Interview News

Interview

Riding on the the Main Line of Jazz

Source: Michael Ricci
January 30, 2010

The trumpeter Jeremy Pelt has spent most of the last decade as a young exemplar, traveling the postbop continuum on his own steam, at his own pace. As a bandleader he has plunged headlong into funk and dipped a toe in chamber orchestration, but the larger theme of his output seeks a footing on the bedrock of jazz convention. Hes still finding good terrain to explore there, as he proved at Jazz Standard on Thursday night. Mr. Pelt, 33, has ...

Continue Reading

Interview

Sutton Foster Featured in Riverfront Times

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
January 30, 2010

Continue Reading

Interview

Buddy de Franco + Sonny Clark, PT 1

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
January 29, 2010

Clarinetist Buddy De Franco has had a series of astonishing careers. He has been a leading swing era musician, a big band leader, a bebop headliner, an early participant in merging small-group jazz with the American Songbook, a polytonal experimenter, and champion of all forms of the music. Buddy's first 10 years alone are remarkable. In 1943 he recorded with Gene Krupa, then joined Tommy Dorsey and Charlie Barnet's bands in the mid-1940s, played with George Shearing in the late ...

Continue Reading

Interview

Have You Heard Evan Christopher?

Source: The Independent Ear by Willard Jenkins
January 28, 2010

Once you get past the outsized ego of its leader, trumpeter Irvin Mayfield, the burgeoning New Orleans Jazz Orchestra is potentially an exceptional representation of both the modern and traditional jazz fruits of the city. The orchestra, or NOJO as it is known, boasts such gifted players as saxophonists Ed Peterson and Derek Douget, trombonist Ron Westray, and the sturdy rhythm section of pianist Victor Atkins, bassist David Pulphus, and drummer Adonis Rose, versatile modernists steeped in the New Orleans ...

Continue Reading

Interview

Ain't but a Few of Us: Bill Francis

Source: The Independent Ear by Willard Jenkins
January 27, 2010

This latest installment in our ongoing series of black music writers telling their story comes from Bill Francis.  Brooklyn-based Bill Francis is a music and jazz journalist whose byline has appeared on countless stories and profiles ranging from bebop to hip hop, in the pages of Billboard, Spin, Essence, The Source, among many other publications.

The son of a saxophone-playing Tuskegee Airman, Bill formerly covered Kansas Citys legendary jazz scene as a feature reporter and jazz columnist for The Kansas ...

Continue Reading

Interview

Ubiquitous Ace Session Guitarist/Producer Louie Shelton Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
January 27, 2010

Hundreds of millions of people have heard him play without having heard of him. A veteran session guitarist, Louie Shelton played on a slew of million-selling records during his three decades in Los Angeles. His credits include female vocalists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, and Whitney Houston; soul stars James Brown, Smokey Robinson, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and the Jackson Five; blues legends Otis Spann, Solomon Burke, and T-Bone ...

Continue Reading

Interview

Everything Clicks for Benin-Born Guitarist Everything Clicks for Benin-Born Guitarist Lionel Loueke

Source: All About Jazz @ Spinner
January 26, 2010

Like many artists who have explored and embraced music from across cultures, guitarist Lionel Loueke is wary about bringing exotic, unfamiliar sounds to mainstream audiences. Of course, in his case the audience in question is in Benin, where Loueke was born and raised. And the sounds are those of the modern jazz he embraced as a music student in Paris in the mid-'90s and has personalized in the decade since moving to the U.S. to study ...

Continue Reading

Interview

Django Reinhardt: Less Gypsy, More Jazz

Source: Lubricity
January 26, 2010

To celebrate Django Reinhardt's 100th birthday this past Saturday, I am pleased to bring my friend Paul Brady on board to write the first guest column for Lubricity!

Paul is an expert on all things Django: he is currently completing his M.A. in Jazz History and Research at Rutgers University, where he has written a thesis entitled Django Reinhardt The Jazz Musician: His Abilities; His Influence; His Legacy.  Paul is also a member of the Hot Club of Detroit, a ...

Continue Reading