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Jazz Articles about John Webber
Eric Alexander: With Strings
by Jack Bowers
To paraphrase Cole Porter: “Bird did it, Chet did it... even many vocalists I bet did it..." And now tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander did it--recorded an album with strings, that is. This represents quite a departure for Alexander who is widely known as one of the more emotive and resourceful improvisers on the scene; but so it was too for Charlie Parker, the foremost architect and unquestioned sovereign of the bop movement who was the first post-Swing Era superstar to ...
Continue ReadingHarold Mabern: The Iron Man: Live At Smoke
by Mike Jurkovic
Hard-bopping pianist Harold Mabern may have made his recording debut in 1959 with drummer Walter Perkins' quintet and led his first session in 1968 for Blue Note on the soulful A Few Miles From Memphis but here he is, at 82, playing with straight-ahead, youthful joie de vivre on the story telling, life affirming, two-disc set The Iron Man: Live at Smoke. Working as hard as ever with his long standing trio of tenor saxophonist and former student ...
Continue ReadingHorace Silver: Jazz Has A Sense Of Humor
by John Sharpe
Listening to any new release by Horace Silver is a lot like hearing your favourite comedian tell a joke for the umpteenth time—you know the punch line, but you laugh anyway! Since he left Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in 1956, Silver has written and produced a number of classic tunes that have become jazz standards. Over the years his famous quintets have always featured dynamite trumpet/tenor tandems—Blue Mitchell /Junior Cook, Woody Shaw/Joe Henderson and the Brecker Brothers—and this album is ...
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