Interview News

Trumpeter Chad McCullough Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
June 23, 2009

Seattle trumpeter Chad McCullough has been working hard to garner a reputation in his hometown and beyond as a versatile, creative musician. McCullough has performed with a wide range of artists, including Jay Thomas, Claudio Roditi, Marc Seales, Thomas Marriott, Ingrid Jensen and Bob Florence. He's toured extensively with the Glenn Miller Orchestra in the jazz trumpet chair, and also as the band's pianist.

McCullough's debut recording, Dark Wood, Dark Water (Origin Records, 2009), taken from the title of a ...

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Pianist/Bandleader Arturo O'Farrill Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
June 22, 2009

Arturo O'Farrill, an extraordinary pianist, admits he came out of the bebop school of playing, a Bud Powell disciple, and his strong chops would attest to that. He didn't pursue the music of his father--the great Chico O'Farrill--in his younger days, but he came upon it as he studied the music. He came to not only appreciate it, but his excellent bands embody it.

He's led two Latin big bands, one celebrating his father's music (the Chico O'Farrill Afro Cuban ...

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Bob Enevoldsen: Smorgasbord

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 20, 2009

Back in the early 1950s, jazz musicians were impossibly gifted. A good number not only could play their primary instrument with enormous skill and flair, they often could play quite a few others. This was particularly true on the West Coast, where studio work was abundant but your share depended largely on how many axes you could grind. If you played only the tenor sax, your odds of being called consistently for a job were slim given the competition. But ...

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Omar Sosa Interview

Source: All About Jazz
June 20, 2009

This interview is part of the book/dvd project “Under your skin" which will include Interviews with: Anthony Braxton, Ornette Coleman, Zap Mama, Chuck D / Public Enemy, Korn, Les Nubians, Taj Mahal, Yusef Lateef, Dj Vadim, Bob James, Living Colour, Marilyn Crispell, Bill Frisell, Michael Ricci / Allaboutjazz.com, Val-Inc, Lonnie Liston Smith, Roy Nathanson, J Mascis/Dinosaur Jr, Lydia Lunch, Zakarya, ...

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John Coltrane: Sheets of Sound

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 19, 2009

If you love listening to John Coltrane, then you know that the phrase “sheets of sound" refers to the tenor saxophonist's cascades of arpeggios. The term is so closely linked to Coltrane that it's hard to find an article or book about the jazz giant that doesn't use it somewhere to describe his massively energetic style in the late 1950s and beyond. But do you know who originated the term?

Ira Gitler did.

“Sheets of sound" first appeared in Ira's ...

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Singer/Songwriter Michael Tomlinson Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
June 18, 2009

Before smooth jazz, there was Michael Tomlinson--the radio format, that is.

In the mid-'80s, Tomlinson became a staple among stations that would eventually evolve into smooth jazz or Triple A (Adult Album Alternative) such as KTWV “The Wave" in Los Angeles. In fact, it was one such FM outlet, the late KEZX in Seattle, where Tomlinson found such early success that it inspired him to relocate to “The Emerald City." Tomlinson achieved this without the benefit of a record label, ...

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The Roots: How They Got Over

Source: JamBase
June 17, 2009

By: Jim Welte

Questlove & Black Thought - The Roots To longtime fans of The Roots, there was something exhilaratingly fresh about the band's two-hour set at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco late last month. That familiar Roots' sound, jazz-inflected and grounded in the essence of hip-hop, was certainly front-and-center, louder than a bomb in the same hall where Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the acclaimed San Francisco Symphony. All of the familiar elements were there: Black Thought's yeoman-like wordplay, ...

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Jimmy Rowles: Looking Back

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 17, 2009

Last week I happened to be listening to a Jimmy Rowles album he recorded with his daughter Stacy in 1988. One of the most interesting tracks on the CD is the moody waltz-time ballad Looking Back, a tune Rowles wrote in the 1960s. Over time, Rowles recorded Looking Back five times--once as an instrumental duet with Ray Brown and three other times with vocalists Carol Sloane, Stacy Rowles and Jeri Brown. Jimmy also recorded it while singing and accompanying himself. ...

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