Jazz Articles about Alan Gauvin

About Alan Gauvin

Album Review

Les DeMerle: Once in a Lifetime

Read "Once in a Lifetime" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 16, 2023

Drummer Les DeMerle recorded his first album, Once in a Lifetime, when he was a twenty-year-old prodigy in 1967. However, as is sometimes true in the music business, the album was lost in the shuffle at Atlantic Records and sat gathering dust until someone had the good sense to retrieve and release it some fifty-six years later. As the saying goes, better late than never. To share the front line on this dynamic (mostly) studio date, DeMerle ...

Liner Notes

Les DeMerle & Sound 67: Once in a Lifetime

by Scott Yanow
May 14, 2023

Every once in a while, the discovery of a forgotten recording from the past results in the history of jazz being altered. Until now, it was believed that the hard-driving and swinging drummer Les DeMerle made his first recordings in 1969 with his debut as a leader, Spectrum. The first-time release of Once In A Lifetime, which was recorded in 1967, rewrites the history books a bit. At the time, Les DeMerle was 20 and already had quite ...

Album Review

Buddy Rich: Birdland

Read "Birdland" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 26, 2015

There's usually a reason why previously unreleased material was never initially offered for consumer consumption, whether it's due to subpar sound quality, less than adequate material or blasé musicians' outtakes and so on. However, these tracks by the Buddy Rich Killer Force band were recorded at various venues through the years when saxophonist Alan Gauvin--who also penned the album notes --was in the band and recorded these performances for posterity and not initially intended to be sold. Gauvin doesn't recall ...