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Interview

Guitarist Kenny Burrell Interviewed at All About Jazz!

Source: All About Jazz
February 6, 2012

Kenny Burrell has appeared on so many essential jazz recordings that jazz history and his story seem irretrievably intertwined. Billie Holiday's valedictory rumination Lady Sings the Blues (Verve, 1956)? Jimmy Smith's epochal funk throwdown Back at the Chicken Shack (Blue Note, 1960)? Tony Bennett's Carnegie Hall debut? Kenny Burrell played guitar for them all. Even Jimi Hendrix once famously remarked, “Kenny Burrell—that's the sound I'm looking for." Burrell has shown no sign of slowing down in the ensuing decades. He ...

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Interview

Interview: Roberta Flack

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
February 3, 2012

You haven't lived until you hear Roberta Flack sing Feel Like Makin' Love over the phone. Her folk-soul voice is still so warm and rich. In today's Wall Street Journal (go here), I write about Roberta's new Beatles album, Let It Be Roberta. This CD isn't your typical pop-tribute album. Instead, It's a bold, revisionist interpretation of Fab Four hits that strips away the all-too familiar trappings and replaces them with soul, folk, gospel and electronica. In short, it's wild ...

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Interview

Danilo Perez: Cultural Ambassador and Music Humanitarian

Source: The Independent Ear by Willard Jenkins
February 1, 2012

I have no idea who adjudicates the MacArthur Foundation's annual Fellowships, aka the “Genius" awards, but if you do... please recommend an eminently worthy candidate: pianist-composer-educator Danilo Perez. What Danilo has done in his native Panama in the name of music education for disadvantaged children is nothing short of miraculous. And that doesn't even take into account what he has done to enrich his home country's annual cultural calendar with his Panama Jazz Festival. But calling that event Danilo's festival ...

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Interview

All About Jazz Launches New Column With Pianist Ahmad Jamal!

Source: All About Jazz
January 31, 2012

Since its inception, All About Jazz has delivered exhaustive coverage with some of the most extensive, in-depth interviews anywhere. AAJ will continue to provide the same degree of feature-rich coverage (e.g. Jack DeJohnette Week), but for those artists who have already received the “in-depth" treatment, our new Catching Up With column will allow us to revisit them while focusing primarily on recent topics. AAJ Senior Editor Chris May kicks off the new column with Catching Up With Ahmad Jamal, where ...

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Interview

Trumpeter Terell Stafford Interviewed at All About Jazz

Source: All About Jazz
January 30, 2012

Terell Stafford is as likely to credit his influences as he is to impress his listeners. Coming to jazz comparatively later than many players, and even with his busy schedule as a sideman, leader and educator, he remains devoted to exploring the music's roots, while expressing a relentless desire to learn more. Stafford's latest release, This Side of Strayhorn (MAXJAZZ, 2011), began with a commission for an educational project from the Cityfolk arts outreach group, with Stafford and his quintet ...

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Interview

Interview: Arno Marsh (Part 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
January 27, 2012

On the phone, Arno Marsh sounds the way he plays. There's a smoothness to his voice, and the cadence of his words swings. Swinging, in general, is a lost art. Those who came up in the '40s and '50s have a real knack for it. When they start blowing,they slip right into the groove, with that two-four junkyard dog chasing after them. [Pictured: Arno Marsh in recent years, courtesy of Arno Marsh] Swinging, of course, has nothing to do with ...

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Interview

Interview: Arno Marsh (Part 1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
January 26, 2012

If you were a superb musician back in the 1940s and lived in a city or moved to one, you were likely going to find yourself auditioning for a name band pretty quickly. But for every great musician who wound up in a major orchestra, there were hundreds of others who remained in their smaller home towns and earned a decent living playing in territory bands. Tenor saxophonist Arno Marsh was one of those regional musicians—until he ran into Urbie ...

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Interview

Jazz Face: Mike Lewis

Source: JazzINK by Andrea Canter
January 21, 2012

If saxophonist Mike Lewis ever left the Twin Cities (and we are always afraid he will), there would be a sudden brown-out, at least musically. Aside from his amazing horn chops, Lewis infuses vital energy into everything he touches, from Fat Kid Wednesdays and Happy Apple to the Bryan Nichols Quintet, tours with Andrew Bird and his guest appearances last year with Adam Linz's Charles Mingus project at MacPhail and Ann Millikan's House of Mirrors experiment. Last Sunday at the ...

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