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On Rob McConnell
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Occasionally, a Rifftides reader sends a message compelling enough that it demands posting not as a comment but as a full-fledged item. In the blog's five years, there have been few. Jeff Sultanof's recent recollection of Gene Lees was one. A few days later, we have Peter Kountz's tribute to Rob McConnell.
Dr. Kountz is head of Philadelphia's Charter High School For Architecture + Design, an independent tuition-free public school that is the first of its kind in the United ...
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Gene Lees on Waltz for Debby
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Last week, while writing about the late a CD that Gene had sent me back in the 1990s: Yesterday I Heard the Rain: Gene Lees Sings Gene Lees, which he produced. The album features 12 songs--9 with lyrics by Gene.
When I pulled out my copy last week, out tumbled a sheet of paper folded into a square. Puzzled, I opened the square and there was a printout of an email Gene had sent me dated September 15, 1997.
Gene ...
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Artie Shaw, Three Ways
Source:
Jazz Lives by Michael Steinman
Artie Shaw has been gone since 2004 and he last played the clarinet in public around fifty years before that, so the people who heard him play must be diminishing day by day. But he remains an astonishing musician and a public figure capable of stirring up controversies. I offer three ways of looking at the King of the Clarinet.
One is a glimpse of the intelligent but highly prickly writer, as evidenced by this letter for sale on eBay:
Another ...
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Pianist Michele Giuliani Interviewed at AAJ
Source:
All About Jazz
Pianist Michele Giuliani--born in Baritone--is one of the emerging talents of the Italian jazz scene.
After years of constant experimentation--from progressive rock music to funk and jazz--the 34 year-old completed Roots (Zeitgeist, 2009), the sum total of all his musical experiences, named for the diversity of influences and cultures featured in Giuliani's music.
AAJ Contributor Achille Brunazzi spoke with Giuliani recently, about his new album, the influence of his hometown on his music, and more.
Check out Michele Giuliani: Widespread ...
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Herb Geller on Bill Evans
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Following my interview series last week with alto saxophonist Herb Geller, I was curious about Herb's interactions with bassist Scott Lafaro in the late 1950s and his flute playing with pianist Bill Evans in 1972.
It turns out Herb was the one who first introduced LaFaro to Evans, that Herb began playing flute only after relocating to Germany, and that there's a reason why Bill Evans looks so dazed in the YouTube clips.
Here's Herb on LaFaro and Evans:
“In ...Continue Reading
Composer/Reed Multi-Instrumentalist Frank Glover Interviewed at AAJ...And More!
Source:
All About Jazz
Intelligent and outspoken, Frank Glover began playing clarinet when he was eleven years old. On entering college, he trained for nearly two years at Indiana University before striking out on his own; upon the independent release of Politico in 2004, he was signed by Owl Studios and the album was re-released under that label in 2009. Initially training as a classical clarinetist who also plays saxophone, the music of John Coltrane grabbed him; he experienced a musical epiphany as a ...
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Drummer Mike Reed Interviewed at AAJ
Source:
All About Jazz
There is not a name yet for what Mike Reed does on drums. Elvin Jones created polyrhythmics; Rashied Ali, multi-directionalism. Reed is delivering something related but distinct. It has as much to do with tonal complexity as with keeping the beat, but the complexity goes beyond that, into a recombination of the many drumming styles of jazz history. “Pan-tonalism" might characterize it, but it doesn't roll off the tongue the way his sticks roll off his heads.
AAJ Contributor Gordon ...
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