Jazz Articles about Frank Foster

Frank Foster: Well Water & Manhattan Fever

by Marcia Hillman
January 5, 2008

Frank Foster Well Water Piadrum 2006 Frank Foster Manhattan Fever Blue Note 2007

Well Water--Frank Foster leading an exciting 20-piece big band--was recorded in 1977 and never released, the master tapes considered lost until discovered in the home of Don Hunerberg, the session's original engineer. The opener, Clifford Brown's “Joy Spring ...

Frank Foster and the Loud Minority Big Band: Well Water

by AAJ Italy Staff
July 25, 2007

Classici arrangiamenti swinganti su un tappeto sonoro post-boppistico. È la chiave di volta di questo disco inciso nel 1978, rimasto inedito fino a d’ora. In più, armoniosi temi ricchi di unisoni, per esaltare gli ariosi arrangiamenti del leader, impegnato anche al sax tenore nonché alla direzione orchestrale. Sax, tromboni ed anche flauti in bell’evidenza in un tradizionale tessuto fiatistico volto non a creare contrasti, ma ad abbellire le armonie dei brani in programma. Quanto all’ensemble chiamato a raccolta, è una ...

Frank Foster and the Loud Minority Big Band: Well Water

by Jack Bowers
March 13, 2007

Thirty years ago, saxophonist Frank Foster and drummer Elvin Jones escorted eighteen other musicians (whom Foster dubbed the Loud Minority Big Band) into a recording studio in New York City to tape an album, Well Water. The hope was that a label would be found and the music released for public consumption.

That never happened, and as the months and years went by, it was widely assumed that the master tapes had been irretrievably lost. But Foster's wife, Cecilia, remained ...

Elmo Hope: Trio and Quintet

by AAJ Italy Staff
February 5, 2006

Questo è uno dei pochi dischi di Elmo Hope in circolazione oggi in Italia. Un plauso alla Blue Note che l'aveva già pubblicato in CD (con identica copertina e stessi brani) 15 anni fa ed oggi lo riedita per il beneficio di chi se l'era perso.Dopo anni di totale oblio, lo sfortunato pianista e compositore bop ha avuto nel decennio scorso una certa rivalutazione critica ma dal pubblico jazz è ancora ampiamente ignorato.Un vero peccato, perché ...

Frank Foster's Loud Minority Big Band: We Do It Diff'rent

by Jack Bowers
June 25, 2003

Frank Foster’s Loud Minority Big Band is more limber than loud -- although it doesn’t shrink from shouting whenever that’s appropriate on this persuasive in-concert album recorded in June ‘02 at NYC’s Jazz Standard, when the seventy-three-year-old Foster was recovering from a stroke that immobilized his left arm and left leg and limited his role to that of emcee.

As one would expect from an old hand who joined the Count Basie Orchestra half a century ago and fronted the ...

Frank Foster: Soul Outing

by Douglas Payne
July 1, 1998

This 1966 session lives up to its title, offering the strong, comfortable appeal of a solid Lee Morgan record. Soul Outing was Foster's second Prestige record after concluding an 11-year stint in the Count Basie band in 1964 (the first, Fearless, was also recently issued on CD). Although he'd developed a reputation as an ace arranger, Foster spotlights his own warm, muscular tenor soulfulness here.

He's in a compatible quintet performing three originals and two numbers from the Broadway play ...

Donald Byrd: Electric Byrd

by Jim Santella
December 1, 1997

This landmark recording from 1970 followed on the heels of Miles Davis' Bitch's Brew and contained many of the same elements that Miles used in his innovative ventures; jazz moved away from the wah-wah trumpet and ushered in the wah-wah guitar. With a lineup including Mickey Roker on drums, Ron Carter on bass, Duke Pearson on electric piano, Wally Richardson on electric guitar, Bill Campbell on trombone and a reed section of Jerry Dodgion, Frank Foster, Lew Tabackin and Pepper ...