Jazz Articles about Dan Barrett

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The Bix Centennial All-Stars: Celebrating Bix!

by Nicholas F. Mondello
September 21, 2023

Cornetist Leon Bismark “Bix" Beiderbecke, while certainly heavily influenced by Louis Armstrong, developed his own highly stylized way of playing and improvising jazz. One wonders what musical highlights might have been accomplished had he lived beyond his 28 years. Celebrating Bix!, originally released in 2003 as a single CD album, adds selections which, due to size constraints, did not make the original release, but they all certainly “make it" here as a double CD and vinyl release. What ...

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The Bix Centennial All Stars: Celebrating Bix!

by Jack Bowers
September 14, 2023

Here's a new album by the Bix Centennial All Stars honoring the legacy of the renowned cornetist Bix Beiderbecke. Sort of. Actually, most of the music on Celebrating Bix! was recorded and released in March 2003, the actual centenary of Beiderbecke's birth in Davenport, Iowa. This expanded twentieth anniversary edition includes a trio of songs not released at that time owing to limited space, and has been reissued on two CDs instead of one. Having said that, ...

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The Bix Beiderbecke Centennial All-Stars: Celebrating Bix!

by Jack Bowers
May 3, 2003

Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, who considered himself a failure and died (primarily from alcohol abuse) in 1931 at age twenty-eight, would no doubt have been astonished to learn that a group of world- class musicians was assembling to record an album celebrating the hundredth anniversary of his birth. But if Bix was unable to recognize his own genius, others were--and now, seventy-two years onward, he rests comfortably in the pantheon raised to honor such legendary jazz pioneers as Louis Armstrong, King ...

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Dan Barrett: Harlem 2000

by Jack Bowers
December 1, 2002

Leader Dan Barrett’s name was the only one familiar to me on this new Nagel-Heyer release (although I seem to have heard the name John Smith before). Not to worry; Barrett’s companions are as bright-eyed and wholly in tune with the nuances of his mainstream point of view as anyone could want. Apart from three songs with “Harlem” in the title there doesn’t seem to be much connection to that particular area of New York City, but the album needed ...

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Dan Barrett: Harlem 2000

by C. Michael Bailey
October 2, 2002

The unknown Apollo...

Dan Barrett, long known for his involvement in the Swing resurgence of the late 1980s and early ‘90s, has produced a really fine studio recital of lesser known (and some well-known) swing tunes. Couple this with the fact that he employs a sextet that sound like a modest big band, and the results are wholly satisfying and readily accessible. Recorded in Hamburg for Nagel Heyer, Barrett’s philosophy from his previous release, Dan Barrett’s International Swing Party . ...

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Dan Barrett's International Swing Party: Live! At Birdland, Hamburg

by Dave Nathan
August 1, 2001

Nagel Heyer rarely has to stray from its Hamburg home to find top jazz people to record. At Europe's version of Birdland, the label has taped some excellent live performances and this one is no exception. A little ragged now and then - - lack of rehearsal time perhaps - - Dan Barrett heads the group for a very generous 77 minutes of modified traditional jazz. Not just New Orleans, nor Chicago, nor Harlem, but a mix of those styles ...

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Dan Barrett: Melody in Swing

by Mike Neely
May 1, 2001

In my neighborhood, young girls swoon to the sound of Dan Barrett's trombone, and their boyfriends get romantic. Melody in Swing will also get your parents up for a round of slow dancing in the living room. Barrett is one of the great jazz stylists of the trombone, and on this recording he does his best to prove it.

Swing is the key word here, slow, lush music that shows off Barrett's impeccable phrasing. His quintet is all one could ...