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Buddy de Franco + Sonny Clark, PT 1
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
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 ...
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Have You Heard Evan Christopher?
Source:
The Independent Ear by Willard Jenkins
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 ...
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Ain't but a Few of Us: Bill Francis
Source:
The Independent Ear by Willard Jenkins
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
Ubiquitous Ace Session Guitarist/Producer Louie Shelton Interviewed at AAJ
Source:
All About Jazz
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 ...
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Everything Clicks for Benin-Born Guitarist Everything Clicks for Benin-Born Guitarist Lionel Loueke
Source:
All About Jazz @ Spinner
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 ...
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Django Reinhardt: Less Gypsy, More Jazz
Source:
Lubricity
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 ...
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Bassist John Geggie Interviewed at AAJ...And More!
Source:
All About Jazz
Most cities have them: musicians who act like a lightning rod, focusing and driving their jazz scenes. In Ottawa, Canada, bassist John Geggie has been one of those significant focal points for two decades, but in particular over the past ten years. He's one of the founding organizers and faculty members of Jazzworks which, amongst other things, runs an annual Jazz Camp--a weekend boot camp for aspiring musicians from near and far, at various degrees of skill, to hone their ...
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Pianist Matthew Shipp Profiled at All About Jazz...And More!
Source:
All About Jazz
On May 17, 2009, at 6 pm, Matthew Shipp walked through the front door of Roulette, a performance venue on the Lower East Side in New York City, for a recording session for his sixth solo album, 4D - his second for Thirsty Ear.
The only people present for the session were the recording engineer; the record producer, Peter Gordon; and a group of four people who sat in chairs midway between the piano and the mastering board at the ...
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