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Jazz Articles about Phineas Newborn, Jr.
Teddy Edwards / Howard McGhee: Together Again!!!!
by Richard J Salvucci
Howard McGhee was one of the cats present at the creation, when bop became a thing. His life embodied a classic redemption story, complete with death (metaphorically) by drugs, years in exile and finally, by dint of his own struggles and a timely gig with Woody Herman, resurrection. While he had been widely admired and respected in the late 1940s as a pioneering trumpeter, the unspoken judgment was that it was his misfortune to come to prominence when Dizzy Gillespie ...
Continue ReadingHoward McGhee: Maggie's Back In Town!!
by Richard J Salvucci
A picture (a video, in fact) is worth a thousand words. Consider one of Howard McGhee around 1966. It is at the Newport Jazz Festival, and an unlikely group of trumpeters is doing a bop tune at metronome-busting speed. The group includes Bobby Hackett and Ruby Braff (unlikely, no?). Hackett is delightedly laughing. Braff walks off into the wings sulking. Young Jimmy Owens has just upstaged Howard McGhee, to put it mildly. The guy selected to teach Owens a lesson ...
Continue ReadingPhineas Newborn, Jr.: A World of Piano!
by Richard J Salvucci
Did a critic ever accuse classical concert pianist Martha Argerich of displaying too much technique while playing Ravel? It is hardly an idle question as Argerich, one of the most gifted pianists in history, plays Ravel beautifully precisely because she has the technique to do so. She could not play “Sonatine" or “Gaspard de la Nuit"--fearsomely difficult, say pianists--if she did not. The beauty is inseparable from the technique; and the technique part of the beauty. This is ...
Continue ReadingPhineas Newborn Jr. and Oscar Dennard
by Joe Dimino
To commemorate the 600th full episode of Neon Jazz outta Kansas City, we focus on the life of Memphis-born bass cat Jamil Nasser. His son, Muneer, penned his biography and it's called Upright Bass: The Musical Life & Legacy of Jamil Nasser. George Joyner, Jamil Sulieman, and Jamil Nasser are three names that appear on the records of Phineas Newborn, Lou Donaldson, Red Garland, and Ahmad Jamal. These names identify one jazz bassist, composer, and jazz advocate, who made an ...
Continue ReadingPhineas Newborn, Jr.: Solo Piano
by AAJ Staff
When Nesuhi Ertegun perhaps serendipitously recorded Phineas Newborn, Jr. after Newborn had retreated to his hometown of Memphis in the mid-1970's, one of the founders of Atlantic Records helped to remind the jazz world of the overlooked potential of one of his generation's most promising, although perhaps not its most influential, pianists.
That's not to say that Newborn was without influence. Far from it. In fact, Harold Mabern and Geoff Keezer recorded a duo tribute to Newborn on Sackville recently. ...
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