Interview News

Herbie Hancock: A Shared Commonality

Source: JamBase
June 26, 2010

By: Dennis Cook

Hancock by Douglas Kirkland Herbie Hancock has been putting out albums since the early 1960s but he's never made one quite like The Imagine Project (released June 22 on his own Hancock Records). A far cry from the landmark jazz he created with Miles Davis or even the Headhunters, The Imagine Project took Hancock all over the globe to record an humanizing, positivity infused, lovely, uplifting song cycle with the most diverse array of collaborators in his ...

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Gregg Allman Receives Liver Transplant

Source: JamBase
June 24, 2010

UPDATES TO BE POSTED REGULARLY ON GREGGALLMAN.COM

Gregg Allman As part of his continued recovery from Hepatitis C, Gregg Allman recently underwent a successful liver transplant operation at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL. Allman had been on a waiting list for the transplant and is looking forward to a speedy recovery.

I feel pretty good, considering everything that's happened, says Allman, who co-founded The Allman Brothers Band in 1969. Everybody involved here, my doctors and nurses in the ...

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Interview: Lou Donaldson (Part 3)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 26, 2010

Between mid-1955 and the start of 1957, Lou Donaldson did not record for reasons he outlines below. Instead, he booked a long string of urban clubs across the country and toured them back and forth while fronting a quintet that included organist Big John Patton. Along the way, Lou became creatively comfortable with the sax-organ sound, in which he borrowed elements from r&b and bebop. When he returned to Blue Note in 1957, Lou recorded with organist JImmy Smith in ...

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Interview: Stanley Kay (Part 1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 26, 2010

Stanley Kay, Buddy Rich's drummer in the late 1940s, died on Monday (June 21st) in New York after a long illness. He was 86. To the uninitiated, my description of Stanley's occupation in the first sentence may sound odd. Buddy Rich's drummer? Buddy Rich was a drummer. Except that Stanley played drums when Buddy Rich sang and danced, which was often in the late 1940s. Stanley was one of Rich's most trusted associates during this period. Rich had grown up ...

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We All Make Music Interviews B.J. Jansen

Source: JM Creative
June 24, 2010

B.J. Jansen was featured by the Music Industry Blog, “We All Make Music," today. Here is an excerpt from the feature article,"B.J. Jansen on Helping Artists Help Themselves." “B.J. Jansen accepts and welcomes the changes faced by the music industry. Rather than look at them as catastrophic, Jansen sees them as “kind of a revitalization." “Everyone should stop complaining and try to become master of their own destiny!" ~ Reinhardt Schuhmann from ...

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Interview: Lou Donaldson (Part 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 23, 2010

Jazz writers aren't in complete agreement about the first hard-bop recording. Many point to Miles Davis' Walkin', recorded in April 1954. Others choose recordings from slightly later. I'd have to say that the first hard-bop date--where the trumpet and saxophone operate in unison with an r&b feel, backed by big steady, swinging beat--would have to be a Blue Note session of June 9, 1953. On this date, Lou Donaldson co-led a group that featured Clifford Brown, pianist Elmo Hope, bassist ...

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Jimmie Noone, Jazz Clarinet Pioneer

Source: Jazz Lives by Michael Steinman
June 23, 2010

For those unfamiliar with the sound of clarinetist Jimmie Noone, here he is with his 1928 Apex Club Orchestra--Doc Poston, alto sax; Earl Hines, piano; Bud Scott, banjo; Johnny Wells, drums--playing EVERY EVENING (I MISS YOU) courtesy of “ptm51 on YouTube (see below).

Noone (1894-1944) should be known to a wider audience today, and a new bio-discography, JIMMIE NOONE, JAZZ CLARINET PIONEER, by James K. Williams with a discography by John Wilby, is just what is needed.

Noone did not ...

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Robert Randolph: Shot of Love

Source: JamBase
June 23, 2010

By: Dennis Cook

Robert Randolph As Robert Randolph & The Family Band approach their first decade together, all evidence is their game is tighter than ever. Boldly emerging from the gospel community, Randolph - easily the greatest innovator on his weapon of choice, pedal steel guitar, since Red Rhodes reshaped the instrument with Michael Nesmith in the '70s - has always hummed with abundant spirit and Holy Ghost energy. This has never been clearer or more finely etched than third ...

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