with Claus Ogerman , who recorded with Frank Sinatra . With Ogerman he wrote the songs Bend Me, Shape Me, L'amour est bleu (Love Is Blue) and for RCA Victor the Ska number Do the Blue Beat (The Jamaican Ska) (1964).

Ramsey Lewis recorded his song You've Been Talkin 'Bout Me Baby on his hit album The In Crowd in 1965 ; In 1968 Janis Joplin played him with the band Big Brother and the Holding Company for the album Cheap Thrills . Another hit by Rivera was Cuchi Frito Man , which was featured on Cal Tjader's album Soul Burst . His songs have also been recorded by Hank Jones ( Night Flight to Puerto Rico ), Billy Taylor , Joe Williams , Pucho & the Latin Soul Brothers, Gale Garnett , Donald Byrd and Enzo Stuarti . With the changed public taste with the advent of folk and rock music , the success subsided.

In early 2007 Rivera made a guest appearance with Wynton Marsalis at the House of Tribes Community Theater . In 2008 he published his autobiography Ray's Tune: Music Is My Thing . In the film Cotton Club by Francis Ford Coppola (1984) Rivera worked as a guitarist in the Cab Calloway Orchestra. He lives in southern Brooklyn .

Discographic notes

  • Ain't That Good News (Merry-Go-Round Records, 1963)
  • Light 'n' Easy (Rivelli Records, 1964)
  • The Now Sound of the Ray Rivera Orchestra (MGM Records, 1971)
  • From Puerto Rico to Soulsville (Zanzee Records, 1972) with Eumir Deodato
  • Latin Workout ( Mercury Records , arranged by Claus Ogerman)
  • Night Wind (VSOP, 1990) with Billy Taylor
  • A Touch of Latin (Hindsight Records, 2005)
  • Rare Masters of Ray Rivera (Meltdown Records, ed. 2011)

swell

  1. ↑ a b c Ray Rivera at Allmusic (English)
  2. ↑ a b c Portrait of Robert Fieseler in Brooklyn Inc. ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / thebrooklynink.com
  3. ↑ See Robert Fieseler ( Brooklyn Inc. ). It was later marketed under the title Cool Cat on a Jazz Guitar .
  4. ↑ Information at Pop Archives
  5. ↑ Review of the album Arrigato by Dave Nathan at Allmusic (English). Retrieved August 23, 2011.
  6. ^ Billboard 1963
  7. ^ Billboard 1964
  8. ^ Information from Doug Payne

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rivera, Ray
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rivera, Raymond
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician, singer and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City