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Jazz Articles about Don Byas
Ed Palermo, Planet D Nonet, Herbie Hancock & Don Byas
by Joe Dimino
In celebration of Con Chapman's freshly minted 2025 release Sax Expat, we crack open the 905th episode of Neon Jazz with the timeless tones of Don Byas, taking us back to a smoky stop in 1944. It's the perfect prologue to a show steeped in innovation, homage, and the ever-expanding universe of jazz. From there, we launch into a stellar array of new sounds from the ever-inventive Ed Palermo, the deep and thoughtful Dave Bass, the groove-rich Quinn Sternberg, and ...
Continue ReadingDon Byas: Sax Expat
by Richard J Salvucci
Don Byas: Sax Expat Con Chapman 233 Pages ISBN: 9781496856081 University Press of Mississippi2025 Don Byas, a tenor saxophonist, who was regarded with great respect in his day, is, unfortunately, now not much more than a name. In part, it is because he has been gone for half a century. Yet that hardly is a sufficient explanation for neglect. Others of his cohort, like Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young or Ben Webster, are hardly ...
Continue ReadingCharlie Parker: Be Bop Live
by Mark Corroto
The name of the record label is ezz-thetics, which was also a composition by George Russell and an album of the same name (which featured Eric Dolphy) released by Riverside Records in 1961. Maybe a better moniker for the label is “Lest We Forget." Not that we could ever abandon Charlie Parker, but today when streaming services replace CDs and LPs, which also replaced 78s and live radio broadcasts (the streaming service of its day), Parker has the possibility of ...
Continue ReadingCharlie Parker Quintets: Be Bop Live
by Stefano Merighi
Benvenuti a uno dei convegni di bellezza più eccitanti che il jazz abbia mai prodotto. Royal Roost, New York City, dicembre 1948-febbraio 1949, due mesi in cui Charlie “Bird" Parker teneva il cartellone nel club della Quarantasettesima, sconvolgendo il pubblico con alcune tra le sue esibizioni più brillanti. Il bop era già linguaggio assimilato ormai, ma l'eccezionalità di quelle serate confermava Parker come punta di diamante di tutta la cultura africana-americana, al di là delle correnti jazzistiche.Questo doppio ...
Continue ReadingDon Byas: Laura
by Mike Neely
Don Byas was clearly a rising star when he walked away from fame. He was the first to hold the Lester Young chair in the Count Basie Band, before his 30th birthday. After two years with Basie he moved to New York City, where he played and recorded with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Coleman Hawkins. In 1946 Byas toured Europe and decided France was the place he wanted to live, and so he did.
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Don Byas: Don Byas: Complete American Small Group Recordings
by Mike Neely
Oklahoma born tenor saxophonist Don Byas moved easily between swing and bebop with an earthy, blues sound that brings to mind Coleman Hawkins but with a lightness of touch and rhythmic agility reminiscent of Lester Young. He successfully synthesized these two influences, in many ways updating them into the bebop era. Byas mastered the breathtaking tempos associated with Parker and Gillespie but avoided the angular, sharp phrasing- with the result that his up-tempo approach had a more rounded, swing solo ...
Continue ReadingDon Byas Quartet: Featuring Sir Charles Thompson
by Dave Nathan
Don Byas, believing he was never going to get the recognition he deserved in this country because of bigotry, left the United States for Europe and never looked back. Virtually all of his good work was done on the Continent. Usually cited as one of the first tenor saxophonist to take up Bop, Byas never let go of his romantic and swinging roots. This reissue of a free wheeling live performance demonstrates how successful Byas was in merging all these ...
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