Jazz Articles about Ernie Watts

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Brad Goode: Live Your Dream

by Jack Bowers
June 21, 2026

Live Your Dream is the second album on which trumpet master Brad Goode and acclaimed tenor saxophonist Ernie Watts have shared the front line. The first, That's Right!, was recorded eight years earlier, in 2018. The sophomore enterprise was taped live at the North Street Cabaret in Madison, Wisconsin, something the musicians were unaware of until after the concert was over. Make no mistake, these are accomplished artists who have circled the track many times in a wide ...

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It Only Takes One Note

by Monk Rowe
April 5, 2026

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Marc Seales: People & Places

by Jack Bowers
September 25, 2025

When planning an album, one good idea can make a world of difference. If, for example, a trio is in place but a horn is needed to make it a quartet, asking the incomparable Ernie Watts to fill that chair is always a good idea. That is what Jazz Hall of Fame pianist Marc Seales has done on People & Places, at least his twenty-second album, leading various groups in a productive career that has spanned more than four decades. ...

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Marc Seales: People & Places

by Edward Blanco
August 14, 2025

Seattle pianist Marc Seales, an established sideman and retired educator from the University of Washington, maintained a long-time friendship and collaboration with such jazz luminaries as Mark Murphy and guitarist great Larry Coryell, both of whom have since passed, and last, but certainly not least, tenor saxophonist Ernie Watts. Seales reunites with saxman Watts on their latest outing entitled People & Places, a collection of six originals, plus the re-imagined Wayne Shorter classic “Palladium," and “Home Light," a tune composed ...

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Diana Ross & Frank Zappa: Soul Freak Symphony

by Glenn Astarita
April 1, 2025

When Diana Ross, the glittering soul siren of Motown, and Frank Zappa, the madcap maestro of musical anarchy, unveiled Soul Freak Symphony in March 1985 but was put in limbo due to contractual issues. Hence, it was not just an album--it was a cosmic detonation of sound and sanity. This 12-track hallucination melds Ross's velvety charisma with Zappa's unhinged genius, resulting in a creation so far outside the box it might as well be orbiting Saturn. The opener ...

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In the Studios-West Coast: Part 2

by Monk Rowe
August 3, 2023

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Seattle Jazz Fellowship: How One Week Told the Story of a Jazz Nonprofit's First Year

by Paul Rauch
May 4, 2023

When Seattle-based trumpeter Thomas Marriott announced the founding of a new 501(c)3 nonprofit to support the local jazz scene in his hometown, both the enormity of its possibilities and its challenges merged front and center in the collective mind of the Seattle jazz community. Over the past decade, the city had lost its two main venues that staged jazz featuring musicians from its historically vibrant scene. Both The New Orleans Creole Restaurant in Pioneer Square and Tula's Jazz ...