Jazz Articles about Harold Land

About Harold Land

Reassessing

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 ...

Radio & Podcasts

Paul Auster: The Jazz Music of Chance; Harold Land

by Ludovico Granvassu
June 1, 2024

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 ...

Album Review

Hampton Hawes: For Real!

Read "For Real!" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
May 21, 2024

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 ...

Reassessing

The Fox

by Richard J Salvucci
April 4, 2024

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 ...

Album Review

Curtis Counce: You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce!

Read "You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce!" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
November 18, 2023

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 ...

Album Review

Harold Land: Westward Bound!

Read "Westward Bound!" reviewed by Peter J. Hoetjes

by Peter J. Hoetjes
July 24, 2021

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 ...

Album Review

Harold Land: Westward Bound!

Read "Westward Bound!" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
June 17, 2021

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 ...