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Jazz Articles about Buddy Collette
Banding Together Against Segregation in Los Angeles
by Eve Goldberg
Once upon a time, jazz musicians in Los Angeles led a groundbreaking struggle for racial justice and economic opportunity that sent ripples of change across the country. Most of us are aware of the seminal names and events of the civil rights era: Rosa Parks spearheading the Montgomery bus boycott; Martin Luther King leading the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights; Jackie Robinson integrating the Brooklyn Dodgers, to name a few. But the big national needle-movers would ...
Continue ReadingBuddy Collette: Four Classic Albums
by David Rickert
Like many of his fellow West Coast musicians, Buddy Collette was proficient on multiple instruments. He could play alto and tenor sax, but tended toward the clarinet and the flute for most of his recording career. His solo records were as light and effortless as most jam form the West Coast tended to be at the time, and they are very pleasant, if a bit toothless at times. There's no doubt that Collette was a main figure of the West ...
Continue ReadingBuddy Collette: The Polyhedric Buddy Collette
by AAJ Italy Staff
Esce finalmente in compact forse il più bel disco inciso da Buddy Collette nel suo soggiorno italiano del marzo 1961. Il sassofonista e flautista californiano era stato invitato al 6° Festival Internazionale del Jazz di Sanremo e fu tanto attratto dall'atmosfera del nostro Paese che rimase per circa tre settimane. Ebbe un ingaggio in un locale milanese ed alla piccola cerchia dei nostri jazzisti non parve vero poter suonare con un protagonista del West Coast Jazz. Quel soggiorno produsse vari ...
Continue ReadingThe Buddy Collette Big Band: Live at El Camino College
by Edward Blanco
On May 19, 1990, Buddy Collette assembled a twenty-piece big band for a one-night special performance at El Camino College in Torrance, California. Although it has taken over fifteen years to grace the airwaves for all to enjoy, it is well worth the wait. Though the master tapes were lost, producer David Keller fortunately kept a backup tape, from which this recording was made. Tenor and bandleader Buddy Collette no longer plays as a result of a 1998 stroke, and ...
Continue ReadingBuddy Collette: Jazz for Thousand Oaks
by AAJ Staff
Considering his importance, Buddy Collette should be better known than he is. He’s played with Mingus, Rosolino, Gerald Wilson, and (in his most famous gig) Chico Hamilton. He was a major part of the “West Coast Sound” during its heyday in the ‘Fifties, and played on many “woodwind jazz” dates for Contemporary Records. He also suggested to Eric Dolphy (his successor at Hamilton’s) to study the bass clarinet. Outstanding credentials, and still overlooked – but not by everybody. In 1996, ...
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