Results for "Arlen Asher"

Arlen Asher

Pointing Fingers... And Naming Names

by Jack Bowers
May 4, 2013

As the countdown continues toward the last Big Band Report in June, the time has come to point fingers and name names--in other words, to compile a short list of contemporary jazz musicians who have risen above the norm to help make life more pleasurable for one devoted listener. These are, mind you, personal choices, and ...

SuperSax Me

by Jack Bowers
January 13, 2012

Back in the early 1970s bassist Buddy Clark and saxophonist Med Flory conceived a brilliant idea: to form a group (primarily a reed section with rhythm) that would use orchestrated arrangements of saxophonist Charlie Parker's transcendent bop solos as the basis for its music. As for a name, nothing less than SuperSax would suffice. The nine-piece ...

Catching Up

by Jack Bowers
December 8, 2011

As our most recent column was devoted exclusively to the Ken Poston / LAJI event, “Modern Sounds," held October 20-24 at the Los Angeles Marriott Airport Hotel, and to the day-long tribute to bandleader Stan Kenton on the hundredth anniversary of his birth that followed, a number of substantive items slipped through the cracks. Before they ...

Are You Sure, Bobby?

by Jack Bowers
April 5, 2011

In late March, I received an e-mail from trumpeter Bobby Shew. He said he'd performed a gig in West Palm Beach, FL, and had met my brothers, whom he described as “nice guys." My first impulse was to write back and ask if he could have been mistaken. My brothers? Nice guys? Well, the fact is ...