Articles by Fradley Garner
Saving Old Records to L.A. Throwback Bands
by Fradley Garner
Library of Congress Acts to Save Old RecordingsMore than half of the oldest sound recordings, including some masters by George Gershwin, Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra, have been lost over the years, according to the Library of Congress. Patrick Loughney, chief of the library's audiovisual conservation division, believes the nation has developed a “cultural amnesia," forgetting how much of its history was captured in recorded sound.The library has revealed an ambitious plan to help libraries and ...
read moreGuitarist Tomas Janzon Basks in Bassists
by Fradley Garner
Guitarist Tomas Janzon Basks in BassistsPlayers who lead trios and duos featuring a bassist tend to stick with one. Tomas Janzon is happy with Essiet Essiet, 56, drummer Art Blakey's last bassist.Yet, “There are so many extraordinary bassists in New York," the Big Apple-based Swedish guitarist tells me, “that I am happy to work with lots of them. They're all so different, and I always make it a conversation. Sometimes you interrupt, sometimes you just listen ...
read moreShakespeare's Sonnets Sung to a Jazz Beat
by Fradley Garner
Shakespeare's Sonnets Sung to a Jazz Beat“If music be the food of love, play on." And while you're at it, set 16 of Shakespeare's sonnets to music, and play and sing them to a jazz beat. Which, by my troth, is exactly what Caroll Vanwelden has done. The comely Belgian pianist wanted to produce a new album of her own compositions. “One day I found a book of the sonnets I used 13 years ago when I worked ...
read moreEU Sax Band of 12 Looks Across the Pond
by Fradley Garner
12 Horns Hope to Blow WestwardImagine a band of 12 saxophonists from 12 countries and musical backgrounds, with a touring calendar of at least 10 indoor and outdoor venues-including a marketplace and a train station-from July through December, 2012.Meet The European Saxophone Ensemble. Aged 18 to 34, the players range “from a virtuous contemporary reeds soloist to a punk baritone, from a jazz tenor to an Afro-soul Scandinavian baritone, from a chamber soprano to an alto ...
read moreRecord-Busting 100+ Bassists Serenade Tivoli
by Fradley Garner
Record-Busting 100+ Bassists Serenade TivoliThe seeds were planted by Oscar Pettiford, the seminal American cellist and bassist who put down roots in Copenhagen in 1958, and by the homegrown virtuoso Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, who played his vintage Italian bass like the nimblest-fingered guitarist when he wasn't bowing like Giovanni Bottesini. In August, 2012, the Danish capital's new Opera House was the locus of BASS2012, Europe's biennial and biggest convention of classical and jazz double bassists, lured by some ...
read moreFinal Call to See "Pops" Making Records
by Fradley Garner
Final Call to See “Pops" Making Records September, 2012 is final call to catch Genius at Work: Louis Armstrong in the Recording Studio, the currently featured exhibit at the Louis Armstrong House and Museum in Corona, Queens, New York. “Records as well as photographs, scores and other artifacts reveal Armstrong hard at work recording his masterpieces," Jen Walden, a museum spokesperson tells me. “These treasures give you an inside look into what went on at the sessions, allowing ...
read moreArabic Roots in Blues, Jazz, Rock?
by Fradley Garner
Arabic Roots in Blues, Jazz, Rock? Yes, Says Hofstra ProfDoes Islamic music have anything to do with the blues, jazz and rock? A whole lot, asserts Dr. Hussein Rashid, a native New Yorker who teaches religion at Hofstra University. In a lecture at Southern Methodist University in Texas, Rashid spoke of several waves of Islamic-Arabic immigration to America. Muslim Africans in slave-trade times were not allowed to practice their faith or play their ritual drums, and came to ...
read moreJohn (and Bucky) Pizzarelli: First CD with Paul McCartney
by Fradley Garner
John--and Bucky--Pizzarelli's First CD with Paul McCartneyKisses on the Bottom (Hear Music, 2012), the album of vocal standards Paul McCartney always wanted to make with The Beatles, is the knighted bassist/singer's first release in nearly five years. Diana Krall and members of the pianist-arranger's band back him on most tracks. The New York Times singled out guest guitarist John Pizzarelli's “buoyant, ukulele-like sound." Could the three leading Times jazz reviewers be referring to John's unmentioned father? Bucky Pizzarelli ...
read moreAhmad Jamal's Identity Crisis
by Fradley Garner
Ahmad Jamal's Identity CrisisAhmad Jamal aterrorist? Surely not the renowned American pianist who's given hundreds of concerts over the last half century. So it was puzzling why the $10,000 that the Festival da Jazz in Moritz, Switzerland ordered paid to Jamal in advance of his July 16 appearance, was promptly frozen by U.S. authorities. The artist's management insisted it was a case of mistaken identity. Jamal Ahmad Mohammad Al Badawi, a convicted Yemeni on the FBI most-wanted list ...
read moreOnline Jazz Bookshop Thrives in Ontario Hills
by Fradley Garner
Would you pay $8,750 for a used but pampered hardcover copy of the classic Lady Sings the Blues, autographed by Billie Holiday? If you were a jazz bibliophile with deep pockets, and the book was a declared first edition, “boldly and handsomely SIGNED and inscribed at the first blank page"-- and, according to the bookseller's catalogue, with a “strong very good+" dust jacket “unclipped with original price of $3.95" showing--well, you might consider giving yourself, or that ...
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