Not For Sale

You know you're a jazz reviewer when... After you check the mail, your spouse asks “Do I live here?" You get 800-1,000 CDs for review within a year, yet you still get the inevitable email follow up from a little known artist or his/her publicist a week after the CD arrives that asks “Have you heard ...

Although many fans of Marian McPartland's long running NPR series heard former Frank Zappa sideman George Duke's guest appearance on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, few are likely to be aware of Zappa's own visit to the program, which took place in early 1988, just prior to the start of what would be his final tour. McPartland's ...

Public radio listeners were frequently frustrated when the Chicago Jazz Festival and Montreux-Detroit Jazz Festival offered live satellite feeds to stations on the identical weekend (Labor Day), causing program directors to typically air one or the other, unless they chose to archive and rebroadcast the alternate.

Montreux-Detroit's lineup rivaled Chicago's, but the Motor City broadcasts had ...

When I attended the 2001 IAJE Conference in New York City, I made one of my first trips to Fred Cohen's Jazz Record Center, a mandatory stop for jazz collectors visiting the Big Apple. Within the LP bins I found an unusual record which was the soundtrack to a Today Special (broadcast January 13, 1970) that ...

Fans of Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz may have read the program synopsis with reservations when 12 year old Eldar Djangirov made his U.S. broadcast debut on her program a few years ago, but he quickly proved that he deserved the national exposure. A polite young man who was still getting used to living in a new ...

By the time of his death from cancer in 1994, Joe Pass was widely recognized as one of the top jazz guitarists of all time, especially for his virtuoso solo performances. Prior to his passing, I had an opportunity to do a phone interview with Pass and was rather surprised that the guitarist found it difficult ...

I had never heard of Nellie Lutcher when she appeared on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz during the mid-1980s, but I was taken with her right away. With her playful vocals and swinging piano, Lutcher was famous for a time during the 1940s, but her record sales declined during the following decade and after being dropped by ...

Gene Parrish's syndicated radio program Worldwide Jazz is not one that I've heard very often over the years, so this circa 1996 broadcast of the Phil Woods Quintet at Nick's Café in Lauren, Holland, was a special treat. The alto saxophonist's quintet at the time was a strong one (when isn't Woods leading a great band?), ...

One of the most intriguing singers to emerge on the jazz scene during the 1990s was Dominique Eade, a gifted, chance-taking alto with a very expressive voice. Her considerable abilities as a composer and arranger, and her desire to seek deserving but less frequently performed songs, along with surrounding herself with top-flight musicians add to her ...

Over the past half century, the Dave Brubeck Quartet has undoubtedly been featured on numerous broadcasts on several continents, few of which have ever been issued by legitimate record labels. But this Labor Day weekend set from the 2001 Chicago Jazz Festival is rather special, as it not only includes his current quartet but also revisits ...

The NPR series Billy Taylor's Jazz at the Kennedy Center only aired for 26 weeks out of the year for a few years, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a terrific program. Taylor is not only a masterful pianist who brought out the best in his guests, but a terrific interviewer as well. Of the relatively ...

When I first conceived this column, one of the first programs that I intended to cover was one of my favorite concert broadcasts, a joint appearance by Mel Tormé, Gerry Mulligan and George Shearing on stage at Carnegie Hall in 1982. Impresario George Wein was responsible for encouraging the three men to perform together for the ...

One of my great regrets is not having the opportunity to hear Eubie Blake in person. The closest I ever came was when he appeared at the Palm Beach Jazz Festival during the late 1970s; I had tickets to see classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz in Miami Beach on the very same day. My mother said something ...

I was introduced to the work of pianist Jaki Byard through his work as a sideman with Eric Dolphy and Charles Mingus. Both his eclectic style and sense of humor appealed to me, so I soon found myself snapping up every record and CD in which he took part, even getting an opportunity to do liner ...