Jazz Articles

Dave Brubeck Quartet: Jazz at the College of the Pacific

by Keith Hatschek
December 24, 2021

December 14th 2021 marked the 58th anniversary of the concert by the Dave Brubeck Quartet held at College of the Pacific and immortalized on the album Jazz at College of the Pacific (Fantasy, 1954). Nat Hentoff praised the recording at the time of its release as, “Five stars... ranks with the Oberlin and Storyville sets as the best of Brubeck on record."Time has done little to diminish the impact of this monumental live recording. The six selections showcase ...

The Bill Evans Trio: On A Monday Evening

by Dan McClenaghan
April 22, 2017

Bill Evans, one of the most influential of jazz pianists, died in 1981. He left a legacy. The brilliant shine of his artistry gained widespread recognition in 1959 with his contribution to Miles Davis classic Kind Of Blue (Columbia Records, 1959), and surged into stellar territory with the release of his own Sunday At The Village Vanguard (Riverside Records, 1961), a trio outing featuring bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. The interactivity and equality of input of that particular ...

Vince Guaraldi: A Charlie Brown Christmas

by Marc Davis
December 19, 2015

A Charlie Brown Christmas is the corniest jazz-Christmas album ever made. And that's OK. It's even good. I know the dig. What Vince Guaraldi played wasn't jazz, it was lounge music. It was sentimental. It was lightweight. It was sappy. Yep. All of that. So what? Christmas time is about memories. That's what the smells, the sights, the tastes and the music are about. Some are family memories, some are ...

Cal Tjader & Stan Getz: Sextet

by Chris May
April 17, 2011

Cal Tjader / Stan GetzSextetOriginal Jazz Classics Remasters2011 (1958) The presence of Latin and Afro-Cuban enthusiast, vibraphonist Cal Tjader, has created a widespread misconception that Sextet was the album which sparked tenor saxophonist Stan Getz's fascination with Brazilian music and, ultimately, bossa nova. The notion has, over the years, been reinforced by the inclusion of pianist Vince Guaraldi's “Ginza Samba," whose theme statements were played over a samba beat, and which, ...

Vince Guaraldi: The Definitive Vince Guaraldi

by David Rickert
November 19, 2009

Many of us were turned on to jazz before we even knew what it was, thanks to Vince Guaraldi. His soundtracks for the Peanuts television specials were a novel idea in cartoon scoring, yet seemed to perfectly fit the deceptively sophisticated adventures of Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang. His originals were some of the best jazz to come from the West Coast scene and a tribute to what can happen when a great muse hits a ...

The Charlie Hunter Trio: Mistico

by Doug Collette
September 8, 2007

On the CD tray photo of Mistico, all three members of The Charlie Hunter Trio are shown laughing heartily with each other. It's an appropriate picture, given the joy they exude playing together on this CD of original music by the guitarist/bandleader, which suits the evocative cover art and album title.

The Charlie Hunter Trio sounds like the essence of easygoing right from the start as they amble into motion on the opening track “Lady!." Their deceptively casual approach belies ...

Charlie Hunter Trio: Mistico

by Chris May
July 31, 2007

On Mistico, Charlie Hunter finally, after a couple of near misses, gets in touch with his inner rock guitarist. The disc's immediate predecessors--Copperopolis (Ropeadope, 2006) and Longitude (Thirsty Ear, 2005)--inhabited similarly full-on visceral territory, but here those albums' funk quotients are reduced to practically zero in favor of dirty, confrontational, rock 'n' roll. Nothing on Mistico is on the one. It's all on the two and four. It ain't bad so much as it's nasty.

It's simple, lo-fi ...

Bill Evans: The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings 1961

by George Kanzler
August 7, 2006

This 45th anniversary issue of all five June 25, 1961 sets by pianist Bill Evans' trio with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian is rightly considered the crowning preserved achievement of one of the most influential piano trios in jazz history. This group was the coming out of a new, sensitive, interactive mode, a new ideal of the piano trio as triumvirate. In hindsight, though, Motian still seems more a timekeeper at this juncture than the spacey, open drummer ...

Isaac Hayes: Can You Dig It?

by Jim Santella
November 10, 2005

We've all been exposed to the music of Isaac Hayes. His film soundtracks and jazz-tinged funk have had their effect. Today he's also known for his role as a school cafeteria worker in the animated television series South Park. A leading romantic icon in the popular music world, he's given Stax Records a pile of great albums that blend jazz with blues and rock. Included in this two-CD set are tracks from several albums: Black Moses, Shaft, Presenting Isaac Hayes, ...

Thelonious Monk: Thelonious Alone in San Francisco

by David Rickert
October 18, 2005

Thelonious Monk's solo recordings offer fascinating insight into the compositional and improvisational talents of one of music's true oddballs, and Alone In San Francisco is widely considered to be his best in this format.

Unencumbered by bass and drums, Monk is at his most introspective, taking advantage of the liquid tempo to patiently work though a series of originals and a few pop songs from his childhood, all of which, of course, are rendered in his inimitable style. ...