Articles by Bret Primack
Oscar Lalo: Un Peu De Toi
by Bret Primack
Oscar Lalo creates an enchanting amalgam of Jazz and Chanson Française on his new CD, Un Peu De Toi.The Frenchman who now lives in Montreux, Switzerland. has a charming, elegant approach to singing that he developed after navigating the Parisian cafés of Saint-Germain des Prés, as well as many East Coast Jazz clubs, when he lived in the US.There's a simple, pure and unaffected feeling to Oscar Lalo's music. Inspired by Django Reinhardt and the Music ...
Continue ReadingSonny Rollins is My Rabbi
by Bret Primack
I remember, quite well, the first time I met Sonny Rollins. It was in the fall of 1978, when I was writing for Down Beat. For a cover story, I traveled to his upstate New York home for an interview with the Saxophone Colossus. Over the years, I'd heard his music, both on recordings, and some remarkable performances. I'd also read all about this fellow and the more dramatic episodes of his life. Although he had a reputation ...
Continue ReadingHendrik Meurkens: Amazon River
by Bret Primack
I've been listening to Hendrik Meurkens' Amazon River for about a year and I believe it's one of the great Brazilian Jazz recordings of this, or any era. I'm also happy to report that Hendrik Meurkens and Amazon River is one the best bands I've heard in a long, long time.It all started for me last summer, when a very tall German harmonica player named Hendrik Meurkens with a passion for Brazilian music called me about a website. ...
Continue ReadingSummer Heat from Bird/Diz, and Sonny Rollins
by Bret Primack
A newly discovered live performance with fine acoustics, Dizzy Gillespie/Charlie Parker at Town Hall in 1945, and, Sonny Rollins' great new CD, recorded live at Berklee on September 15, 2001, have been instrumental in my survival this summer. Since I returned from a three week New York excursion in June (video to follow), it's been at least one hundred degrees every day here in Tucson. Of course the discomfort of a brutal summer in the desert pales in comparison with ...
Continue ReadingDenny Zeitlin's Solo Voyage
by Bret Primack
Will the real Denny Zeitlin please stand up.Since the mid-60s, Jazz listeners have known Denny as an imaginative, audacious pianist who has led Trios, collaborated with bassists Charlie Haden and David Friesen, and mandolin maven David Grisman, and played some wonderful solo music.All this while also serving as a full time psychiatrist, and wait, there's more. He's a Professor at the University of California in San Francisco, as well. In his free (!) time, the Chicago ...
Continue ReadingJoe Lovano: Joyous Encounter
by Bret Primack
Joe Lovano is a lucky man and he knows it. “Who would have imagined I'd start playing with Hank Jones when I turned 50, he told me recently after returning from a string of European gigs with the pianist. His respect and admiration for Hank serves as the catalyst for what is now a truly remarkable ongoing collaboration, most notably on the new Blue Note CD, Joyous Encounter. In fact, Joe's eclectic seventeen Blue Note recordings bear witness to a ...
Continue ReadingInternet Television
by Bret Primack
That pretty sounds cool, right? It certainly has to be better than regular television. During the fifth season of the Sopranos, I had digital cable, access to hundreds of channels, and most of time, nothing of interest. I don't like sports or shopping so that immediately cuts out a lot of channels. And in Arizona, where there are few African Americans, the local PBS station airs old Lawrence Welk programs every Saturday night. What do I like that ...
Continue ReadingAll Saxophonists Will Be Shot On Sight
by Bret Primack
I once wrote a play set in the near future, when a one world government decrees that musicians must play “the song." No other music is allowed. Everything else has been destroyed, except for the memories of certain musicians. In this petrified, angst ridden nether land, improvisation is banned and bebop is forbidden--any musician who disobeys is either shot on sight, or sent to a government re-education camp. In 1992, when I wrote this for a Jazz Theatre Workshop project ...
Continue ReadingBits and Pieces
by Bret Primack
Dr. Billy Taylor: An American Classic As a teenager, forty years ago, living in a New York suburb, I first heard Billy Taylor on WNEW-AM. He played great music, and was so cool and informative that he proved to be the catalyst for even greater exploration in my increasing fascination with Jazz. When I finally moved to Manhattan several years later, he became a regular part of my day on WLIB. Over the past ...
Continue ReadingMcCoy Tyner Trio at Yoshi's
by Bret Primack
On the last Saturday night in January, during the first week of McCoy Tyner's annual two week residency at Yoshi's, I made the trip from Tucson to hear a Tyner Trio featuring Stanley Clarke and Billy Cobham. That sort of lineup, all too infrequent, was cause of celebration, and worth the thousand mile journey.I've heard McCoy Tyner live a dozen or so times in the last thirty-five years, all good, but three standout:September 12, 1971: A John Coltrane ...
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