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Opinion

The Mysterious Life of Don Goldie

The Mysterious Life of Don Goldie

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Following my post over the weekend of Jack Teagarden's recording of Afternoon in August, featuring trumpeter Don Goldie. I received quite a few emails from readers wondering who Don Goldie was. I last wrote about Goldie in 2018 here. Goldie was a solid, melodic player with great tone but lacked the “storytelling" quality of Bobby Hackett and Don Fagerquist or soul of Charlie Shavers and Jonah Jones. He played briefly with Louis Armstrong's group in the mid-1950s and recorded with ...

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Opinion

The 10 Best Jazz Albums To Own On Vinyl

The 10 Best Jazz Albums To Own On Vinyl

Source: UnifiedMFG

In jazz circles, it's common knowledge that the best way to listen to jazz is in a live setting. But while most agree, some argue listening to jazz on vinyl is even better. In reality, there’s no way to judge which is best as they are completely different experiences, One thing is clear: it's hard to go wrong with both. Vinyl has a crackle and pop that gives a warm feeling—almost like ASMR. And since it has uncompressed sound, the ...

Opinion

Joe Castro: Passion Flower

Joe Castro: Passion Flower

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Joe Castro was a captivating figure. A multi-talented West Coast bop pianist in the early 1950s and beyond, Castro also was a tasteful recording-session leader and soloist. He had the sturdy keyboard command of Dave Brubeck, the bounce of Hampton Hawes and styling of Dodo Marmarosa. And like Brubeck and Armstrong, he also had one of the broadest and most eager smiles. Unfortunately, Castro never broke into the big time with a working group or a contract with a major ...

Opinion

Dick Grove: Big, Bad & Beautiful

Dick Grove: Big, Bad & Beautiful

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Dick Grove wore two hats. There was Grove the educator, who moved to Los Angeles in 1957 and taught at the Westlake School of Music. In 1973, he started the Dick Grove School of Music, enlisting Henry Mancini, Bill Conti and Lalo Schifrin as teachers. How did he manage to pull that off? That brings us to the other Dick Grove—the powerhouse arranger and conductor for bands, movies and television. When he wasn't working with music students, Grove wrote superb ...

Opinion

The Shearing Sound That Wasn't

The Shearing Sound That Wasn't

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

In 1948, George Shearing and Buddy DeFranco kicked around the idea of forming a quintet. With Shearing's block chords and Buddy's bop clarinet along with their speed, they figured they'd knock out audiences. They performed together with bassist John Levy and drummer Denzil Best at the Clique Club, which would become Birdland a year later. But business and technology got in the way. With the advent of the 10-inch LP, Buddy was signed to Capitol in 1949 while Shearing signed ...

1

Opinion

Albums that had significant impacts on my thirst for jazz

Albums that had significant impacts on my thirst for jazz

Source: Ken Franckling's Jazz Notes

In recent days, Facebook has been bubbling with users’ lists of celebrities or musicians that they have met or performed with, with one exception. Then it’s up to the followers to figure out which one was untrue. This is an interesting sheltering-in-place pastime. Thanks to my parents’ modest record collection, there was some music by jazz artists in our upstate New York home when I was growing up in the 1950s and early ‘60s. But these were considered more popular ...

Opinion

George Shearing: Quintet Xmas

George Shearing: Quintet Xmas

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

At JazzWax, 12 is the number of years I've posted annually on my selection for the JazzWax Vintage Holiday Album Hall of Fame. The point of this is to offer up perfect holiday music that conjures up feelings of a time long past or is just superbly executed seasonal music. Combined on your iTunes or Spotify playlist, all of these albums shuffled should do the trick this month. My choice for induction this year is Christmas With the George Shearing ...

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Opinion

Havana Big Bands: Late '50s

Havana Big Bands: Late '50s

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Havana in the 1950s was an exotic suburb of Las Vegas. How the Cuban capital became the playground of American tycoons, celebrities and hustlers is a long and sordid story. Here's the short version: After Cuba's independence from Spain in the late 1800s, the country became increasingly dependent, economically, on the U.S. At the start of the 20th century, American companies set up plantation systems to inexpensively harvest, package and ship a wide range of agricultural products back to the ...


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