Interview News

Organist Barbara Dennerlein Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
August 28, 2007

In many ways Barbara Dennerlein is a study in contrasts. From a North American perspective she is an insider's tip, a superlative Hammond B3 player known to hardcore jazz fans, admired by fellow B3 players, and respected by her musical peers. We can contrast that with how she is known in the German speaking countries of central Europe.

In those European countries she has achieved a level of recognition unusual among jazz musicians. She has performed on prime time national ...

Continue Reading...

New York Voices Vocalist Peter Eldridge Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
August 27, 2007

In 1986, a group of kids from Ithaca College got to sing at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Although it was on the patio, rather than the main casino stage, it inspired the creation of the New York Voices, one of the most successful and long-running vocal groups in music history. The Voices seem to be on continuous tour, performing at the world's most prestigious venues. After six of their own albums, and two Grammy-winners with Paquito D'Rivera and the Count ...

Continue Reading...

Saxophone Legend Archie Shepp Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
August 23, 2007

Saxophonist, pianist, writer and composer Archie Shepp was born in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida May 24, 1937 and grew up in Philadelphia playing with hard-bop luminaries such as Lee Morgan and Bobby Timmons. A move to New York in the 1960s and early gigs with Cecil Taylor aligned him with the avant-garde, leading to work with John Coltrane and a recording contract for Impulse!. Shepp's travels have taken him to Africa and Europe and his musical engagements have been diverse, capturing ...

Continue Reading...

Pianist/Miles Davis Alumnus Robert Irving III Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
August 21, 2007

Robert Irving III is a keyboard player known in different quarters for different things. He played electric, of course, as a young man in the band Miles Davis unveiled when he decided to return to performing in 1980 after his infamous five-year hiatus. He produced albums with Miles, but also Sting, Carlos Santana, Dianne Reeves, Branford Marsalis, Wayne Shorter, Gerald Albright, Grover Washington, John Scofield, David Murray and others. He was musical director for Sister Sledge and has performed with ...

Continue Reading...

Violinist Jean-Luc Ponty Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
August 20, 2007

As a violinist in the changing music world of the 1960s and 1970s, Jean-Luc Ponty was it. He was a pioneer on the instrument, plugging in to be heard with screeching guitars and blaring horns. He not only had the chops-busting harmonic and rhythmic language of bebop down pat, but he had virtuoso abilities from his classical training. He combined them during a time of upheaval, in music and in society, in groups like Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention and ...

Continue Reading...

Reedman Michael Marcus Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
August 14, 2007

Philadelphia performance artist “Skip" Homer Jackson recently asked about a number of jazz artists who have been overlooked because they were great stylists who played in the shadows of great players. Booker Ervin's relationship to John Coltrane came immediately to mind, as did Booker Little, who ironically was little (no pun intended) appreciated during the 1960's era of stellar jazz hornmen. Equally there is multi-instrumentalist/band leader and composer Michael Marcus.

AAJ contributor Ludwig van Trikt spoke with Marcus at great ...

Continue Reading...

Legendary Producer Orrin Keepnews Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
August 13, 2007

As a city boy who took a liking to jazz music and extended it into a budding career as a journalist, Orrin Keepnews may have inadvertently veered into the record-producing arena that generated classic albums from a wide range of unforgettable artists. Maybe it was a fortunate accident. Maybe fate.

Maybe it's a word he uses about others: inevitable.

AAJ contributor R.J. DeLuke caught up with Keepnews recently, to discuss his reissue series, The Keepnews Collection, the state of recording ...

Continue Reading...

Keyboardist Paolo Rustichelli Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
August 9, 2007

Paolo Rustichelli is a futuristic visionary whose music is highly distinctive. Miles Davis, when he collaborated with Rustichelli near the end of his life, called the keyboardist's music “Total Music." Carlos Santana, having signed Paolo to his Guts and Grace label, has said: “Paolo Rustichelli's music is hauntingly beautiful...a romantic, mysterious soundtrack for life." Rustichelli recently reached the first position on the Nu Jazz MySpace artist list.

Rustichelli is not a jazz artist in the conventional sense of the term. ...

Continue Reading...