Articles by Samuel Chell

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The Birdland Big Band: Storybook—The Music Of Mark Miller

by Samuel Chell
June 3, 2026

Storybook: The Music Of Mark Miller is at one level the unfolding narrative of its 10 musical selections. At another, it is a tale about its primary author, Mark Miller, who prefaced his journey from Racine to New York City with a preliminary solo album, Mark Miller: The Return Of Slide Huxtable, before retaking the long road that is a serious jazz player's dream of making it in the Big Apple. But most of all, this new album is a ...

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Mort Weiss: Raising the Bar: The Definitive Mort Weiss

by Samuel Chell
September 20, 2010

In late 2006, clarinetist Mort Weiss told his unusual story to R. J. Deluke in an exclusive interview for All About Jazz, appropriated titled “Mort Weiss: Sets Sail with Clarinet." His narrative is the timeless, archetypal journey of the hero's circular route to hell and back--much like that of Homer's legendary mariner, Ulysses, except that in Weiss' case, the outcome was far from known. With Raising the Bar, Weiss completes his journey, and provides impressive if less than definitive closure ...

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Coleman Hawkins: The High and Mighty Hawk

by Samuel Chell
June 29, 2010

Recorded in England in 1958, this little-known session, originally released on the obscure Felsted label, is an inarguable gem. Perhaps even the word “masterpiece" is not too much of a stretch. It's doubtful that the putative “father of the tenor saxophone," Coleman Hawkins, made a better recording in the age of long-playing records, and it's just as unlikely that a better example of the impeccable touch and melodic inventiveness of the prolific Hank Jones can be found on any other ...

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Myrna Lake: Yesterdays

by Samuel Chell
May 8, 2010

Another album by a female vocalist, another familiar playlist. But hold the assumptions. This is the first and only commercial album by septuagenarian singer Myrna Lake, but that's not the real story here. The recording is noteworthy above all because it refuses to mistake youth for vitality, slickness for substance, or newness for originality.

Myrna Lake's Yesterdays (Jazzing Music, 2008) is less a trip down memory lane than an exploration of the power of memory itself, a musical ...

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Resonance Records: Non-Profit Jazz Label with a Mission

by Samuel Chell
March 23, 2010

It's a story often heard before: musically, these are the best and worst of times. Only this time, in 2010, it seems different. Even as the pool of fresh talent expands, jazz continues to witness a dearth of venues along with the slump in CD sales. Uncounted numbers of talented musicians, young and otherwise, are reduced to playing in venues--if they can find one--for the door and pocket change. Simultaneously, they are recording, producing and hawking their own CDs; often ...

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Artie Shaw: Classic Bluebird and Victor Sessions

by Samuel Chell
January 26, 2010

Artie ShawClassic Bluebird and Victor SessionsMosaic Records2009Shortly after its critically acclaimed box set comprising clarinetist Benny Goodman's essential recordings-- The Columbia and Okeh Benny Goodman Orchestra Sessions (2009), which was released to coincide with the centenary of the “King of Swing"--Mosaic Records has done it again. The Classic Artie Shaw Bluebird and Victor Sessions arrives in time for the 100th birthday (May 23, 2010) of the clarinetist who was the instrumental bobby-soxer ...

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Patti Page: Patti Page with Pete Rugolo and His Orchestra

by Samuel Chell
January 18, 2010

The Classic Jazz Calendar 2010, with photographs by Chuck Stewart--a full-page devoted to each of 12 jazz greats--includes a striking photo of Patti Page, representing the month of May. While her inclusion may strike many as unexceptional, for jazz followers who remember the best-selling female singer of the 1950s, her name would seem a problematic fit. Yet she is the only vocalist and female among the chosen dozen (which includes Wayne Shorter, James Moody, Jimmy Cobb, Red Garland, and Grant ...

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Clint Eastwood Presents Johnny Mercer: The Dream's On Me

by Samuel Chell
November 6, 2009

Johnny Mercer Clint Eastwood Presents Johnny Mercer: The Dream's On Me TCM 2009

Film director Clint Eastwood's love of jazz and American popular song is far from a secret, especially following his feature-length biopic about alto saxophonist Charlie Parker (Bird, 1988), during which the ever restless Eastwood got the idea to produce a feature-length film about pianist Thelonious Monk, released somewhat later during the same year as Straight No Chaser. Hence, it should surprise ...

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Roberta Gambarini: Learning to Love Jazz

by Samuel Chell
November 3, 2009

Not long ago a veteran Chicago jazz disc jockey played a track from a female vocalist's new CD only after complaining on the air about the seemingly unending stream of new recordings by female singers sent to his notice each week. The exception to his policy not to play them was due, he explained, to the sender's being a close friend and loyal listener of the show.From the evidence, the radio announcer's observations about the number of vocal ...

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Jack Reilly Trio: Live at Dean Clough

by Samuel Chell
August 7, 2009

Jack Reilly Trio Live At Dean Clough Dean Clough Unichrom 2007

After composing, performing and recording a work motivated by and patterned after a struggle with a life- threatening illness (Innocence: Green Spring Suite, Unichrom, 2007), Jack Reilly might be expected to lighten up on his sequel. Recorded in March 2007, even the cover of Live at Dean Clough, depicting the pianist in an English pub apparently enjoying a leisurely ...