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Red Rodney, Before Charlie Parker
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Before joining the Charlie Parker Quintet in late 1949, trumpeter Red Rodney (Robert Chudnick) had quite an illustrious and prolific career in big bands. Born in Philadelphia, Rodney turned pro at 15 and played in the horn section of major bands, from 1944 to 1949. Here's the list in order: Jimmy Dorsey, Elliot Lawrence, Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Claude Thornhill, Benny Goodman and Woody Herman. But sifted in between these big band live broadcasts was a series of small-group sessions. ...
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Backgrounder: Os Poligonais (1964)
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Os Poligonais (The Polygonals) was a Brazilian instrumental quintet formed by pianist Vicente Salvia in the early 1960s to capitalize on the bossa nova trend. Joining him were Vidal Sbrighi on tenor sax, clarinet and flute, Edmar Tomy on guitar, Álvaro Galati on bass and Pedro dos Santos Eduardo on drums. The group's first, eponymous album was Os Poligonais, for Brazilian RCA and released in 1964. It's a gorgeous LP with beautiful piano by Salvia and sensual flute played by ...
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Perfection: Serge Chaloff - 'The Most!' (1949)
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
One of jazz's many paradoxes is that West Coast jazz was created largely by East Coast jazz musicians, and East Coast jazz was heavily influenced by West Coast musicians. Shorty Rogers, Gerry Mulligan, Shelly Manne, Terry Gibbs, Don Fagerquist and Dave Pell, to name just a handful, were artists who grew up on the East Coast. Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Don Cherry, Eric Dolphy, Chico Hamilton, Bobby Hutcherson, Dave Brubeck, Zoot Sims and others who are thought of primarily as ...
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Mike Abene's Charts for Maynard Ferguson
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Following my Perfection post last week on Mike Abene's rip-roaring composition and arrangement of The Fox Hunt for Maynard Ferguson in 1962, Bill Kirchner sent along a treat. As post-1960 jazz orchestral arrangers go, Mike is among the finest, and his charts for Ferguson's big band are gracefully ferocious. Bill's treat? He put together all 17 of Mike's studio arrangements for Ferguson in order by year. Here's New Bag Blues, with solos by Lanny Morgan (as), Mike Abene (p) and Ferguson ...
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Backgrounder: Art Farmer and Hal McKusick, 1956-58
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Two of the prettiest and most sophisticated players in the 1950s were trumpeter Art Farmer and alto saxophonist Hal McKusick. They recorded often throughout the decade in big bands and ensembles but they only recorded 19 tracks in the quintet format—two albums in all. In the years before Hal died, in 2012, we spoke often by phone and saw each other in Sag Harbor, N.Y., where he lived. Hal intuitively understood the importance of what I was doing with JazzWax—documenting ...
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10 Albums to Cure Midwinter Blahs
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
The real-feel temperature in New York yesterday was 21F, with fluorescent-gray skies and a stiff, frosty wind coming out of the Northeast. Midwinter had officially arrived, and so did the blahs. Rather than trick myself out of this time of year with upbeat music, I like to feed into the hushed, introspective mood. Here are 10 albums I often listen to as winter gets down to business: Bill Evans: Turn Out the Stars, The Final Village Vanguard Recordings, June 1980, ...
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Perfection: Ted McNabb & Co.: Mountain Greenery
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Who was Ted McNabb? And what company did he keep, as the album cover above intimates? You won't believe the story behind this 1959 album or the album's superb arrangements and musicians. I came across this LP by accident in 2012. Back then, few jazz fans even knew it existed. The record was arranged and conducted by the great Marion Evans. The knockout band featured Burt Collins, Bernie Glow, Doc Severinsen and John Bello (tp); Sy Berger, Frank Rehak, Urbie ...
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How Bud Shank Invented Surf Music
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
In 1966, just before the country went psychedelic and the place to be was off the grid and deep in the woods, there was the beach. The passing this week of Mike Hynson—star of that year's cult surf film The Endless Summer, produced and directed by Bruce Brown—took me back to my childhood. When I was a kid in the early 1960s, going to New York's Jones Beach was excruciating. It was a place where mothers slathered kids in Coppertone, ...
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