Jazz Articles about Mort Weiss

About Mort Weiss

Album Review

Mort Weiss: Mort Weiss Is a Jazz Reality Show

Read "Mort Weiss Is a Jazz Reality Show" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
April 19, 2016

La storia del jazz è ricca di drammatiche vicende umane e quella di Mort Weiss è l'ultima in ordine di tempo. Dopo quarant'anni di assenza del mondo della musica (per fatti che l'hanno condotto anche in prigione) nel 2001, all'età di 66 anni ha ripreso in mano il clarinetto e l'anno successivo ha inciso il suo primo album (Mort Weiss Quartet, SMS Jazz) mostrando di saper recuperare “il tempo perduto." Residente in California, fino al 2013 ha pubblicato ...

Album Review

Mort Weiss: Mort Weiss is a Jazz Reality Show

Read "Mort Weiss is a Jazz Reality Show" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
September 26, 2015

In recent years, life has thrown one obstacle after another at the feet of octogenarian clarinetist Mort Weiss. Divorce, loss of home, cancer, and hospitalization for a variety of other life-threatening ailments all came at him, threatening to kill his resolve and cut him down. But it would seem that practically nothing is capable of felling this forthright man and fine clarinetist. This album gives ample proof that there's a lot of musical life left in Mort Weiss.

Album Review

Mort Weiss: Mort Weiss is a Jazz Reality Show

Read "Mort Weiss is a Jazz Reality Show" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
August 23, 2015

The informal definition of a Character is an “odd, eccentric, or unusual person." That is a bit disappointing in that “odd, eccentric, and unusual" more often than not may be pejorative. I prefer a “unique, memorable, or exceptional person." That said, it takes all six adjectives to adequately describe clarinetist Mort Weiss, who with this recording makes me eat a whole crow soufflé considering I was tempted to take him at his word that his last release, A Giant Step ...

The Mort Report

Some Thoughts from the worlds greatest out of work Bebop clarinet player

by Mort Weiss
October 18, 2014

As many of you know, I've discontinued my column here at All About Jazz called “the Mort Report." See my final one (number 22), aptly named “My Final Mort Report." Clever, what? My reports were mostly autobiographical, as I kind of put myself on automatic pilot and opened the storage lockers of my brain to let the good times and the bad times roll. In retrospect, they sure as hell did. I read some awhile back, as I was kicking ...

The Mort Report

My Final Report

by Mort Weiss
May 28, 2014

I stood there at graveside in the cold morning mist, collar of my dark blue, (but not too warm coat) turned up-in an effort to--ahh hell, I don't know--I saw it in a film noir flick once--let's just say--that it looked appropriate for the occasion--"the occasion"? The laying to rest of my mother-my mother of soul-of laughs-of tears (the very same that I'm drowning in as I write this bit of text about my mother who I never thought that ...

The Mort Report

Septuagenarian is Not a Sexual Proclivity!

by Mort Weiss
April 5, 2014

Backstage at a concert I was doing a few years back, I heard the house announcer getting ready to bring me on, doing his thing. As I'm checking to see if my fly was zipped I heard the words (not in any particular order): jazz, clarinet, septuagenarian and Mort Weiss. I remember thinking--what the f**k? OK, I was asked to write something about a now-well-known little break I took from the scene for 40 years, and ...

The Mort Report

Love... Sorrow... Jazz... and Death

by Mort Weiss
October 1, 2013

When we think of an art form, the tendency is to look in every and all directions except inward--wherein all answers lie, although shielded and hidden from one's self and any that choose to be within your sphere of understanding and passion. Why must it take years of self- study and searching the myriad avenues and paths that lead directly to one's innermost feelings of hope, love, fear and despair? And reaching that destination, only to find that every hope ...