Interview News

All About Jazz Launches Bill Frisell Week with Interviews, Reviews, Exclusive Downloads and More!

Source: John Kelman
April 25, 2011

Guitarist Bill Frisell may have just turned 60 earlier this year, but it's done nothing to slow him down. He's touring more than ever, and between a new contract with Savoy Jazz, that has allowed him to speed up releases to accommodate more projects than ever before, and his ongoing Live Download Series, where new live shows from the past 25 years are been released every other months, the vastly influential guitarist is finally able to document the many groups ...

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In the Studio with Kurt Elling - The Complete Jazz Singer

Source: Groove Notes
April 23, 2011

Kurt Elling stopped by our performance studio on April 15th. Check out the audio and video from the performance below. In the studio with Kurt Elling—The complete jazz singer By Justin Steyer, Nick Francis and Nick Morrison CLICK HERE FOR AUDIO Some jazz singers excel at singing standards. Others excel at scat-singing or vocalese (writing lyrics for instrumental improvisations and singing them). However, Grammy award-winning vocalist Kurt Elling can do it all.

He easily proved it in front of a ...

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NYU Jazz Interview Series: Lionel Loueke

Source: Jazz Online By Joseph Vella
April 22, 2011

Seemingly shy and gentle were my first impressions of Lionel Loueke. I found him to be somewhat reserved but brimming with great curiosity and genuine thirst for music and self expression. Lionel entered the international jazz arena only a few years ago as a student at the Monk Institute, mentored by the likes of Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter to name a few. Infusing his African roots along with a thoroughly modern approach to jazz, Lionel developed his own voice ...

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Celebrating Time Out: Mike Richmond on Eugene Wright

Source: Jazz Online By Joseph Vella
April 22, 2011

2009, Dave Brubeck's musical masterpiece Time Out turned 50 and on behalf of Legacy Recordings, I produced a podcast series celebrating this timeless work. Along with interviewing Dave Brubeck himself about the album, I also interviewed three additional musicians saxophonist David Sanborn, bassist Mike Richmond and drummer Bill Bruford to discuss the influential work of Time Out band members, Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello. For reasons beyond my scope, this series was never released. Featured on this episode ...

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Manu Dibango "Africadelic"

Source: Sound Insights by Doug Payne
April 22, 2011

It's hard to believe there is a musician anywhere on this earth that could mix great jazz chops with a soulful outlook and a worldly attitude and still make it so fun and funky that it doesn't matter what allegiance you address. This stuff rocks. And, amazingly, it's just as timely now as it was back then. The following tunes come from Manu Dibango's Africadelic album, the tremendous 1973 French-only follow-up of sorts to the worldwide smash that was “Soul ...

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Something Else! Featured Artist: Boz Scaggs

Source: Something Else!
April 22, 2011

We all know Boz Scaggs, right? The guy from Silk Degrees, the 1976 smash that spawned hit single after hit single after hit single—the million-selling “Lowdown," “Lido Shuffle," “What Can I Say," “We're All Alone." The truth is, though, that it was the former Steve Miller sideman's seventh solo release, and Scaggs has continued issuing varied and vital recordings, even if far fewer people have heard them in the post-white suited era. So, enough with the Silk Degrees already. Let's ...

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La Vie En Satchmo

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
April 22, 2011

Speaking of roses... Oh, we weren't? Well, we are now. The resident rose expert around here informed me the other day that two famous roses are named in honor of Louis Armstrong. The same breeder developed both of them. His name is Sam McGredy (pictured), an Irishman who moved to New Zealand more than 40 years ago. Among rose aficionados around the world he became famous for his hybrids. McGredy's “Satchmo" rose came first, in 1970. According to Stirling Macoboy's ...

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Aaron Diehl

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
April 20, 2011

In a section of a Hank Jones master class DVD that was a 2008 Doug's Pick, Jones critiqued budding jazz pianists. One of them was a 21-year-old Julliard graduate named Aaron Diehl. For Jones, Diehl played “I Cover The Waterfront" and Art Tatum's arrangement of Massenet's “Elegy." Apart from a slight reservation about Diehl's use of dynamics in the first piece, Jones had nothing but praise, especially for the way the young man scaled the heights of “Elegy." “If you ...

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