Jazz Articles about Curtis Fuller

About Curtis Fuller

Album Review

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Blue Moon Over Paris: ORTF Recordings 1963 and 1968

Read "Blue Moon Over Paris: ORTF Recordings 1963 and 1968" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
November 15, 2026

If one did not learn the first time around when Art Blakey actually walked the earth and drummed his truth, then one can learn it now with Blue Moon Over Paris: ORTF Recordings 1963-1968, the latest in a recent spate of Blakey archival sets that include the incendiary First Flight To Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings and the all jacked-up Just Coolin' (Blue Note, 2021, 2020). In simple terms, the man never let up. And if you were a ...

Album Review

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: Blue Moon Over Paris: ORTF Recordings 1963 and 1968

Read "Blue Moon Over Paris: ORTF Recordings 1963 and 1968" reviewed by Keith Flint

by Keith Flint
November 2, 2026

By the spring of 1963, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers had established themselves as something of a dynasty within the jazz community, irrespective of their lineup. As both a band leader and prodigious drummer, Blakey was a driving force who reigned from the throne behind his drum kit, around which he surrounded himself with players of outstanding competence and unique personality. The Jazz Messengers consistently delivered startling live performances and a burgeoning collection of studio successes. Blue ...

Album Review

Joe Henderson: The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions

Read "The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions" reviewed by Scott Gudell

by Scott Gudell
November 22, 2021

If an artist stamps his jazz passport with any one of these labels--Blue Note, Verve, Milestone--it's pretty much a guarantee that you've arrived in style. Tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson has traveled with all three and more. The 2021 reissue from the prestigious Mosaic Records focuses on Henderson's 1960s tenure with Blue Note offers a new opportunity to experience an abundance of rich and creative jazz from the decade. Big band and bop were duking it out in the ...

Reassessing

Sonny's Crib

by C. Michael Bailey
June 7, 2020

From the outset, pianist Sonny Clark's sophomore effort as a leader is crisp, white-hot hard bop. Leading a standard bop trumpet-tenor saxophone quintet (Donald Byrd, John Coltrane), supplemented with trombone (Curtis Fuller), Clark and his most reliable rhythm section of bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Art Taylor carve five dictionary examples (with alternate takes on the CD) of the music evolving from bebop, principally on the East Coast (if we consider that cool jazz took root on the West Coast ...

Reassessing

Dial "S" for Sonny

by C. Michael Bailey
May 20, 2020

Pianist Sonny Clark was culturally marginalized in much the same way as his contemporary Elmo Hope—both heroin-addicted jazz musicians in the 1950s: at the time, and romantically, a cliche. Both pianists have been sorely lumped into the “Bud Powell school of bop piano" which superficially may seem accurate until one considers the evolutionary continuum of jazz piano that places both Clark and Hope conceptually and stylistically beyond Powell. Clark was born in Georgia and raised outside of Pittsburgh. ...

Album Review

Hank Mobley: The Complete Hank Mobley Blue Note Sessions 1963-70

Read "The Complete Hank Mobley Blue Note Sessions 1963-70" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan

by C. Andrew Hovan
March 8, 2020

The music world has changed considerably since Michael Cuscuna and Charlie Lourie founded their boutique reissue label Mosaic Records back in 1983. From its inception, vinyl was still the preferred format, shortly to be overtaken by the popularity of the compact disc. At the cusp of vinyl's recent resurgence, Mosaic briefly got back into that format only to find themselves on the brink of closing up shop. Fortunately, the powers that be have forged on and recent CD boxed sets ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Curtis Fuller: The Opener – Blue Note 1567

by Marc Davis
May 4, 2015

From the very first notes, it's obvious that Curtis Fuller's The Opener is something completely different. Yes, it's bop. Yes, it features the usual lineup of two horns, piano, bass and drums. And yes, one of those horns is saxman Hank Mobley, who, by law, was required to appear on every single Blue Note album in the 1950s and '60s. (Or maybe it only seems that way.) But wait--what's going on with those four opening notes? ...