Jazz Articles about Erroll Garner

About Erroll Garner

The Jazz Files

Unearthed & Unforgettable: The Lost Tapes of Just Jazz

by Hank Hehmsoth
May 9, 2025

Rediscovering Just Jazz: A Lost Archive of Jazz Legends Returns Unearthed after more than 50 years, the Just Jazz video archives represent one of the most significant rediscoveries in jazz history. Produced by NEA Jazz Master Dan Morgenstern and originally broadcast in 1970 on WTTW Chicago, these rare recordings capture intimate, electrifying performances by some of the most influential jazz artists of the 20th century--performances that were long presumed lost. I uncovered this archival treasure while serving as ...

Radio & Podcasts

Cubana Be, Cubana Bop - Play Misty for Me

by David Brown
June 25, 2024

This week, we start things off with some Afro-Cuban sounds from Bud Powell, Zaccai Curtis and Dizzy Gillespie. Next, a celebration of the birth of pianist Erroll Garner who would have been 103 today. Large band orchestral works from Toshiko Akiyoshi, Jihye Lee and Count Basie will follow before we check out some African sounds from Nduduzo Makhathini and Randy Weston. A set of recordings featuring bassist Reggie Workman will be the next feature, including a date recorded on this ...

Profile

Erroll Garner: 100th Birthday Anniversary Of The Immortal Swinging Maestro Of Jazz Piano

by Doug Hall
June 30, 2021

The hundredth birthday of the legendary and brilliant virtuoso Erroll Garner is being marked by tributes including The Erroll Garner Project, which has released additional recordings and a remastering of existing recordings by the swing maestro of jazz piano. His popularity as an in-demand international performer and his landmark record Concert by the Sea (Columbia, 1955) is also a reminder of how Garner brought modern jazz to a larger mainstream audience without ever compromising the integrity of his compositions.

Album Review

Charlie Parker: Birth Of Bebop - Celebrating Bird At 100

Read "Birth Of Bebop - Celebrating Bird At 100" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
August 2, 2020

Let's face it, there is absolutely nothing new to say about the music of Charlie Parker, unless (insert joke here) you happen to be Phil Schaap. Lao Tzu's quote “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long" is fitting. John Coltrane was 40 when he died in 1967, Eric Dolphy 36 in 1964, and Clifford Brown died at 25 in 1956. Parker was dead at the age of thirty-five in 1955. His legend has grown larger with ...

Album Review

Erroll Garner: Erroll Garner Plays Gershwin & Kern

Read "Erroll Garner Plays Gershwin & Kern" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
July 2, 2020

The British newspaper The Times once nailed Abdullah Ibrahim's appeal thus: “There are few musicians in jazz who can make you feel that essentially all is right in the world." The late Erroll Garner is another pianist whose music could be similarly described. You might argue that Ibrahim's task is harder, because much of his work deals with painful issues, while the ebullient Garner mostly played feelgood material from the Great American Songbook. But Garner's palette brought its own challenges, ...

Album Review

Erroll Garner: That's My Kick

Read "That's My Kick" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
February 5, 2020

Great good luck, even in this news weary day, that Erroll Garner remains the personification of that mythical vaudeville buoyancy that can hold us in its sway, lifting us from all our daily unrest. We're fortunate to be in a time when we can re-explore, rediscover and perhaps even re-imagine Garner's continued impact and influence. Welcome, then, That's My Kick, the latest high-powered release from Mack Avenue Records' acclaimed twelve disc series: Erroll Garner Octave Remastered Series. And ...

Album Review

Erroll Garner: Campus Concert

Read "Campus Concert" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
February 2, 2020

In the history of recorded music, whether it be cave holler, rock, rap, jazz, country or take your pick, there are not a lot of albums that hold one's attention and imagination like the epic Concert By The Sea (Legacy, 2015). But somehow Erroll Garner's other live albums such as this one, the last released in his all too brief lifetime (Garner passed of cardiac arrest, aged 52), or the recently discovered, Nightconcert (Mack Avenue, 2018), in some inexplicable way, ...