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Jazz Articles about Butch Ballard
The Complete Louis Armstrong Columbia & RCA Victor Studio Sessions 1946-66
by Skip Heller
Louis Armstrong officially returned to small band leadership May 17, 1947 via a triumphant concert at Town Hall that was less comeback than reaffirmation. It was even the dawn of his second great period, full of recordings that stood tall with his epochal 1920's output, and the subsequently-assembled Louis Armstrong and his All Stars would immediately establish themselves as a staple of the live jazz circuit as well as a powerhouse recording unit. That era--to the purposes of ...
read moreButch Ballard: Legendary Philadelphia Drummer
by Victor L. Schermer
George Edward Butch Ballard is a celebrated drummer, now 88, who swung with the Cootie Williams, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie big bands, to mention just a few of the items on his resume. Beyond that, however, this cat is truly an American phenomenon, an African-American from a working class family who realized his childhood dream through a total obsession with the drums during the time of segregation and through to the present day. Now, he looks back ...
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