Jazz Articles about Oscar Pettiford

About Oscar Pettiford

Album Review

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

Read "Thelonious Monk with Sonny Rollins 1953 to 1957 Revisited" reviewed by Stefano Merighi

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 ...

Album Review

Miles Davis: Miles '55: The Prestige Recordings

Read "Miles '55: The Prestige Recordings" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
September 10, 2025

It is hard to imagine any casual jazz fan failing a blindfold test on the vinyls on offer here. It is a game people play: how quickly can you identify the performer. A lot of horn players make it into the competition, because horns are boisterous and mimic the human voice and persona. Clark Terry, some say, requires one note. And for much of his career, starting in the mid-1950s, a compatriot and mentee of Terry's: Miles Davis was equally ...

Album Review

Thelonious Monk: Brilliant Corners

Read "Brilliant Corners" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
October 19, 2023

Writing about being “lost for words" is not the ideal way of starting a review, but it may be the plain truth. Perhaps Thelonious Monk is an acquired taste. Perhaps not. Whatever the case, this particular release of Brilliant Corners is just that--brilliant.The whole package is superb and really defines Craft Recordings “Small Batch" vinyl series. The technical literature accompanying the recording says “Each edition is cut from its original analog tapes by Bernie Grundman and pressed on ...

Reassessing

New Faces - New Sounds

by C. Michael Bailey
May 8, 2020

The jazz name Wynton Kelly is typically associated with other artists' endeavors, such as John Coltrane's Giant Steps (Atlantic, 1959), Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959) or Wes Montgomery's Smokin' at the Half Note (Verve, 1965), just to mention three landmark recordings. While he always seemed best cast in supporting roles, Kelly did have a highly respectable solo career, and while it was neither as productive, nor considered as critically important as his sideman roles, it is still worthy ...

Album Review

Oscar Pettiford & Jan Johansson: In Denmark 1959-1960

Read "In Denmark 1959-1960" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
November 7, 2016

Oscar Pettiford was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, in 1922, of a Choctaw Indian mother and a half Cherokee, half African American father. He became one of the most influential bass players in the history of jazz, building on the innovations of Jimmie Blanton to make the bass a genuine solo instrument. He jammed with the founders of bebop at Minton's Playhouse then followed Blanton by joining the Duke Ellington Orchestra from 1945-48. In 1958 ...

Album Review

Oscar Pettiford & Jan Johansson: In Denmark 1959-1960

Read "In Denmark 1959-1960" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
June 18, 2016

If anyone should doubt how much it has meant to the Danes that a number of prominent American jazz musicians have lived in Denmark for a shorter or longer time, they just need to walk around the streets of Copenhagen. Here you will find street names such as Ben Webster Street, Ernie Wilkins Street and Kenny Drew Street. Another jazz street is named after bassist Oscar Pettiford. Pettiford, along with Swedish pianist Jan Johansson, is the subject ...

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Album Review

Kenny Dorham: Kenny Dorham: Jazz Contrasts

Read "Kenny Dorham: Jazz Contrasts" reviewed by Samuel Chell

by Samuel Chell
October 5, 2007

In the new liner notes included with this addition to the Keepnews Collection on Riverside, the producer expresses his satisfaction with this 1957 “blowing" album, showcasing the trumpeter whom, after Clifford Brown, he considers second to none. Recorded approximately a year following Brown's passing, the date demonstrates Dorham's gifts as a balladeer, composer and, above all, as a pyrotechnician--the kind of player who can take apart a song's chord structure and reconstruct it with surgical precision, even while operating at ...