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Bill Barber
Miles Davis: Porgy and Bess
by Robert Gilbert
In jazz, only a handful of albums never lose their lustre. Each listening is a magical experience, no matter how familiar the material has become. The second collaboration between Miles Davis and Gil Evans, Porgy and Bess, is one such distinctive recording.
Davis and Evans’ recasting of the George Gershwin opera was their followup to the magnificent Miles Ahead. Many of that album’s characteristics are also present on Porgy and Bess : lush orchestrations, a wide-range of material ...
Continue Reading...Bill Barber, 87; Jazz Tuba Player
Source:
All About Jazz
Bill Barber, a musician who helped refashion the jazz tuba from its predictable oompah passages to suit the complex melodies and rhythms of Miles Davis and other postwar jazz modernists, died of congestive heart failure June 18 at his home in Bronxville, N.Y. He was 87. A fixture of many early jazz bands, the tuba was largely reduced to a jazz relic by the early 1930s as sound technology improved. The upright bass took the place of the booming brass ...
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