Jazz Articles about Julius Watkins

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Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins: Thelonious Monk with Sonny Rollins 1953 to 1957 Revisited

by Stefano Merighi
April 28, 2026

Negli anni Cinquanta il jazz era assai potente e si rafforzava anche in virtù di un'attrazione magnetica che ne avvicinava i protagonisti, individualisti sì ma anche sedotti dalle possibilità di avventure comuni. Tale magnetismo si è spesso concretizzato tra le figure torreggianti di Thelonious Monk e di Sonny Rollins. Questo CD della ezz-thetics ricostruisce la loro frequentazione nel periodo di un lustro, da quando Monk era ancora una sorta di reietto per il music business, e Rollins un ...

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Tadd Dameron: Fontainebleau & Magic Touch Revisited

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 ...

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Tadd Dameron: Fontainebleau & Magic Touch Revisited

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 ...

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Miles Davis: Porgy and Bess

by Robert Gilbert
February 1, 2003

In jazz, only a handful of albums never lose their lustre. Each listening is a magical experience, no matter how familiar the material has become. The second collaboration between Miles Davis and Gil Evans, Porgy and Bess, is one such distinctive recording.

Davis and Evans’ recasting of the George Gershwin opera was their followup to the magnificent Miles Ahead. Many of that album’s characteristics are also present on Porgy and Bess : lush orchestrations, a wide-range of material ...