Jazz Articles about Terell Stafford

About Terell Stafford

Album Review

Danny Jonokuchi Big Band: A Decade

by Jack Bowers
October 15, 2024

For trumpeter, vocalist and bandleader Danny Jonokuchi, the path to success--in music and in life--has never been smooth or trouble-free. Born with a congenital lung disease, Jonokuchi needed life-saving surgery while in high school to treat a collapsed lung, which caused him to put his trumpet playing aside, at least temporarily. Years later, and almost a continent away from his native Los Angeles, Jonokuchi was viciously attacked in south Philadelphia, resulting in traumatic injuries to his mouth and embouchure. This ...

Album Review

Michael Dease: Grove's Groove

Read "Grove's Groove" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
October 6, 2024

The story of Michael Dease's journey from sax to trombone and back again is one any parent of a musically talented child could recognize. Dease started out as an alto saxophonist in middle school. Sometime later, he wanted to switch to the baritone sax. He worked at it. And worked at it some more. His combination of talent and practice paid off. Dease became something of a young monster on the horn, outplaying his senior bandmates in high school. But ...

Album Review

Danny Jonokuchi: A Decade

Read "A Decade" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
September 26, 2024

A Decade is arranger-composer, trumpeter and vocalist Danny Jonokuchi's celebration of personal and musical evolution, encapsulating his growth over the last ten years as a musician and leader of his big band. The album draws on jazz's rich traditions while also serving as a reflection of the enduring spirit of the genre. The release features compositions that outline the signature flourish of Jonokuchi's writing, standing as a testament to his ability to overcome personal obstacles. The ...

Album Review

Ken Peplowski: Unheard Bird

Read "Unheard Bird" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 3, 2024

Even when the recording (in this case, two) is a classic--as, for example, Charlie Parker's memorable Bird with Strings (Mercury Records, 1950)--some songs that deserve better are necessarily left on the cutting-room floor. Some may see that as disappointing, while others--like reed specialist Ken Peplowski--embrace it as an opportunity. On Unheard Bird, Peplowski--with strings and a core quartet--presents a series of fourteen generally likable themes, most of which were destined for Parker's album but were somehow passed over, and three ...

Album Review

Jordan VanHemert: Deep in the Soil

Read "Deep in the Soil" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 1, 2024

Energy and enthusiasm fairly leap from the speakers--or headphones--on Sharel Cassity's daring “Call to Order," the opening number on Korean-born saxophonist Jordan VanHemert's fifth album as leader, Deep in the Soil. Alas, that same ardor doesn't reappear until track seven (of eight), trombonist Michael Dease's boppish “ST in the House." In between, VanHemert and his companions (group sizes vary from sextet to duo) offer some agreeable music but nothing that approaches the ebullience or cogency of the themes already named. ...

Album Review

Dial and DeRosa: Keep Swingin'

Read "Keep Swingin'" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 30, 2024

Keep Swingin', a splendid new album from pianist Garry Dial and drummer Rich DeRosa, features “the music of Charlie Banacos." Charlie who? you may ask. And the answer is, there are jazz educators, and then there was Charlie Banacos, whose talent and ingenuity in the classroom influenced and inspired countless jazz musicians for more than fifty years. During that time, he designed more than a hundred courses of study and wrote half a dozen books on composition and improvisation.

Liner Notes

Jordan VanHemert: Deep in the Soil

by C. Andrew Hovan
March 20, 2024

Born in Korea and raised in Michigan, Jordan VanHemert counts himself among those youngsters that got involved in his school music program by starting out on the alto saxophone. Also like many of his fellow saxophonists, VanHemert eventually moved away from the smaller horn to devote his full energies to the tenor sax, an instrument emblematic of the jazz heritage. “In my formative years, I was almost exclusively an alto saxophonist," VanHemert explained from his current home base in Oklahoma. ...