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John Zorn’s Masada, Tommy Flanagan, Jeff Parker
by David Brown
This week a trio of works featuring guitarist Jeff Parker, we then work our way tough a pile of recently acquired '80s LPs featuring lots of Tommy Flanagan, some Mulgrew Miller and Ronnie Mathews; and finally, we revisit John Zorn's Masada Quartet--leaders of the Radical Jewish Cultural movement of the '90s--who made their first recordings 30 years ago this week in 1994. Welcome friends and neighbors to The Jazz Continuum. Old, new, in, out... wherever the music takes us. Each ...
Continue ReadingJoe Henderson: The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions
by Scott Gudell
If an artist stamps his jazz passport with any one of these labels--Blue Note, Verve, Milestone--it's pretty much a guarantee that you've arrived in style. Tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson has traveled with all three and more. The 2021 reissue from the prestigious Mosaic Records focuses on Henderson's 1960s tenure with Blue Note offers a new opportunity to experience an abundance of rich and creative jazz from the decade. Big band and bop were duking it out in the ...
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane: Giant Steps: Remastered & Super Deluxe Editions
by Chris May
A date for your diary... 18 September 2020. That is when Atlantic / Rhino releases two cracking new editions of John Coltrane's first landmark album, Giant Steps (Atlantic, 1960). The main event is enhanced audio quality, which has noticeably more presence than any previous reissue. The double CD and vinyl Remastered Edition and digital-only Super Deluxe Edition consist of material which has been newly remastered by John Webber at Air Studios in London. The Remastered Edition includes ...
Continue ReadingGene Ammons: Boss Tenor
by Matthew Aquiline
Tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons' tone can be best described using the qualities of an ideally brewed cup of joe: rounded, bold, smooth, and exhilarating after first taste. Widely regarded as an original founder of the “Chicago school of tenor sax," Ammons' nonchalant, yet indelible sound--echoing the soft, breathy tone of Lester Young--drove him to a great deal of fame within the post- World War II jazz crowds of the '50s. Ammons, famously nicknamed “Jug," had an inherent ability ...
Continue ReadingTommy Flanagan / Jaki Byard: The Magic Of 2
by Dan Bilawsky
San Francisco's famed Keystone Korner shuttered its doors in 1983, but it's getting more press today than plenty of clubs that are still serving up jazz. In the past two years alone, a previously unreleased live recording of trumpeter Freddie Hubbard--Pinnacle (Resonance, 2011)--launched Resonance Records' Keystone Korner Live Discoveries series, photographer Kathy Sloane released Keystone Korner: Portrait Of A Jazz Club (IU Press, 2011) to great acclaim, and the club's owner--tireless jazz advocate Todd Barkan--started hosting/curating “Keystone Korner Nights" at ...
Continue ReadingTommy Flanagan / Jaki Byard: The Magic of 2
by Dan McClenaghan
One of San Francisco's most famous jazz venues, Keystone Korner, closed in 1983. It was a favorite venue of the top jazz players of the day, and several landmark live albums by pianists Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner, and saxophonists Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Stan Getz, resulted from shows taped inside its hallowed hall.The Magic of 2 showcases the piano talents of Tommy Flanagan (1930-2001) and Jaki Byard (1922-1999), live at the Keystone Korner in 1982, mixing duets ...
Continue ReadingTommy Flanagan / Jaki Byard: The Magic of 2
by C. Michael Bailey
The story of this previously unreleased performance by pianists Tommy Flanagan and Jaki Byard at San Francisco's famous Keystone Korner begins with its unusual distributing label, Resonance Records. The original brainchild of studio owner George Kalbin, the label exists as part of the larger endeavor, the non-profit Rising Jazz Stars Foundation, dedicated to the discovery and cultivation of the next generation of jazz stars. This aspect of the RJSF produced recordings by “newer" artists: Andreas Oberg's My Favorite Guitars (2008), ...
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