Interview News

Mary Lou, We Hardly Know Ya ...

Source: The Augmented Ear by John Patten
May 7, 2010

The Princeton University Concert Jazz Ensemble will be paying tribute Saturday to Mary Lou Williams, possibly jazz's most overlooked genius, on the centennial of her birth.Maybe it was her gender, maybe it was the company she kept (she worked for Dorsey, Goodman, Ellington ... you name it, anyone with a decent band in the 1930s wanted her arrangements), maybe she's just not had the kind of continuous presence many others have gotten; whatever the reasons, it's time to ...

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Yo la Tengo: From Monk to the Mets

Source: JamBase
May 7, 2010

By: Ron Hart

Yo La Tengo

Yo La Tengo of Hoboken, NJ, formed 25 years ago when New York Rocker scribe and local soundman Ira Kaplan met artist Georgia Hubley, daughter of legendary Disney animator John Hubley, and the two bonded over records and the New York Mets. Since then, alongside longtime bassist James McNew, the band has established themselves as one of the truly great American rock bands in modern times, with a sage-like knowledge of pop history and ...

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On Rob McConnell

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
May 6, 2010

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
May 6, 2010

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
May 6, 2010

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
May 6, 2010

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
May 5, 2010

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:

Composer/Reed Multi-Instrumentalist Frank Glover Interviewed at AAJ...And More!

Source: All About Jazz
May 5, 2010

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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