Interview News

Interview: Howard Rumsey (Part 3)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
September 5, 2009

Southern California in the early 1950s was a place of rapid transition. As cars became more affordable and local highways improved, teens in the warmer months gravitated toward the shore. At the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, manager Howard Rumsey found himself in the right place at the right time. With nighttime demographics skewing younger and suburban populations expanding, a new form of jazz emerged. On car radios and 10-inch LPs, the new jazz was in keeping with the Pacific Coast's ...

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Interview: Howard Rumsey (Part 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
September 4, 2009

In 1949, when Howard Rumsey began contracting musicians for the Lighthouse, a seaside jazz club in Hermosa Beach, CA, he had more talent to choose from than could squeeze onto his small stage. Los Angeles was awash with winter-weary talent hungry for lucrative work in the movie and recording studios. In the years that followed, the numbers only swelled. Just 32 miles from downtown L.A., Hermosa Beach offered sand, surf and lots of restless young listeners looking for a new ...

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Live Interview Alert: Pianist Yaron Herman on Saturday, September 5th, from 5:30PM to 6PM ET

Source: Michael Ricci
September 3, 2009

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Interview: Howard Rumsey (Part 1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
September 3, 2009

If you dig West Coast jazz, you have bassist Howard Rumsey to thank. Howard is the last surviving member of Stan Kenton's original 1941 band. He also was responsible for turning the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, CA, into one of the most exciting jazz clubs of the late 1940s and 1950s. As the club's manager, house bassist and promoter, Howard attracted jazz artists to the Lighthouse who had just relocated to California and were awaiting membership in the local musicians' ...

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Jazz That Dwells in the Present

Source: Michael Ricci
September 2, 2009

If you're the kind of fan who likes his music in little boxes—jazz in one, funk in another, hip-hop rhythms stashed somewhere else—"Double Booked" (Blue Note) by Robert Glasper and “Urbanus" by Stefon Harris and his band Blackout may not be for you. For Mr. Glasper, age 32, and Mr. Harris, 36, jazz isn't defined by an arcane set of rules. Nor is it defined solely by its past. To them, the question of whether jazz is dead, dying or ...

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Avant-Guitarist Keith Rowe Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
September 2, 2009

In early June 2009, multi-instrumentalist Keith Rowe made one of his rare visits to London to play a concert at Cafe Oto as part of Another Timbre's Unnamed Music Festival in a trio with saxophonists Martin Kuchen and Seymour Wright, before heading north to Leeds to play another set the following evening with the same trio. Having been in the audience for the first night of the festival--and seeing fine sets by Sebastian Lexer and Aleks Kowalski, Rhodri Davies, Lee ...

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Baritone Saxophonist Gary Smulyan Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
September 1, 2009

A baritone saxophonist who plays like Bird? And harvests more than a half-dozen Grammy awards in the process? That seeming contradiction characterizes the great successes of Gary Smulyan, one of today's most in-demand jazz performers, educators, and recording artists.

AAJ Contributor Edward Bride spoke with Smulyan recently, and the saxophonist provides insight into his unique sound and approach, one less inspired by the great baritonists and more by alto legends like Charlie Parker and Phil Woods.

Check out Gary Smulyan: ...

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Legendary British Saxophonist John Surman Interviewed at AAJ

Source: ECM Records
August 31, 2009

It's increasingly risky to be a musician on the road. When British saxophonist John Surman was traveling from his home in Oslo, Norway, to New York City in September, 2007 for a recording session, he almost lost his baritone saxophone to the airlines. “It is a nightmare traveling now," says Surman, “and hardly a tour goes by without something going missing, and of course there's the damage problem. Nowadays you get one handbag, which of course is my soprano, so ...

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