Jazz Articles

Chet Baker: Boston, 1954

by Richard J Salvucci
October 1, 2016

Is there any reason to write anything more about Chet Baker? Stuff of legend, subject of multiple books, focus of a classic documentary: Surely, someone, somewhere hadn't written a doctoral dissertation on him in American studies. Great player, not so great person, or, whatever kind of person, not so great player. You sort of get to choose which Baker you want. Whether it's an idiotic greeting to pianist Romano Mussolini (did he really say: “Sorry about your old man")?; or ...

Howard McGhee: Howard McGhee West Coast 1945-1947

by Richard J Salvucci
September 18, 2014

Bebop trumpet pioneer Howard McGhee has undergone a lengthy process of rediscovery and reassessment since his death in 1987. A one-time Downbeat Poll Winner (1947), it's probably not much of an exaggeration to say he had been largely forgotten, even by trumpet players. Yet Gunther Schuller (1989) and Scott DeVeaux (1997) soon published searching and sophisticated analyses of his contribution and playing. More recently, trumpet player Brian Lynch offers a terrific appreciation of McGhee in his “Unsung Heros of Jazz ...

Kenny Dorham: Kenny Dorham - The Flamboyan, Queens, NY, 1963 - featuring Joe Henderson

by Francis Lo Kee
June 7, 2010

Kenny Dorham's big splash in the bebop business was taking over the trumpet chair in Charlie Parker's Quintet. He then became one of the most productive members of the Blue Note community, and his composition “Blue Bossa" has since become a jazz standard. This excellent live set is another wonderful and important issue from Uptown Records. The copious notes describe how the young (and not-yet-well-known) tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson began his productive musical relationship with Dorham, and why this live ...

Lucky Thompson: New York City (1964-65)

by George Kanzler
June 5, 2009

Eli “Lucky" Thompson should be remembered as one of the premier tenor saxophonists of the bebop/hard bop era, right along with Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. Before Rollins, he had recorded with piano-less trios; before Coltrane he had taken up, and mastered, the soprano sax. And he appeared on one of Miles Davis' most influential record dates: the sextet session that produced those templates of hard bop, Walkin' and Blue 'N Boogie. But Thompson was labeled as “difficult," easily making ...

Dizzy Gillespie: Showtime at The Spotlite

by George Kanzler
January 24, 2009

Clark Monroe's Uptown House in Harlem was an incubator of bebop, so it wasn't a surprise that Monroe gave Dizzy Gillespie a venue for reviving his big band at the short-lived (1944 to early 1947) 52nd Street club, The Spotlite, in 1946. Two CDs capture two sets toward the end of that historic engagement in June, as recorded by Jerry Newman, the same intrepid fan who recorded gestational bebop after-hours jams at Uptown House and Minton's Playhouse in Harlem earlier ...

Charlie Parker: Washington DC, 1948

by David Rickert
November 6, 2008

Charlie Parker inspired a Grateful Dead-like fervor for taping his live appearances as the steady stream of unreleased concert performances attests. Many of these recordings are of questionable quality though, and this 1948 Washington DC performance is captured on acetate and has as much crackle and hiss as music. The microphone placement never comes close to picking up all the nuances of the blowing. However, the zealous are always willing to overlook these shortcomings as long as the music is ...

Dizzy Gillespie Big Band: Showtime at the Spotlite

by David Rickert
November 4, 2008

Dizzy Gillespie's big band fused the intricacies of bebop with the high-powered riffing into a short lived but exciting outfit. This concert, recorded on 52nd Street in 1946, is one of few occasions to hear the trumpeter's band live and in its prime. A word of caution, though: this CD is a result of amateur taping (by Jerry Newman, no less) and the usual limitations occur, although the sound quality is very good and not too distracting. ...

Frank Rosolino / Carl Fontana: Trombone Heaven

by John Barron
May 4, 2008

Truly an unearthed gem, Trombone Heaven is a previously unreleased concert recording from 1978 at the Bayshore Inn in Vancouver, Canada, featuring the late slide legends Frank Rosolino and Carl Fontana. The spirited set is anchored by the swinging rhythm section of pianist Elmer Gill, bassist Torban Oxbol and drummer George Ursan.

Given the loose, jam-session nature of the set, the tunes are lengthy, allowing ample room for both Rosolino and Fontana to stretch out and display their unmatchable technique. ...

Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker: Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945

by Samuel Chell
October 29, 2005

After the recent bonanza discovery of the 1957 Monk-Coltrane Carnegie Hall concert, this previously unissued recording of a 1945 Gillespie-Parker concert may strike some listeners as anticlimactic if not somewhat disappointing. There's no denying its historical significance--the only extended “live" recording of Diz and Bird from this seminal period--but collectors who have the Parker Dial and Savoy studio dates along with the 1947 Diz and Bird Carnegie Hall performance, the 1951 studio session on Verve, and the celebrated Massey Hall ...

Dizzy Gillespie/Charlie Parker: Town Hall, New York City 1945

by Norman Weinstein
August 8, 2005

This is absolutely a find, a well-recorded (for 1945) live concert of Bird and Diz and Max Roach in peak form. The numbers were quite familiar to these artists at the time ("A Night in Tunisia," “Salt Peanuts," “Groovin' High"), but these are slashingly brilliant versions to be treasured.Gillespie sounds unusually florid and assured, with his roots in Roy Eldridge's extroverted trumpeting brashly apparent. Bird enters the recording a little late (literally--on the first tune, “Bebop," Don Byas ...