Jazz Articles

The Jimmy Giuffre 3: 7 Pieces

by Greg Simmons
May 21, 2011

Fame can be fickle, meaning that someone like Jimmy Giuffre can fade into relative obscurity, remembered and appreciated by fellow musicians and a few hardcore jazz fans, while never having reached into the broader public consciousness in any measurable way. As a multi-reed artist, Giuffre was certainly one of the most original and creative visionary forces in jazz. Perhaps Giuffre's best known ensemble was his first: a combo that was unorthodox in its day, featuring Giuffre, Jim Hall ...

Red Garland: The 1956 Trio

by Eric J. Iannelli
August 3, 2010

By the time pianist Red Garland recorded the amalgam of tracks on this essential disc, he'd been playing with the Miles Davis Quintet for about a year. Although he had performed alongside big names before, including Charlie Parker and Lester Young), The Quintet (as it would come to be known) was truly an all-star lineup: Garland, plus John Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones and Paul Chambers. Garland--with a modest profile in 1955 that would more or less remain that way--reached a ...

Sonny Rollins: Saxophone Colossus

by Eric J. Iannelli
September 14, 2009

Bass drum. High hat. A primal, hollow beat in triple succession. The sequence repeats, increasingly accentuated with quick rim shot bursts and precision hits to the tom.

Then, stage set, the sax leaps in. A bright Caribbean calypso melody, its refrain only twelve notes long. Its vibrancy and simplicity give it an instantaneous appeal--fitting, given the song's roots in a nursery rhyme native to the Virgin Islands.

This, of course, is the familiar beginning of the Saxophone Colossus recording of ...

Clifford Brown / Sonny Rollins / Max Roach Quintet: Complete Studio Recordings

by Eric J. Iannelli
July 3, 2009

Even now, fifty-three years after Clifford Brown's untimely death (a multiple tragedy that also took the lives of pianist Richie Powell and his wife), his recordings are still being mined for fresh--or rather, refreshed-- releases. Although it's not entirely clear why this particular lineup merits this particular release at this particular time, any Brownie is good Brownie.That said, this is a release for neither longtime jazz listeners nor Brown devotees. It combines two easy-to- find 1956 albums, Clifford ...