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An Interview with Doc Severinsen
Source:
Groove Notes
I was fortunate enough to interview Doc Severinsen last week by telephone, reaching him before a concert on the road in Columbus, Ohio. Below are two links. The first is a short 5 1/2 minute produced piece featuring highlights from his interview as well as music, and audio from The Tonight Show. The second link is the 28 minute full interview with Doc. Also included in this post is video and photos of Doc, as well as a transcript of ...
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A Chris Forbes Trajectory.
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
Photo Courtesy Chris Forbes. Chris has become a helpful regular in the comment zone and actually likes to write so I badgered him to go through the profile question ordeal and ...voila. 1. What brought you to music? I was interested in music pretty young according to my mother. She said I always seemed to gravitate towards the musical instrument toys at the expense of most of the others. My earliest musical memories revolve around the piano that we found ...
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Panamanian Pianist Danilo Perez Is a Jazzman for All Seasons
Source:
All About Jazz @ Spinner
It's not uncommon for musicians to lend their name and/or time to charitable causes. Sometimes these people even have a second life as a hands-on leader of the organization—Bob Geldof comes to mind here. Jazz musicians, on the other hand, tend to lean more toward a grass-roots kind of thing, such as starting schools (see the Ralph Alessi profile) or mentoring young musicians. But in looking at Danilo Pérez, you wonder where he finds the energy: ...
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Multi-Reedman Dan Willis Interviewed at All About Jazz...and More!
Source:
All About Jazz
For the past several years, multi-reedman Dan Willis—as prone to play Armenian duduk as he is a saxophone or clarinet—has been exploring the music of renegade classical composer Erik Satie, first with his 2006 Omni-Tone release, Velvet Gentlemen, and now, with his 2010 Daywood Drive follow-up, The Satie Project. In both cases he finds the perfect nexus of reverence for Satie's in some cases near-iconic pieces ("Gymnopedies," for example, which have been brought into the jazz world previously by Jacques ...
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Pianist Kenny Werner Interviewed at All About Jazz...and More!
Source:
All About Jazz
Inspiration behind art is a curious thing. It takes many forms, from personal to universal perspectives. Many times it's unexpected. It is intertwined with one's life and the vicissitudes therein. As Charlie Parker famously said, “If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." For pianist/composer/arranger Kenny Werner, music has evolved, over time, into a direct expression of his being, less about a series of notes on paper. His latest release, No Beginning No End (Half Note, ...
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"Giving Frank Foster a Hand"
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Tenor saxophonist Frank Foster is best known for his monumental work in the reed section of Count Basie's “New Testament" band starting in 1953. Over the decades that followed, Foster composed and arranged many songs for the Basie orchestra, including Shiny Stockings. Today, Foster, 82, lives with his wife Cecilia in Virginia. Brian Grady is a filmmaker. When Brian began making a documentary on Foster at his family's request several years ago, Brian encountered one of jazz's dirty little secrets: ...
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Rita Reys and the Jazz Messengers
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
As far as I can tell, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers recorded behind a singer only once. That session took place in May and June 1956 in New York and was released on Columbia and the Netherlands' Philips label, which makes perfect sense since the vocalist was Rita Reys, a Dutch jazz singer. Interestingly, the result was quite good, making one wish the Jazz Messengers had departed every so often from instrumentals to back hip vocalists like Johnny Hartman. ...
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Local Space and a Firm Cloud: Bill Dixon, Oct. 5, 2010
Source:
Ni Kantu by Clifford Allen
Right now I'm listening to Berlin Abbozzi, a disc recorded in 1999 for FMP by Bill Dixon, who would have turned 85 today (or yesterday, depending on what time zone you're in). Here he plays trumpet and flugelhorn along with utilizing electronic delay, and he's joined by then-regular collaborator, English percussionist Tony Oxley, and the German bassists Klaus Koch and Matthias Bauer. In the pantheon of Dixon recordings, it's not one I listen to often, and I'm not exactly sure ...
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