Jazz Articles about Dave Pell

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You're a Funny Guy

by Monk Rowe
April 10, 2026

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The Case for Dave Pell: The Octets and Beyond

by Steven Cerra
October 14, 2025

Of the major books on West Coast Jazz, few have much to say about the Dave Pell Octet, a group that was active on a regular basis from 1952--1964 and intermittently thereafter until Dave's death in 2017. Ted Gioia gives Dave's group a casual mention in the following statement from his West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960:"If the later nonet, octets, and dectettes of Dave Pell, Marty Paich, Lennie Niehaus, and others have a West ...

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Dave Pell: Four Classic Albums

by David Rickert
March 29, 2013

If you were to wander up and down the West Coast in the fifties you were more likely to find Dave Pell playing dances on college campuses than in clubs. Despite filling his octet with seasoned musicians who could really cut loose when given the chance, Pell's studio recordings always have a hint of crepe and balloons about them. They represent the extremely well-mannered style of West Coast jazz,and are pleasant almost to a fault.The first ...

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Dave Pell: Remembers John Kirby and Big Small Bands

by C. Michael Bailey
November 5, 2012

Historical recreations of music are nothing new. Every tribute recording ever released is one. In the 1980s and '90s, classical music went through its “period instrument-performance practice" phase, where the entire Baroque, Classical and early Romantic repertoires were recreated using instruments and metronomic markings from the 18th and 19th Centuries. In the late 1950s, jazz was going through an interesting transition that had its genesis a decade earlier in Miles Davis' famous Birth of the Cool (Capitol, 1957). In 1949, ...

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Dave Pell: Sunday Jazz at The Lighthouse

by Jim Santella
February 24, 2005

Dave Pell Octet The Lighthouse Café Hermosa Beach, California February 20, 2005

Sunny Hermosa Beach has played host to great jazz for over 50 years. Originally, it was the regular Sunday jam sessions lasting from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. that brought overflowing crowds to The Lighthouse in the early 1950s, as members of Stan Kenton's Orchestra descended upon the beach community for weekly jazz outings. Howard Rumsey and a group of ...