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Chris Oatts: Personalities
by Victor L. Schermer
Saxophonist Chris Oatts is a graduate of the jazz program at Temple University's Boyer College of Music and Dance and the nephew of revered saxophonist—and faculty member of Temple University—Dick Oatts. This reviewer heard Chris Oatts at Chris' Jazz Café (similarity in the names purely coincidental) in September, 2021, with his quintet featuring one of his teachers and mentors, Terell Stafford, on trumpet. In that set, Oatts stayed within the bebop/hard bop traditions and showed exceptional sophistication, inventiveness, and resilience ...
Continue ReadingTemple University Jazz Band: Without You, No Me
by Jack Bowers
When his friend, colleague, mentor and confidante Jimmy Heath died in January 2020, trumpeter Terell Stafford's first impulse was to find a way to honor and remember the renowned Philadelphia-born saxophonist. As Stafford is director of the Temple University Jazz Band, also in Philadelphia, an obvious way would be to record a tribute album, which Stafford set about preparing. And then the Covid-19 pandemic arrived, scuttling those plans and most others on the drawing board. The band ...
Continue ReadingThe Jazz All Stars: The Jazz All Stars Volume 1
by Jim Worsley
The gigless times of 2020--the year of the Covid-19 pandemic--could have brought musicians and the industry to their collective knees, gasping for air. Instead, it resulted in more new music than ever before. It filled our lungs with fresh air. It filled our hearts and souls, not to mention our ears. New businesses opening, defying the odds and pursuing their dreams, is a relevant factor. Le Coq Records, emerging in 2020, boldly presents an all-star ensemble—featuring many of ...
Continue ReadingCharles McPherson: Jazz Dance Suites
by Jerome Wilson
Alto saxophonist Charles McPherson has a reputation as one of the last true followers of the bebop tradition but this release shows that his talents stretch beyond that. The music consists of scores he wrote for the San Diego Ballet where his daughter Camille is a solo dancer. It encompasses two full suites and an excerpt from another. “Song Of Songs" is a set of compositions based on impressions about love drawn from the Song Of Solomon. The ...
Continue ReadingHard Bop Still Cookin’ - Terell Stafford, The Cookers, Aaron Diehl, Chano Dominguez, Poncho Sanchez
by Russell Perry
Since the 1950s, there have consistently been players who found in Hard Bop a comfortable place to return to, even as the focus of the music ebbed and flowed. Perhaps, this is because so many heroes of modern jazz created the music that defined the genre, players like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Clifford Brown, Horace Silver, Art Blakey and Lee Morgan. Or perhaps the infectious groove is fun to play and brings great pleasure to audiences. ...
Continue ReadingThe Philly Pops Big Band with Terell Stafford and Guests at the Kimmel Center
by Victor L. Schermer
The Philly Pops Big Band featuring Terell Stafford The Kimmel Center for Performing Arts Philadelphia, PA January 19, 2019 The Philly Pops wide-berthed orchestra includes some of the finest working jazz musicians in the city. The Pops' lead trumpet chair, Matt Gallagher, periodically assembles them as the “Philly Pops Big Band" for events such as the “Welcome America" July 4th celebration. This was the second of three performances of their first formal ...
Continue ReadingTerell Stafford/Dick Oatts/Bruce Barth/Tim Warfield/David Wong/Byron Landham: Family Feeling
by Dan Bilawsky
It's not uncommon for a familial air to surround a band or a recording session. The bonds forged through the music, after all, play up trust and sympathies to a high degree. But some albums even go a step beyond that norm in their connective magnetism, and this is most certainly one of them. Family Feeling is more than a simple gathering of high-caliber peers; it's a date driven by the desire to impart aural wisdom and ...
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