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Interview

Ronnell Bright: Japan, 1990

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
September 11, 2013

As long-term readers of this blog know, I'm a huge Ronnell Bright fan. My love for the pianist's playing is well documented in my interviews with him (go here) and in videos in which I've been asked about him. It all started with my passion for Sarah Vaughan's After Hours at the London House (1958)—an album of exquisite singing by the vocalist and extraordinary playing by Ronnell, her accompanist at the time. It's in my Top 10 jazz albums of ...

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Interview

Interview: Graham Nash

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
September 11, 2013

At 11 a.m. on Labor Day, the front door of Graham Nash's anonymous house on an unassuming street in a beach community near the Los Angeles airport was wide open. From the outside, the house looked like a cottage out of a nursery rhyme—the kind where three bears eat porridge or the grandmother of a red-caped girl lives. Just as I was about to knock, I saw Graham through two rooms sitting at his kitchen table in front of his ...

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Interview

Gerald Wilson is 95

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
September 6, 2013

Gerald Wilson celebrated his 95th birthday yesterday. He looks back on a career studded with achievement as a trumpeter, bandleader, composer and pioneering arranger. Early on in his writing Wilson achieved the unexpected, incorporating daring classical harmonic techniques in his big band arrangements and making them accessible to general audiences. He is the personification of a lifelong learner. Following big successes capped by a sold-out tour with Ella Fitzgerald, Wilson dissolved his successful post-World War II big band because he ...

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Interview

Corky Hale + Marian McPartland

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
August 29, 2013

Corky Hale called yesterday to chat. Most jazz fans know Corky as Los Angeles' first-call harpest in the '50s and '60s. If a harp was needed on pop and jazz recordings, Corky was likely on the session. Her harp appears on many of Ella Fitzgerald's songbook albums as well as recordings by Anita O'Day, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and so many others. Corky also plays a range of woodwind instruments and sang with Harry James, Ray Anthony and a bunch ...

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Interview

Gary Burton on Music (Pt. 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
August 27, 2013

Gary Burton started out in 1960 with Hank Garland, combining jazz vibes with country guitar. Then he was in the thick of the bossa nova movement with Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto in 1964. In 1967 he released Duster, one of the first jazz-rock fusion albums and continued those explorations with Country Roads & Other Places (1968), Throb (1969) and Ring (1974). Through the '80s and '90s there were pairings with Chick Corea, Ahmad Jamal, Ralph Towner, Astor Piazzolla, Pat ...

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Interview

Cedar Walton on "Giant Steps"

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
August 20, 2013

Cedar Walton, a powerful hard-bop pianist who appeared on more than 400 recordings and combined a meaty, rhythmic playing style with sensitive, delicate solos, died August 19. He was 79. [Photo of Cedar Walton and Hank Mobley during Mobley's Third Season session in 1967 by Francis Wolff] During an interview in 2011, Cedar told me that his ability to switch metaphorically from jackhammer to knitting needles in a single song came naturally to him—and was likely the result of listening ...

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Interview

Interview: Bev Kelly (Part 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
August 13, 2013

Few singers curl up on a song's lap like Bev Kelly. In the '50s she worked clubs and recorded several albums with pianist Pat Moran. She also recorded her first solo album in 1957. But just as she had attracted the attention of personal manager John Levy, Bev had a choice to make—her career or her son Greg. A close call in a car accident also made her think hard about her priorities. Bev had a cute singing style that ...

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Interview

Interview: Bev Kelly (Part 1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
August 12, 2013

With the proliferation of travel in the 1950s, Chicago became a hotbed for jazz-pop singers and singing groups. The city was a national railroad hub, and passengers arriving from the East, West and South needed places to stay. As the number of hotels in Chicago grew, so did the number of hotel lounges and clubs and establishments that competed with them and handled the spillover. Singers were especially popular with weary business travelers, particularly hip singers with a swinging jazz-pop ...

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