Interview News

Interview: Paul Bacon (Part 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
July 15, 2010

Paul Bacon is modest and soft-spoken. Since the late 1940s, jazz musicians have sensed in the album illustrator, designer and art director a wise and gentle soul. This was particularly true of Thelonious Monk, who saw Paul as an unpretentious artist and sensitive thinker. For his part, Paul saw in Monk a creative genius who was impervious to conformity and allergic to hidden agendas. Paul felt strongly from their first meeting in early 1948 that Monk was everything a jazz ...

Continue Reading

Interview: Paul Bacon (Part 1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
July 14, 2010

Even if the name Paul Bacon doesn't ring a bell, his covers for more than 200 jazz albums will. Paul helped set the mood and mystique for modern jazz back in the early 1950s at the dawn of the LP jacket. Back then, Paul was the illustrator and art director of many early Blue Note albums and became Riverside's art director until the 1960s, when he went on to an even more illustrious career as a book-cover designer. [Photo of ...

Continue Reading

Fretless Guitarist Timucin Sahin Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
July 14, 2010

Turkish-born/New York-based guitarist Timuin ahin is one of those artists who defines the avant-garde genre. He'll admit that his music is not for everyone, it is not for the casual listener, but it's the music that he hears and the music that he loves. This is not dance music per se, but there is a pulse that underlines ahin's work, that binds the freely improvised and the structured, producing layers of interest in his pieces that go beyond simply being ...

Continue Reading

Happy Birthday, Paul Gonsalves!

Source: Riffs on Jazz by John Anderson
July 13, 2010

Paul Gonsalves, born on this date in 1920, was a tenor saxophonist mainly known for his long association with Duke Ellington. He was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, but his parents were of Cape Verdean heritage. As a child, he and his brothers played Portuguese folk songs on guitar for family gatherings. They also played “hillbilly" and Hawaiian music. These family dates, however, became a chore and turned off the young Paul from playing music. Fortunately, he and his oldest brother, ...

Continue Reading

Leading Questions: Michael Barnett

Source: Seattle Jazz Scene
July 13, 2010

Interview and photo by Steve Korn

When I was 14, I fell in love with the sound of the bass, specifically, Milt Hinton.

If I could do it all over again, I'd probably do most of it again, perhaps more efficiently.

Practice makes perfect, allegedly, but it never quite does which is why we keep doing it.

The bass is “a thing of beauty and a pain-in-the-ass forever."

When I look at where I'm at right now, I know I'm ...

Continue Reading

Saxophonist Nat Birchall Interviewed at AAJ

Source: John Kelman
July 13, 2010

Two of the most over-used phrases in music journalism are “overnight star" and “out of nowhere," and so apologies for starting with them here. But when it comes to describing British saxophonist Nat Birchall, they have an unusual degree of exactitude. Birchall, born in 1957 in the rural seclusion of the hill country of North-West England, where he still lives in 2010, and a saxophonist since 1979, didn't make an impression on Britain's national jazz scene until 2009, when he ...

Continue Reading

Singer/Songwriter Lorraine Feather Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
July 12, 2010

Lorraine Feather clearly understands Shakespeare's somewhat snide commentary that all the world's a stage, and the men and women--including herself--its players. She engages the lyricist's craft as an activity integral to the living of life. It is not a case of life imitating or being imitated by art, because art is itself vitally important and indistinguishable from it. Throughout the new compositions on her latest release, Ages (Jazzed Media, 2010), it is obvious that, despite her developed abilities as an ...

Continue Reading

Saxophonist Don Aliquo Interviewed at AAJ

Source: John Kelman
July 26, 2010

Geography is a central theme in the life and artistry of Pittsburgh's native son, Don Aliquo. The saxophonist, educator and bandleader is part of a rich steel town jazz lineage which includes his father, Don Aliquo Sr., a performing artist and teacher in his own right. There is also a metaphorical geography, in which Aliquo covers virtually all aspects of the Jazz experience, from daunting mainstream swing to edgy, modernistic genres. AAJ Contributor Ludwig van Trikt spoke with Aliquo about ...

Continue Reading