Jazz Articles

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Take Five With Tim Veeder

by AAJ Staff
June 21, 2010

Meet Tim Veeder:Tim Veeder is a professional saxophonist, clarinetist, flautist, composer, arranger and educator based in the New York, NY area. Tim began playing saxophone at age eleven in his small hometown of Gloversville, in upstate NY. He attended The College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY, studying under Paul Evoskevich and Mark Vinci. He earned his Bachelor's in 2003 and his Master's in 2007, both in Music Education. Tim was a staple of the Albany music scene ...

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Herbie Hancock: One World, One Music

by Esther Berlanga-Ryan
June 21, 2010

The world today is in big trouble. We might think that we have learned our lesson and opted for togetherness--after all, centuries of wars, misunderstanding, miscommunication and misinterpretation have brought nothing of value to the human race. Today we are told to frown upon our neighbors across the border; yesterday, neighbors from all over the world were building up countries, stone-by-stone. Paraphrasing Uruguayan songwriter Jorge Drexler, “We all are from everywhere," so what's the big deal? Piano icon Herbie Hancock's ...

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Joe Louis Walker, Jimmie Vaughan, The Holmes Brothers & Leo Kottke

by Martin Longley
June 20, 2010

Joe Louis Walker/Watermelon Slim/Janiva MagnessB.B. King Blues ClubMay 18, 2010 B.B. King's Blues Club might not exactly devote itself exclusively to the 12-bar business of its name, but it's certainly the joint to head for when the big-name players hit town. The club also specializes in double or triple-bill old-style revues, where the audiences usually have to prepare themselves for a lengthy barbecue immersion. This particular triple-shot was so charged ...

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Part 10 - Knitting Factory hits Fela Kuti purple patch

by Chris May
June 20, 2010

Knitting Factory's comprehensive, multi-format, Fela Kuti reissue program hits a new high with its second salvo, the “Na Poi" batch, released in May 2010. The seven discs span 1974-77, a remarkably prolific and creative time even by the Afrobeat originator's own standards. As with the first “Chop 'n' Quench" batch--reviewed in Part 7 and Part 8 of the Afrobeat Diaries--each disc in the latest batch pairs two of Kuti's original vinyl LPs. First up, ...

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Barrett Deems: Deemus

by Nic Jones
June 20, 2010

Drummer Barrett Deems was a man with a pedigree, who took in stints with violinist Joe Venuti from 1937 to 1944, and a four-year run with trumpeter Louis Armstrong in the 1950s. The first years of the following decade found him keeping the musical company of trombonist Jack Teagarden. All of these affiliations are clues to the musical fare on Deemus, the drummer's first album under his own name--recorded in 1978 but not released by Delmark until 1997. It's great ...

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Daniel Smith: Blue Bassoon

by Dan Bilawsky
June 20, 2010

When many people hear discussions about the bassoon, they are far more likely to think of “Peter And The Wolf" than Charlie Parker and Wayne Shorter tunes. While jazz is open to any-and-all-comers in every instrument family, the technical demands of the bassoon--an unwieldy double reed instrument that rarely leaves the confines of classical music--and its unique voice have always made it an unlikely candidate. Fortunately, unlikely and undoable are two different things and Daniel Smith aims to show this ...

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Russ Kassoff: Bird Fly By

by Edward Blanco
June 20, 2010

As of this writing, jazz pianist Russ Kassoff is the pianist and conductor of a seventeen-piece big band, and the musical director of Come Fly Away the Twyla Tharp Broadway dance musical tribute to Frank Sinatra. These associations became the inspiration and, as Kassoff states, the “final piece of impetus...needed," for recording Bird Fly By. Not surprising, however, considering an impressive musical résumé that includes touring with Sinatra for over a decade, culminating in the 1989 “The Ultimate Event" world ...

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2010 Playboy Jazz Festival: A Swingin' Party At The Hollywood Bowl

by Chuck Koton
June 19, 2010

Hear the name Playboy and in an instant, a parade of “hot" images race involuntarily across the mind's eye. There's Dizzy, bent over and blowin' the hippest sounds through his misshapen horn; Stan Getz' tenor sax pourin' forth cool samba; Benny Goodman and Count Basie leadin' their bands through swing history; Art Blakey and his band spreadin' the hard bop jazz message; Joe Williams eloquently layin' down the blues (There may also be an occasional sexy female image in there ...

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Antonio Aldolfo / Carol Saboya: La e Ca: Here and There

by C. Michael Bailey
June 19, 2010

La e Ca: Here and There is ostensibly a piano-oriented album by Brazilian pianist/composer Antonio Adolfo, featuring frequent collaborator and vocalist Carol Saboya, who appears on five of the disc's twelve selections. Saboya is rightfully given equal billing because of her exquisitely lightly-accented, dangerously intoxicating vocals, transforming tried-and-true vocal jazz standards. The spiritual presence of the American Southern Hemisphere permeates the recording like a breezy humid night, spreading warmth all points south.

Saboya's selections are certainly predictable, and as such ...

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Rodrigo Leao at the Off Festival, Macedonia

by Nenad Georgievski
June 19, 2010

Rodrigo Leao& the Cinema orchestra with the Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra MNT/Offest Skopje, Macedonia June 5, 2010

Some music can have so much poise that it simply radiates. It expands both one's musical and emotional landscapes. Such is the music of Rodrigo Leao, one of Portugal's finest musicians and producers. Supported by his band, the Cinema Orchestra, as well as the Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra, Rodrigo Leao journeyed to all points of his rich musical landscape ...