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Backgrounder: Hampton Hawes' All Night Session!
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
For me, Hampton Hawes's finest recordings were the three All Night Session! albums captured on the evening of November 12, 1956 and the early morning hours of November 13. The studio date for Contemporary Records featured Hawes (p), Jim Hall (g), Red Mitchell (b) and Bruz Freeman (d). According to Hawes in his autobiography, Raise Up Off Me: A Portrait of Hampton Hawes: “I got together a quartet, using Jim Hall on guitar. We recorded 12 tracks in one continuous ...
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Documentary: Wes Montgomery Turns 100
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Today is the centenary of guitarist Wes Montgomery's birth. Born in 1923, he would die in 1968 at age 45. What better way to celebrate the impact Montgomery has had on the jazz guitar than with a new documentary directed by Kevin Finch. To view Wes Bound: The Genius of Wes Montgomery, you must go here. I cannot embed the video. The best I can do is give you five YouTube clips. Here's So Do It!... Here's Gone With the ...
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Wayne Shorter in Nine Video Clips
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Wayne Shorter (1933-2023), when paired with other great jazz artists, was a tonic. Whether it was with trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan or, later, Miles Davis, Shorter's saxophone added a dimension that was commanding and haunting. You felt you had a window into the artist's soul when Shorter played. Shorter was in three major groups that changed jazz. The first was Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, from 1959 to 1963, the most acclaimed hard-bop ensemble widely recognized and ...
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Turtle Bay Records Launches On The Back Porch Video Series Spotlighting NYC Jazz Musicians
Source:
EMPKT PR
NYC jazz record label Turtle Bay Records has announced the launch of their new video series, On the Back Porch. The series features eight talented jazz musicians from around the US, with in-depth interviews and their acoustic performances of early jazz music standards. Shot on the back porch at the home of TBR Founder and Executive Producer Scott Asen, the series is hosted by Megg Farrell best known as Sweet Megg) and Ricky Alexander. The series will kick off on ...
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Dizzy Gillespie and His Orchestra, 1946-'49
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
In 1946, Dizzy Gillespie figured out how to get an elephant to dance on an overturned shot glass. As one of bebop's creators, Gillespie was at heart a big-band man and yearned to lead one. While he initially launched bop as a small-group form, Gillespie wanted to see if it could be leveraged credibly for 15 players or more. He succeeded in June 1946 when his big band recorded Tadd Dameron's Our Delight for Musicraft Records, with an arrangement by ...
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Gene DiNovi, Today and Yesterday
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Gene DiNovi is a gorgeous jazz pianist. One of the early New York players in the mid-1940s who had figured out bop, DiNovi at 15 was pulled up to the bandstand at the Spotlite Club on 52nd Street by Dizzy Gillespie in 1944 to play bop behind him when his pianist went missing. Then Charlie Parker came out to join, and DiNovi held his own. DiNovi played in some amazing bands with exceptional musicians in the late 1940s and then ...
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Frank Socolow in the 1940s
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Despite enjoying a lengthy career, Frank Socolow recorded only two leadership sessions—one in 1945 and another in 1956. The paucity of recordings under his own name was likely due to his workload playing on other artists' recordings. Socolow had mastered bebop early in 1945, which made him a sought-after player by bands that embraced the new jazz style and needed players who could navigate the intricacies of bop arrangements. Born in New York in 1923, Socolow began his playing career ...
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