Home » Jazz News
Interview News
Timely announcements covering new album releases, tours, concert series, special events, job postings, crowdfunding campaigns and more. You can find more news by searching our website, viewing our news stream, seeing what's trending or reading our blog posts. Subscribe to our news RSS feed and/or embed AAJ news content on your website or blog. Learn about our news service here. Submit news here.
Interview: Sol Schlinger (Part 1)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Mention the “East Coast sax section" to fans of '50s jazz, and you'll be talking about one of the most in-demand and prolific studio saxophone units of the era. It comprised of Phil Woods and Gene Quill on alto saxophones, Zoot Sims and Al Cohn on tenor saxophones, and Sol Schlinger on baritone saxophone. Often times, Hal McKusick and Sam Marowitz subbed for Woods or Eddie Wasserman might be in for Sims. [Photo of Sol Schlinger in the mid-'50s, courtesy ...
Continue Reading
Saxophonist Miguel Zenon Interviewed at All About Jazz!
Source:
All About Jazz
At the dawn of the second decade of his career, alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón has established himself as one of the most sophisticated and stylish players of the new millennium. In a very short time, Zenón has made his mark as a composer, band leader, educator, and jazz advocate. He has performed and recorded with scores of the scene's most prominent musicians as leader, side man and member of the groundbreaking SFJAZZ Collective, where he is the sole founding member ...
Continue Reading
Jazz Face: Mary Louise Knutson
Source:
JazzINK by Andrea Canter
Ten years ago, Minneapolis-based pianist Mary Louise Knutson released her first recording (Call Me When You Get There), about equal parts original compositions and new arrangements of standards. The reviews were raves, the airplay was off the charts. We wanted more. But we had to wait a decade. In the interim, Mary Louise kept busy, touring the Midwest with her trio, Italy with Debbie Duncan, becoming one of the very first call accompanists for area singers and holding down the ...
Continue Reading
A Chat with Pink Floyd's Nick Mason
Source:
JamBase
By Dennis Cook Pink Floyd's music is WAY beyond mere entertainment or distraction. It's a skeleton key to unlocking things that are hard to put into words, and thus something fans keep close to the breast, cherished for its real world value and depth of understanding of the human condition. To call the band influential sells short the massive cultural ripples they've generated. Unlike many groups that emerged in the late 1960s, even the best ones, Pink Floyd's music doesn't ...
Continue Reading
Interview: Brian Wilson on Smile
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Last week I traveled to Los Angeles to spend time with Brian Wilson at his home in Beverly Hills. My interview with Brian is in today's Wall Street Journal (pick up a copy or go here if you're a subscriber). As the founding member of the Beach Boys and the musical wizard behind the group's most absorbing recordings, Brian also is probably rock's most direct link to the California's jazz scene of the 1950s. What many jazz fans may not realize ...
Continue Reading
Something Else! Interview: Jazz Legend Chico Hamilton
Source:
Something Else!
Jazz legend Chico Hamilton celebrated turning 90 last month—how else?—but issuing another album. With Revelation, the NEA Jazz Master's 60th project, Hamilton continues to build on a remarkable recording career dating back to 1941. That's included stints drumming with Lionel Hampton, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lester Young, Nat “King" Cole, T-Bone Walker, Gerry Mulligan—and, over a memorable six-year period—singer Lena Horne. Hamilton began leading his own bands in 1955, famously showcasing a still-emerging Eric Dolphy, and has worked with his ...
Continue Reading
Tad Hershorn: Norman Granz (Pt. 3)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Tad Hershorn spent decades working on Norman Granz: The Man Who Used Jazz for Justice (University of California Press). For his newly published biography, Tad interviewed Granz multiple times before his death. Though Tad had enormous respect for Granz and his accomplishments on behalf of jazz and civil rights, he maintains a steely objectivity in his writing, determined to paint a portrait of Granz that's both detailed and honest, warts and all. Among the most intriguing parts of the book ...
Continue Reading
Tad Hershorn: Norman Granz (Pt. 2)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Norman Granz wasn't a complicated man. He was merely an entrepreneur who loved highly creative people and felt their brilliance deserved wider recognition. Once you understand this about him, much of what comes next falls neatly into place. For years Granz has been considered an enigma because most people like him tended to go into other lines of work or rarely cared as much as he did about the creative people in their employ. Through Tad Hershorn's new biography Norman ...
Continue Reading
