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Wayne Escoffery Honored In New Haven
Source:
Ted Ricci
Articulate, well-mannered and courtly, Wayne Escoffery, one of today's finest, most exciting jazz saxophonists, speaks softly and creates passionate but never ego-driven music. Matinee idol handsome and a regal 6-foot-4 presence—non-musical attributes that have landed him modeling and acting gigs including bit parts on TV commercials for Grey Goose vodka and Mitsubishi cars—the London-born musician of West Indian heritage has been content to do his forceful, expressive speaking through his horn. A summa cum laude graduate of The Hartt School ...
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Jazz Quartet Gives Pianist A Chance To Shine
Source:
Ted Ricci
Some jazz artists spend much of their careers without hitting it big, only to finally emerge into the spotlight and enjoy the recognition they deserved all along. Duke Ellington was a brilliant bandleader and composer, but it was arranger Billy Strayhorn who wrote “Chelsea Bridge," “Lush Life" and “Take the 'A' Train." And guitarist Pat Metheny might not have arrived at such a successful fusion of jazz and rock without pianist and collaborator Lyle Mays. Until recently, Laurence Hobgood has ...
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Interview: John Scofield
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
John Scofield has one of the most distinctive sounds of all the electric guitarists who came of age in the jazz-fusion era in the early 1970s. John is able to make his notes ring like a bell, and his lines are horn-like, living in the space just where rock meets the funky blues. [Photo of John Scofield in 1968 by Joe Marone] John is perhaps best known today for his period with Miles Davis, though he has recorded plenty of ...
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How Marilyn Monroe changed Ella Fitzgerald's life
Source:
Groove Notes
If asked “Who played an important role in the musical career of Ella Fitzgerald?" you might respond with names like Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong, Norman Granz, and Dizzy Gillespie. The name Marilyn Monroe, however, might not come to mind. While touring in the '50s under the management of Norman Granz, Ella, like many African-American musicians at the time, faced significant adversity because of their race, especially in the Jim Crow states. Granz was a huge proponent of civil rights, and ...
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1979 Stan Getz Interview Unearthed at All About Jazz!
Source:
All About Jazz
Bob Kenselaar's Jazz in the Aquarian Age column continues at AAJ with an unearthed 1979 interview with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz. “The music that Stan Getz made over the years was consistently moving and powerful," says Kenselaar, in his introduction to this interview, originally published in The Aquarian Weekly. “But he was probably putting me on a little when he said he was going to 'blow the walls down' in New York, for a series of shows. When someone gives ...
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Maxine Gordon Reminisces About Dexter Gordon and More at All About Jazz!
Source:
All About Jazz
More than just the wife, manager and posthumous advocate for the late tenor giant Dexter Gordon, Maxine Gordon is a scholar, researcher, and archivist who has done pioneering research on jazz in Harlem in the 1930s and the history of jazz in the Bronx, NY. A lifelong jazz fan who is currently working on a new book that will profile three important women in jazz—trombonist Melba Liston, organist Shirley Scott, and singer Maxine Sullivan, Maxine Gordon is a force in ...
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Jody Watley Interview: Live in San Francisco, March 15-17
Source:
Corey Andrew
Live music fans in San Francisco have a rare opportunity to see a pop icon this week when Jody Watley arrives on the intimate stage of the Rrazz Room in Hotel Nikko. She doesn't mind at all that some people don't realize Watley has been a chameleon in the world of music—gathering hit records since the '70s along the way. Sure, it's easy to remember her '80s smash radio tunes—and iconic music videos—like “Looking for a New Love," the pop-rap ...
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Interview: Larry Greene (Part 2)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Back in the late 1940s, the number of radio stations in the U.S. multiplied rapidly thanks to the F.C.C.'s willingness to hand out licenses. Many of these stations filled airtime with records rather than live musicians. As a result, a station's success was highly dependent on the personalities and tastes of their disc jockeys. To promote their dj's and image, stations developed jingles and promotions. One of the first to help them with this strategy was Larry Greene—a Los Angeles ...
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