Jazz Articles about Alan Dawson

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Alan Dawson with Booker Ervin

by David A. Orthmann
July 21, 2004

One of the great jazz drummers of the mid-to-late twentieth century, Alan Dawson (1929-1996) did not enjoy a particularly high profile, largely because of choosing to gig and teach in the Boston area for most of his career. Dawson combined a crisp drum sound, excellent utilitarian technique, a heightened awareness of melodies and song forms, and the belief that his role was to help other musicians play their best. His heyday was the decade of the nineteen-sixties, when he took ...

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The Jaki Byard Quartet with Joe Farrell: The Last From Lennie's

by David Rickert
January 16, 2004

If anyone wanted to record a history of jazz piano, it could have been done by Jaki Byard, an incredibly versatile pianist who could play virtually any style. However, Byard was too cagey to have approached a project of that magnitude, preferring to meld his influences within the space of a single composition. Utilizing a method that at times seemed as if Eubie Blake’s left hard and Cecil Taylor’s right hand were playing in Art Tatum’s style, Byard created a ...

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Jaki Byard Quartet: The Last From Lennie's

by Russell Moon
November 25, 2003

It's Party Time!

Prestige recorded pianist Jaki Byard's April 15, 1965 quartet gig at a suburban Boston nightclub called Lennie's on the Turnpike. Two LPs were subsequently produced from the session, Live! and Live! Vol. 2. Every track save one was subsequently issued on a single reissue CD entitled Live!. The brand new CD called The Last From Lennie's features the one track not included on the earlier reissue, plus unreleased recordings from the same evening.

Byard's Lennie's quartet features ...