Interview News

Joe Alterman: Piano Tracks

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
December 22, 2009

It's easy to carp about the death of jazz and young jazz artists' ignorance of the music's history. Both are soft targets, especially since so many young jazz players seem almost proud that they know little or nothing about jazz's past. Somewhere along the line, “old" in our music schools became “useless," as if the shock of the new alone makes one's performances significant. One 21-year-old pianist who is changing these perceptions is Joe Alterman. His new album, Piano Tracks, ...

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Guitarist Pete McCann Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
December 22, 2009

Jazz guitarist and educator Pete McCann has been a first-call sideman and bandleader on the New York scene for almost twenty years. Possessing a musical style that draws from the blues, jazz and rock genres, McCann's playing and writing styles are as diverse as his influences. Having worked with such world-class performers as Lee Konitz, Chris Tarry, Dave Liebman, Kenny Garrett, Greg Osby, Brian Blade and the Maria Schneider Orchestra, McCann has appeared on over fifty recordings as a sideman. ...

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Pianist Vijay Iyer Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
December 21, 2009

New York-based pianist and composer Vijay Iyer is a rhythmic explorer whose piano trio album Historicity (ACT, 2009) is a cohesive and vibrant record that carries its creator and his colleagues firmly into the mainstream of modern music. The album stems from, among other sources, a succession of striking piano trio influences such as Duke Ellington's trio recording with Charles Mingus and Max Roach, Money Jungle (Blue Note, 1962), the small group Blue Note recordings by Andrew Hill, and the ...

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Meet Chris Dawson

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
December 19, 2009

I had never heard of Chris Dawson until this morning, when a link to a video showed up in a friend's e-mail message. The message contained rave blurbs about Dawson from Alan Broadbent, Charlie Haden, Dave Frishberg, Dick Hyman, Gary Foster, John Clayton and Bob Sheppard. The endorsements got my attention. The video was a shortened version of a longer film story about a pianist's miraculous recovery from a hand injury that had ended his playing and put him on ...

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Gov't Mule: Any Open Window

Source: JamBase
December 18, 2009

By: Dennis Cook

Warren Haynes Gov't Mule's ninth studio album, By A Thread (released October 27 on Evil Teen Records), roars out of the gate with a steely intensity - helped along by “badass guitar" from pal Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top) - that's helped define the hard rocking group since its inception in the mid '90s. For all the excellent ballads and fruitful exploration - which has exposed influences ...

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Tiny Grimes with Coleman Hawkins

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
December 17, 2009

Tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and guitarist Tiny Grimes recorded together six times over their long careers. Both musicians were showmen at heart--Hawkins as an imposing and chameleon-like improviser and Grimes as a blues master and r&b showboater. Their first two sessions were in 1944. A third came backing Billie Holiday during a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in 1946. Then there were two Prestige dates in 1958 and 1959. The last session in 1961 was with the Swingville All Stars, ...

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The Producer's Corner with Spud Too Tight Hosts a "Tech Talk" Podcast Exclusive with Mega Music Producer Roy Hamilton III

Source: entertainmentPR
December 17, 2009

Minneapolis - One of the hottest and most unique celebrity driven Podcast to hear some of Billboard's chart topping award winning music producers, composers, arrangers, vocalists and engineers discuss their production techniques and preferences, influences, song structure, music instruments, genre, style and their craft, state of the art recording equipment, background and upcoming projects is: The Producer's Corner with Spud Too Tight on iTunes Podcast. Edgy R&B/Smooth Jazz Music Producer/Composer Spud Too Tight is also prolific and gifted on keyboards, ...

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God, Brubeck and All That Jazz

Source: Michael Ricci
December 16, 2009

Any jazz fan who has been paying attention at all during the past half century will recognize the quirky 5/4 riff that means the Dave Brubeck Quartet is swinging into its classic “Take Five." But there's another tune the pianist keeps playing that is completely different. “Forty Days" opens with the haunting, chant-like lines that define the most famous piece in his first sacred oratorio, “The Light in the Wilderness." “Forty days alone in the desert, days and nights of ...

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