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Jazz Articles about Harold Land
Trio and Quintet
by C. Michael Bailey
Pianist and composer Elmo Hope has more in common with Tadd Dameron than most of his other jazz peers. Both men were primarily composers and arrangers who concentrated on their own music rather than standards. Both men spent their professional lives in New York City during the twilight of bebop and the flourishing of hard bop. Neither man boasted large discographies as leaders, but appeared on a significant number of recordings as sidemen. Their careers were both shortened dramatically by ...
Continue ReadingPaul Auster: The Jazz Music of Chance; Harold Land
by Ludovico Granvassu
New releases and re-releases to remember Harold Land open this episode which then continues with a tribute to Paul Auster, a writer admired by many musicians who wrote music with him, for him, to accompany some of his writings, or inspired by him.Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Lily White Quintet “Grooveyard Blues" Daughter of Fortune (Self-produced) 0:16 Host talks 5:47 Harold Land “In the Back, In the Corner, In the ...
Continue ReadingHampton Hawes: For Real!
by Richard J Salvucci
There are, Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote, no second acts in American life. For pianist Hampton Hawes, born in 1928, there was scarcely a first. No sooner was he established as an up-and-coming talent than he was drafted into the Army. When he got out, he tried to pick up where he left off. A heroin habit he had acquired prior to military service led to a harsh incarceration because he refused to become an informer. Only a grant of clemency ...
Continue ReadingThe Fox
by Richard J Salvucci
There was once a legendary trumpet player named Jack Purvis who was a disciple of Louis Armstrong. Purvis was an excellent player, but he was in and out of trouble for most of his life. So he spent some time in jail. In fact, so much time that Purvis once led (documented in the Fort-Worth Star Telegram, March 30, 1938) a broadcast from a Texas prison in Huntsville. Purvis led many lives, and was sometimes spotted in odd places like ...
Continue ReadingCurtis Counce: You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce!
by Richard J Salvucci
When bassist Curtis Counce died of a heart attack at the age of 37 in 1963, the jazz world was deprived of a major talent. Not that one would have known much, for his death, while noted, was not extensively covered. Counce, a Midwesterner, had come to California and to Los Angeles to learn his craft, where he played with such incubator orchestras at the Club Alabam as Johnny Otis (trumpeter Art Farmer started there too). He gigged in the ...
Continue ReadingHarold Land: Westward Bound!
by Peter J. Hoetjes
One can't help but wonder how large the stage may have been for tenor saxophonist Harold Land had he not tethered himself to the west coast for the majority of his career. In 1954 Land moved from Santa Monica to Los Angeles and quickly earned himself a place in the immensely popular Clifford Brown/Max Roach band, beginning with the aptly named Jam Session (EmArcy, 1954). Called back to Los Angeles in 1956 by the responsibilities of being a ...
Continue ReadingHarold Land: Westward Bound!
by Pierre Giroux
Until 1954 Harold Land was a relatively unknown tenor saxophonist. He experienced a surge in his standing with the release of Clifford Brown & Max Roach (Emarcy 1954) when he was part of this high-profile, but short lived, bebop quintet (1954-56). A decade later, this hard-bop player was recognized for his engaging ideas and robust tone and is the center of Westward Bound! a Reel To Real Limited Edition 180 gram 2LP gatefold release produced by Cory Weeds and Zev ...
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