Jazz Articles
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Larry McKenna: World On A String
by Richard J Salvucci
Larry McKenna is not really a celebrity. He probably never will be. He plays tenor sax in and around jny: Philadelphia. He apparently does not say a lot--although he clearly has a puckish sense of humor. It comes out in his playing. It is possible to drive by his suburban home, vaguely aware that a saxophonist, a pretty good one, lives there and keep right on going. A sort of metaphor for McKenna and his career (read our 2007 interview). ...
read moreChris Oatts: Personalities
by Victor L. Schermer
Saxophonist Chris Oatts is a graduate of the jazz program at Temple University's Boyer College of Music and Dance and the nephew of revered saxophonist—and faculty member of Temple University—Dick Oatts. This reviewer heard Chris Oatts at Chris' Jazz Café (similarity in the names purely coincidental) in September, 2021, with his quintet featuring one of his teachers and mentors, Terell Stafford, on trumpet. In that set, Oatts stayed within the bebop/hard bop traditions and showed exceptional sophistication, inventiveness, and resilience ...
read moreTemple University Jazz Band: Without You, No Me
by Jack Bowers
When his friend, colleague, mentor and confidante Jimmy Heath died in January 2020, trumpeter Terell Stafford's first impulse was to find a way to honor and remember the renowned Philadelphia-born saxophonist. As Stafford is director of the Temple University Jazz Band, also in Philadelphia, an obvious way would be to record a tribute album, which Stafford set about preparing. And then the Covid-19 pandemic arrived, scuttling those plans and most others on the drawing board. The band ...
read moreTerell Stafford/Dick Oatts/Bruce Barth/Tim Warfield/David Wong/Byron Landham: Family Feeling
by Dan Bilawsky
It's not uncommon for a familial air to surround a band or a recording session. The bonds forged through the music, after all, play up trust and sympathies to a high degree. But some albums even go a step beyond that norm in their connective magnetism, and this is most certainly one of them. Family Feeling is more than a simple gathering of high-caliber peers; it's a date driven by the desire to impart aural wisdom and ...
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