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Interview

Duduka Da Fonseca: 'Samba Jazz'

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
July 18, 2012

Duduka Da Fonseca has one of the most softly insistent touches on the drums, particularly when he's using brushes. As he whisks up a rhythm, the sound is like the wind swinging through long-limbed willow trees. You hear the steady rustle of the leaves but the force is gentle and coaxing rather than trunk-splitting. This combed sound gives your ear a chance to enter Duduka's space, to hear what he's doing rather than merely feel the time he's keeping. Since ...

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Interview

Kimberly Forness Wilson Discovers "Butterfly Soul" In Quest To Help Others

Source: Lauren Rogers
July 17, 2012

Q: Your new album has the enigmatic title of Butterfly Soul. What is a Butterfly Soul? A: It is a metaphor for inner transitions. It is symbolic of my recovery after a really devastating accident where I lost my singing voice for many years. Throughout my life the quest has been to hunt, discover, and then allow what comes to come. Sometimes it is very painful to process a piece of art or a piece of music. This, too, is ...

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Interview

Bob Willoughby: 'Body and Soul'

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
July 16, 2012

Photographer Bob Willoughby was a friend of JazzWax. Before his death in December 2009, we corresponded about a book idea he was shopping around from his home in Vence, France. Bob and I first became acquainted when I asked him for the story behind his famous photos of tenor saxophonist Big Jay McNeely performing at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles in 1951. What knocked me out, in partcular, was the euphoria on teens' faces as they listened in ecstasy ...

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Interview

Bill Charlap on Bill Evans

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
July 12, 2012

Next week, pianist Bill Charlap will begin a series of concerts at New York's 92d Street Y that will show off his versatility and depth. Bill will back singers Ernie Andrews and Freddy Cole (July 17), play an evening of Richard Rodgers songs (July 19), dual with fellow pianist Dick Hyman (July 24), play in a funk-gospel hard-bop style for an Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers tribute (July 25) and lead the Count Basie Orchestra (July 26), featuring tenor ...

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Interview

Interview: Ed Shaughnessy (PT. 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
July 11, 2012

Few kickoffs by a drummer are as signature as Ed Shaughnessy's start to Johnny's Theme, the Paul Anka song that the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson used each night. As a kid growing up, I associated the sound of Ed's drums at the start of the theme as the official end of a child's day and the start of adult down-time. When that theme came on, the universe shifted and a child was in adult space and on borrowed time. ...

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Interview

Creating a New Audience Development Paradigm

Source: The Independent Ear by Willard Jenkins
July 10, 2012

Amidst all the various perceived “ills” prescribed to jazz by its enthusiasts – young musicians failing to “advance” the music stylistically; the younger generations of musicians arriving on the jazz scene simply pale next to the founders and the masters; lack of enough venues fostering jazz performance opportunities; the dwindling jazz radio universe; the holistic, big umbrella approach of so many jazz festivals which invite other music under the big tent and still call the event a “jazz” festival; the ...

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Interview

Interview: Ed Shaughnessy (PT. 1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
July 10, 2012

Drummer Ed Shaughenssy has pretty much seen it all. He played with Charlie Parker and many other beboppers in the late 1940s and early '50s. He was in Charlie Ventura's band at the famed Pasadena Concert in 1949. In the '50s, he recorded with Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Tony Bennett, Chris Connor, Teddy Charles, Mundell Lowe, Teddy Charles, Gerry Mulligan and many others. In the '60s, Ed continued to record jazz but led a double life: He was ...

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Interview

Charlie Watts talks jazz, Stones plans

Source: Michael Ricci
July 9, 2012

Even though he's played in the same rock 'n' roll band for nearly 50 years, Charlie Watts still prefers playing jazz. The Rolling Stones drummer learned how to play it by imitating his favorite jazz players as a teenager. So during his breaks with the Stones, Watts has played jazz, not rock, and that legacy continues with his latest venture, The A, B, C, and D of Boogie Woogie. The quartet recently released “Live in Paris" from one of their ...

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