Articles by Rob Mariani
Greg Abate: “Be-Bop-Er” Takes His Music To The World
by Rob Mariani
This article was published posthumously and on behalf of All About Jazz's long-time friend and contributor, Rob Mariani. “Bebop is one of the more complicated forms of jazz music," says Greg Abate, one of New England's most well-known alto sax players. He's been keeping this “art form" alive and thriving for years. “It takes a lot of technique and dexterity to play bebop right," Abate says. “Every good musician knows that jazz is an art ...
Continue ReadingMinton's: An iconic Jazz Haven Re-opens in Harlem
by Rob Mariani
An iconic jazz haven is born again. It's a name I don't think I've heard spoken of in many years. And so when I learned that after many years, “Minton's Playhouse" was re-opening at its original address at West 118th Street in Harlem on the ground floor of the old Cecil Hotel, I was really delighted. Delighted that the unassuming little nightclub where Bird and Diz' and Monk and the rest of the greats and near-greats all went ...
Continue ReadingGreg Abate: The World Can Sleep Better
by Rob Mariani
Only about 10 minutes late for a lunchtime interview with saxophonist Greg Abate, driving up to the restaurant he's clearly visible, standing by the door looking at his watch and scanning the parking lot with a slightly anxious expression on his face. Unlike some of the other famous and infamous players of bebop and jazz, Abate is very punctual. It's a habit he's picked up through the years of playing the music he loves and managing an often dauntingly complicated ...
Continue ReadingBillie's Last Chorus
by Rob Mariani
She came on last at a concert that started at midnight at the Lowe's Sheraton on Seventh Avenue in The Village. It was one of those big, everybody-gets-to-play jam sessions they called concerts then, and it probably cost the promoters less than what Kenny G spends on hair gel these days. But there were at least a dozen top-flight groups including Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Chet Baker's quartet, Al Cohn and {{Zoot Sims with Conte Candoli. But Billie Holiday was ...
Continue ReadingCooking with Philly Joe
by Rob Mariani
Sitting over by the bar in the cheap seats at Birdland during a Monday night jam session, I watched a group of aspiring young drummers roll their eyes and shake their heads in disbelief. I saw them nudge each other, smile and even laugh out loud. They sat forward with their chins on their hands watching and listening intently to the great Philly Joe Jones. Philly Joe was playing with his old buddy, Elmo Hope, on piano and ...
Continue ReadingDiana Krall: Singing Beautifully
by Rob Mariani
The twilight skies over the aged wood shingled roofs at the Newport Tennis Hall of Fame were looking ominous. The air was damp and flecks of rain started and stopped as we walked into the beautiful Stanford White-designed courtyard with its hanging flowerpots and dark green shutters. It was like traveling back to another era of summery charm and Victorian opulence. The seats had been set up on one of the famed plush grass courts. The sight lines to the ...
Continue ReadingCoda For Elvin
by Rob Mariani
Coda: a musical passage used to conclude a movement. It had been over 40 years since I'd seen Elvin Jones in person. Now here he was at 72-plus years of age, appearing with his Jazz Machine at the Regattabar in Cambridge, Mass., an exquisitely intimate room with a sound just perfect for acoustic jazz. Outside a March rainstorm swept the streets and tapped staccato notes on the windows. As the place began to fill up, I estimated that ...
Continue ReadingLullaby of Birdland
by Rob Mariani
This month, instead of writing about a jazz personality, I decided to write about a room. A jazz room which sadly no longer exists but that had a personality as unique as the great musicians who played there. I'm talking about a club called Birdland—the original Birdland on Broadway near 56th Street in Manhattan's Times Square (before it got Disney-fied.) It billed itself as “The Jazz Corner of the World," and in the sixties and seventies it undoubtedly ...
Continue ReadingConnie Kay Plays the Drums Impeccably
by Rob Mariani
The impeccable Mr. Connie Kay plays perfectly. If you say that sentence out loud in a chamber where there is just the slightest echo, and emphasize the “p" sounds and the hard “c" sounds just a little, you get a feeling of what this remarkable percussionist's drumming actually sounds like. In all music, I don't think there's ever been anything quite like Connie Kay's cymbals. You could detect the ping of his ride cymbal out of a thousand--dry ...
Continue ReadingSaturdays With Mort (Fega)
by Rob Mariani
We've embedded John Mariani's dedication to his brother Rob (the author) on his Almost Golden radio show which is embedded in the Soundcloud section below. Coming out of the fifties at 19 years old, I'd had my fill of doo-wop and R&B. One windy Saturday afternoon in April, I heard this music on the radio coming from a little station in New Rochelle, NY, WNRC AM & FM. There was no sledge hammer back-beat and no loopy falsetto ...
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