Interview News

The Disco Biscuits Change the Anthem

Source: JamBase
March 19, 2010

By: Brian Bavosa

The Disco Biscuits It's only hours before the lineup announcement for Camp Bisco 9 as I speak with bassist Marc Brownstein. A world-renowned festival hosted by The Disco Biscuits which originated in 1999, the annual event has seen its share of evolution over the years. Built slowly upon the roots of a regional party, big name artists like Snoop Dog, Nas and Damien Marley have made recent appearances. Maybe that's the reason Brownstein is bubbling with energy ...

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Interview: George Avakian (Part 4)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
March 19, 2010

By the mid-1950s, George Avakian was a record-industry rainmaker. As head of Columbia's Pop Album Department, George had enormous power. When he decided to sign talent, there was no question about whether the artist had the chops or stamina. Both were a given, since George had sized up both carefully in advance. The only question that remained was how quickly the artist would become a national entity and how big that artist would become with Columbia's mighty marketing and record ...

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Out of the Rifftides Past: David Newman

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
March 19, 2010

Now and then the Rifftides staff rummages through the archives, wondering what was on the blog early in its history. Yesterday we found a review from four years ago, to the day. It discusses an album by a musician whose death in January, 2009 gives the last line poignancy we could not have anticipated when the piece first appeared. Fathead

One minute and twenty-six seconds into a blues called “Bu Bop Bass" on his new CD, Cityscape, ...

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Interview: George Avakian (Part 3)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
March 18, 2010

If you were a record producer in the late 1940s, you pretty much had to invent the job. At the dawn of the LP era, there were no rules, no models and no mentors. As George Avakian discovered at Columbia Records, new ways to package pop and jazz music for long-playing albums had to be developed. So did ways to promote albums and hold down printing and copyright costs. Prior to 1948, records meant thick 78-rpm shellac singles--with one song ...

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Sinan Bakir Performs Original Music, from Blues to Ballads

Source: Michael Ricci
March 18, 2010

As a teenager in Turkey, Sinan Bakir fell under the spell of the electric guitar after attending a rock concert. Little did he know that his newfound passion would lead him to the United States and a career as a jazz musician and educator. Yet, as the guitarist's performance at West Hartford's Szechuan Tokyo on Saturday attested, Bakir has unequivocally found his calling. He confidently directed two sets of original material, ranging from blues to ballads, many given a touch ...

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Jazz Saxophonist David S. Ware is Live -- And Very Much Alive -- In Brooklyn

Source: All About Jazz @ Spinner
March 18, 2010

By Tad Hendrickson

Stories about jazz musicians with health problems too often end sadly, so it was more than a little uplifting to see that saxophonist David S. Ware's did not. Ware had been in declining health in recent years because kidney dialysis was no longer as effective as it needed to be. Finally, in May of 2009, he received a new kidney, thanks to a donor who was found through an e-mail blast sent out in January of that ...

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Interview: Carol Sloane (Part 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
March 18, 2010

No matter how hard singer Carol Sloane worked in the late 1950s, the odds of becoming a nationally known big band singer were against her. Younger audiences no longer found romance in the songs of Tin Pan Alley, and fewer adults were going out to hear music let alone dance. Touring with a big band, even a headliner like Larry Elgart, had its creative benefits but the grueling pace offered little long-term reward. [Photo of Carol Sloane in 1961, The ...

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Interview: George Avakian (Part 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
March 17, 2010

In 1938, recordings by the latest swing bands were plentiful. The three major record companies that dominated the market (RCA, Columbia and Decca) saw to that. But earlier releases from the 1920s and 1930s that were recorded by companies that had gone bust were out of print. And other than a magazine or two, there were no books published in the U.S. on jazz, no jazz encyclopedias and no jazz discographies. Jazz was music without an archived past, which baffled ...

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