Jazz Articles about Marvin Stamm

About Marvin Stamm

Album Review

Donald Fagen's third solo CD, his first such recording in thirteen years, blends jazz, soul, funk and just about every other musical influence you can name on nine new songs whose subject matter runs the gamut. The eclectic songs on Morph The Cat cover some interesting topics: a romantic interlude with an airport security guard ("Security Joan"); a conversation with the ghost of the late Ray Charles ("What I Do"); mortality ("Brite Nightgown"); and a cult taking over the US ...

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Album Review

Donald Fagen: Morph The Cat

Read "Morph The Cat" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
March 7, 2006

Sometimes tight-knit teams like Donald Fagen and Walter Becker--better known as Steely Dan--make it difficult to determine what each individual brings to the table. It's no secret that Becker and Fagen have strong jazz sensibilities, not to mention an affection for Tin Pan Alley, having started out as staff writers for ABC Records before realizing their music was too sophisticated for the artists they were writing for. But Fagen's previous solo albums--Nightfly (Reprise, 1982) and Kamikiriad (Reprise, 1993)--and Becker's 11 ...

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Album Review

The Marvin Stamm/Ed Soph Project: Live at Birdland

Read "Live at Birdland" reviewed by Rick Bruner

by Rick Bruner
June 28, 2005

There's often a vibe in live performance that isn't easily captured in the studio, especially when the musicians are highly accomplished jazz veterans performing before an appreciative audience. Trumpeter Marvin Stamm and drummer Ed Soph co-lead this wonderful band, recorded live at Birdland in New York City. Bassist Rufus Reid and pianist Bill Mays complete the quartet, which is augmented on four tunes by guitarist John Abercrombie. Stamm's warm, burnished tone on trumpet and flugelhorn melds wonderfully with the tight ...

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Interview

Meet Marvin Stamm

by Craig Jolley
March 25, 2005

Soloist, bandleader, lead trumpeter, cultural activist, educator, website maintainer, and southern gentleman Marvin Stamm functions on the highest plane in all his capacities. Like most musicians who succeed these days he communicates with his audience and brings them into his music. A sensitive yet extroverted player Stamm has a new CD by his working quartet with guest artist John Abercrombie. The Stamm/Soph Project--Live at Birdland My present quartet--Bill Mays, piano, Ed Soph, drums, and Rufus Reid, bass--has been ...

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Album Review

The Marvin Stamm Quartet: Elegance

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 2002

The “invisible man” returns. Trumpeter Marvin Stamm, who played with big bands led by Woody Herman, Stan Kenton and Thad Jones / Mel Lewis, among others, before vanishing in the early ’70s into the wilderness of studio work in New York City, is playing Jazz again — has been for some time now — and that is good news indeed for those of us who appreciate the sort of “elegance” he invariably espouses. Indeed, there’s no more appropriate word than ...