Jazz Articles about Jimmy Cleveland

About Jimmy Cleveland

Album Review

Thelonious Monk: Monk Live In Paris 1967 Volume One

Read "Monk Live In Paris 1967 Volume One" reviewed by Jack Kenny

by Jack Kenny
July 31, 2026

This Paris concert formed part of a European tour organized by the impresario George Wein, who had previously presented numerous Thelonious Monk Quartet engagements. Seeking something different, Wein proposed an expanded ensemble. Monk was initially reluctant to depart from the quartet format and only agreed after considerable persuasion. Crucially, he retained artistic control: he selected the additional musicians himself and insisted on using Hall Overton's arrangements, familiar from the earlier concerts Town Hall (Riverside 1959) and Philharmonic Hall (Columbia 1964). ...

Album Review

Thelonious Monk: Live In Paris 1967 Volume One

Read "Live In Paris 1967 Volume One" reviewed by Joshua Weiner

by Joshua Weiner
June 14, 2026

The discography of Thelonious Monk, bebop architect, composer of enduring standards and idiosyncratically influential pianist, is vast. In addition to Monk's genre-defining studio recordings, several live sets were released during his lifetime, including a notable series put out by Columbia Records during Monk's time on that most major of major labels, from 1962 to 1968. Live In Paris 1967 (Volume One) is a notable addition for several reasons: it is the first official release of material by the Monk Estate ...

Album Review

Tadd Dameron: Fontainebleau & Magic Touch Revisited

Read "Fontainebleau & Magic Touch Revisited" reviewed by Maurizio Zerbo

by Maurizio Zerbo
March 31, 2025

Le linee guida di Fontainebleau e Magic Touch, i due capolavori di Tadd Dameron qui riuniti in un solo CD, furono teorizzate dal pianista di Cleveland sulle pagine della rivista Record Changer, in cui descrisse come la sua adesione all'estetica del bebop fosse mediata dalla classica scrittura swing. Le forme multitematiche ABA e i trasporti di chorus di “The Scene Is Clean," nonché i quattro movimenti di “Fontainebleau" che non contengono una sola nota improvvisata, forniscono prove tangibili ...

Album Review

Tadd Dameron: Fontainebleau & Magic Touch Revisited

Read "Fontainebleau & Magic Touch Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
October 27, 2024

There is much that is tragic about Tadd Dameron's story. The composer, arranger and pianist fell prey to the heroin epidemic that gripped New York's jazz world in the 1940s and 1950s. He did jail time for his addiction in 1959-60. He died at the woefully young age of 48 years in 1965. But there is nothing tragic about Dameron's legacy as a composer-arranger, the field in which he made his most important contribution to jazz. His work was unfailingly ...

Album Review

Dorothy Ashby: With Strings Attached, 1957-1965

Read "With Strings Attached, 1957-1965" reviewed by John Chacona

by John Chacona
July 10, 2023

Imagine if Sidney Bechet, Charlie Christian and Jimmy Smith were barely remembered and recordings of their music were long unavailable and known only on the geekiest corners of Discogs. That is essentially the status of harpist Dorothy Ashby. Like the three figures cited above, Ashby essentially created a language for her chosen instrument, the harp, where virtually none has existed before and established it as a legitimate and expressive vehicle for jazz improvisation at the highest level. Just how brilliantly ...

135

Album Review

Jimmy Cleveland (: Introducing Jimmy Cleveland and His All Stars

by C. Andrew Hovan
December 1, 2000

One of the finest jazz and studio trombonists to make a name for himself in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Jimmy Cleveland has recorded with just about anyone who is anyone in the history of the music. To name just a few of those lucky enough to have had Cleveland on hand at various gigs or sessions, a small list would have to include Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, James Moody, Art Farmer, and Antonio Carlos Jobim. The first of three sets ...