Jazz Articles about John Lee Hooker

About John Lee Hooker

Multiple Reviews

John Lee Hooker And Elmore James: Deep Blues

by Doug Collette
February 22, 2025

Perfectly complementary in the earthy simplicity of the music, archive titles by John Lee Hooker and Elmore James offer an antidote to the antiseptic ephemera that is contemporary pop. The Standard School Broadcast of the former's presents an unusual concert recording originally presented on an educational radio series, while erudite essayist Bill Dahl curated the latter's Hits & Rarities, Historically valuable and meticulously annotated to that end, the essential wonder of both titles, however, is that each in its own ...

Album Review

John Lee Hooker: The Best of Friends

Read "The Best of Friends" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
July 20, 2024

In contrast to his often (always?) irascible peer Chester Burnett, aka Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker has long been amenable to collaborations, reciprocal and otherwise. Bonnie Raitt, Los Lobos, Charlie Musselwhite and Carlos Santana, among others, appeared on The Healer (Chameleon,1989) and all those artists also populate the credits for The Best of Friends. (Santana, the Mexican-born guitar hero, appears with two different iterations of his band). Fittingly titled, this anthology is a suitable companion piece to Whiskey ...

Album Review

Cory Weeds: Home Cookin'

Read "Home Cookin'" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
January 17, 2024

On Home Cookin', his second recording with an eleven-piece “little big band," tenor saxophonist Cory Weeds is doing the best he can. Really. As Weeds writes in the liner notes, the plan was to rehearse the band for two nights at Frankie's Jazz Club in Vancouver, Canada, home to Weeds and most of the band's personnel, then to convene at the Warehouse Studio on Sunday to record. Arriving at the club on Friday evening, Weeds found to his dismay that ...

Album Review

Cory Weeds: Home Cookin'

Read "Home Cookin'" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
November 26, 2023

Cory Weeds, a prominent figure in the contemporary jazz scene, has made a remarkable statement with his Little Big Band's latest album Home Cookin'. The session showcases a vibrant collection of compositions/arrangements carefully curated to resonate with his personal journey, including those by Horace Silver, Thad Jones and Oliver Nelson, which are essential to him for a variety of reasons. The band comprises ten of his favorite world-class Vancouver, BC-based musicians. These previously mentioned influential tracks ...

Album Review

Mike Allen: To a Star

Read "To a Star" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 2023

If you're a tenor saxophonist leading a piano-less trio, much of the group's melodic and harmonic components rest squarely on your shoulders. In spite of that--or perhaps because of it--Canadian tenor Mike Allen says he prefers working within that framework, as he has been doing for many years. If that is one's choice, he may as well recruit as comrades in arms the best bassist and drummer available. On To a Star, Allen has done precisely that, ...

Album Review

Cory Weeds Quartet: Just Coolin'

Read "Just Coolin'" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 21, 2022

Although Cory Weeds spends much of his time promoting and recording other jazz artists, he does manage to place those tasks on the back burner every once in a while to blow his own horn, so to speak—which he does about as well as anyone else on today's scene. While the Canadian-based saxophonist is especially engaging on alto, he plays only tenor on Just Coolin', backed by a rhythm section he assembled in 2021 for a live gig at Frankie's ...

Album Review

Cory Weeds Quartet: Just Coolin'

Read "Just Coolin'" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
April 25, 2022

Owner of the Cellar Music Group label, Canadian music producer and veteran jazz saxophonist Cory Weeds unveils another superb session of hard bop with the exceptionally bright Just Coolin', featuring a host of sizzling standards as well as a couple of low temperature classics for balance. The album became more a labor of love than a profitable musical proposition for Weeds; after assuming the presidency of The Fraser MacPherson Jazz Fund, his major challenge was to replenish the organization's depleted ...