Interview News

Interview: Loren Schoenberg on BG

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
December 6, 2008

Loren Schoenberg knows his Benny Goodman. As a tenor saxophonist, jazz writer and executive director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, Loren, 50, wrote the extensive liner notes that accompany Mosaic's Classic Columbia and Okeh Benny Goodman Orchestra Sessions (1939-1958), a fabulous new seven-CD box set I reviewed yesterday. Loren also is an insider. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when most 20-somethings were in mosh pits or roller discos, Loren was working for Goodman, helping the ...

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Interview: Benny Powell (Part 3)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
December 4, 2008

Part 2

Easily, the most influential and widely imitated big band of the 1950s was Count Basie's “New Testament" orchestra. The impact that this band left on jazz, musicians, arrangers and popular music cannot be overstated. And the mere fact that Basie was able to take two completely different bands at two different points in his career to national acclaim is an astonishing feat that has never been satisfactorily recognized and applauded. Basie made it all look too easy, especially ...

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Jamie Saft & Roots Manuva Interviews

Source: All About Jazz
December 4, 2008

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Harmonicist Paul Gillies Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
December 4, 2008

Harmonica player Paul Gillies is an extraordinary individual. He has walked up Mount Vesuvius on crutches, jet power boated in New Zealand, bungee jumped 300 feet over the River Thames, and tandem freefall parachuted from 10,000 feet. These physical feats would have taxed the average person, but Paul did them while experiencing progressive Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a degenerative disease that has robbed him of his sight in one eye, and will eventually claim his life.

Paul began to play blues ...

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Interview: Benny Powell (Part 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
December 3, 2008

Part 1

By the late 1940s, Lionel Hampton had begun to turn out a spotlight hog, demanding that the focus and adulation be on his performances and stage routines. While this me-first approach worked wonders for the Hampton brand, it left many of his band's musicians yearning for recognition. Benny Powell was among them.

In Part 2 of my interview with the legendary trombonist, Benny talks about Lionel Hampton, the toll that racial prejudice took on his soul while touring ...

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Interview: Benny Powell (Part 1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
December 2, 2008

Benny Powell is probably best known for his trombone solo on Count Basie's hit, April in Paris. Benny's Tommy Dorsey-like reading comes about 44 seconds into the 1955 track, when he gently trots out the song's theme and states the melody with enormous warmth and grace. Benny is one of only a handful of surviving members of Basie's original “New Testament" band. In the 1950s, the band pioneered a cooler style of swing with an emphasis on sectional conversation, loping ...

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Alvin Queen & Dean Bowman Interviews

Source: All About Jazz
December 2, 2008

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Guitarist Mark Whitfield Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
December 1, 2008

Guitarist Mark Whitfield speaks about “After the Mix," from his album Mark Whitfield featuring Panther (Dirty Soap, 2005), intoning that “although the album seems like a diverse collection of musical styles, it is really just my collective vision of the things that I appreciate about music. It's about the group ... It's about the experience of being independent."

Whitfield gives credit to his brother and sister for first introducing him to the guitar and to his parents for fostering a ...

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