Interview News

Interview: Billy Taylor (Part 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
April 8, 2009

Billy Taylor's recording career spans 65 years. During those decades, the pianist has appeared on sessions and in concert with virtually every jazz great of his generation. A master of jazz piano styles dating back to the 1920s, Billy has never missed a chance to experiment with chords and tone, always working toward a more sublime sound and enriched sophistication. While Billy could play as fast as any of his bebop peers back in the 1940s, he knew from the ...

Continue Reading...

Pianist/Composer Barney McAll Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
April 7, 2009

Composer and pianist Barney McAll is a leading light of the new Brooklyn--the New York borough that is the fount of much that is new in jazz. The spectrum of McAll's music is wide, ranging from mood-setting jazz ensemble recordings to electronica. But it all comes down to the notes, and their relation to each other. As McAll says about growing up with and learning music, “If you have a piano in the house that's a start." Organic music is ...

Continue Reading...

Interview: Billy Taylor (Part 1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
April 7, 2009

Pianist Billy Taylor has always been perceived as lucky. It's a trait that owes as much to his extraordinary talents as his charismatic and gregarious personality. Billy also has been one of the great jazz evangelists. In New York, he started Jazzmobile in 1964, an education program that has been responsible for exposing hundreds of thousands of teens to the joys of jazz.

I still recall when Billy came to my junior high school in Manhattan in 1968, performing and ...

Continue Reading...

Trumpeter Alex Sipiagin Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
April 6, 2009

The 1980s in the Soviet Union was a time when the role and rule of the Communist Party were being questioned and unmasked by the policy of “glasnost"--less censorship and greater freedom of information--that was emerging. Some jazz was played in the U.S.S.R. since before World War II. Even during the height of the Cold War, in 1962, Benny Goodman performed in Moscow (a concert attended by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev). But glasnost did not take hold until roughly the ...

Continue Reading...

Roy Nathanson Interview

Source: All About Jazz
April 6, 2009

This interview is part of the book project “under your skin" which includes Interviews with: Anthony Braxton, Ornette Coleman, Chuck D - Public Enemy, Taj Mahal, Yusef Lateef, Melvin Gibbs, Bob James, Skip Mcdonald, Erika Stucky, Living Colour, Rhonda Smith, Dj Rob Swift, Marilyn Crispell, Dick Griffin, Billy Bang, Kahil El Zabar, Michael Ricci - All About Jazz, Val-Inc, Chico Freeman, Esperanza Spalding, Eddie Henderson, J. Mascis - Dinosaur ...

Continue Reading...

Notes from the Net: Rare Miles Davis Photos Online; Greg Osby, Bela Fleck Reviewed; Plus Interviews, Festival News, and More

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
April 1, 2009

Here's our weekly compilation of news and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interest: There's some tasty Miles Davis-related material this week, courtesy of Lockwood & Summit, the staff blog of Euclid Records (and a site yr. humble editor hereby resolves to visit more frequently). Store owner, co-blogger and jazz fan Joe Schwab has ...

Continue Reading...

Ghasem Batamuntu Interview - A Gift from Trane

Source: All About Jazz
April 1, 2009

Continue Reading...

Too Slim & the Taildraggers Guitarist/Leader Tim "Too Slim" Langford Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
April 1, 2009

Listening to Too Slim & The Taildraggers is, as one reviewer put it, .".. like taking a journey through the history of American music." Absorbing everything he could at first, Tim “Too Slim" Langford, lead guitarist and vocalist for the group, today plays what he likes. Although his focus at first may have been blues, today what Langford likes may encompass everything from down home blues, to funky blues rock, Americana, southern swamp rock and instrumental guitar styles.

This works ...

Continue Reading...