Jazz Articles

Lisa Yves: Jazz for Kids - Everybody's Boppin'

by Dave Nathan
November 1, 2000

This album has such a fairy tale setting about it that I was tempted to start the review “Once upon a time..." Jazz for Kids is the end product of the work of a dedicated jazz vocalist, Lisa Yves, who turned her talents to teaching kids, young kids at that, the art of jazz vocalizing. A graduate of New York University where she majored in vocal jazz performance, she worked with her own group and with such luminaries as Harry ...

Lisa Yves: Jazz For Kids/ Everybody's Boppin'

by AAJ Staff
July 1, 2000

If you believe in the premise that exposure to the arts is an important and vital part of a young person's growth and development, and that a regular curriculum of art and music is just as important and necessary as English, mathematics, and social studies, you will be shocked to learn that most young people across this land are oblivious to an entire art form we know as “jazz". It's not their fault. Jazz gets virtually no media exposure. Yeah, ...

Arturo Sandoval: Ronnie Scott's Jazz House

by AAJ Staff
May 1, 2000

Now that Arturo Sandoval is approaching mythologization through a new HBO movie entitled, appropriately enough “The Arturo Sandoval Story," revived interest in his life and career--of course in sync with the Latin, and specifically Cuban, music surge--inevitably will lead to new recordings, re-releases and touring schedules. And to think: The Feds almost deported this soon-to-be legend.

DCC Compact Classics' timing is good, very good indeed. But it seems to be coincidental. The DCC label so far has specialized in re-releasing ...

The Danish Radio Big Band (dacapo: A Little Bit of Duke

by C. Michael Bailey
July 1, 1999

Centenary. What better opportunity to reconsider European interpretations of Duke Ellington’s music than his 100th birthday. Ellington’s music has woven itself into the fabric of Western Musical Tradition in the same way as Hector Berlioz did. Both men were brilliant orchestrators, arrangers, and finally composers. How appropriate it is for the very fine Danish Radio Big Band (DRBB) to tip its hat to Ellington.

A Little Bit of Duke. The music on this live disc is not the ultra-standard Ellingtonia. ...

Chuck Rainey: The Chuck Rainey Coalition

by Douglas Payne
August 1, 1998

Here's a tight set of funky soul-jazz grooves served up hot by electric bassist and studio kingpin Chuck Rainey (born 1940). First released on the Skye label in 1968, it's the first of only three discs (I think) the bassist released under his own name during a long career that's included playing with Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Quincy Jones, Steely Dan and many, many others.

The overall sound will be familiar to anyone who enjoys Atlantic jazz records from this ...