Jazz Articles

Dinah Washington: Evil Gal: The Imperious Dinah Washington

by Nic Jones
February 27, 2007

In these days of photogenic warblers putting out the standards with only a negligible grasp of individuality and little in the way of interpretive skill, Dinah Washington continues to put a smile on your face before she's even got through the first line of a song. Evil Gal is a trawl through the sides she cut in the first half of the 1950s, and there isn't a song here that finds her in less than sublime form. It might almost ...

Roy Budd: Blue Budd

by Nic Jones
February 11, 2007

If Roy Budd has any kind of reputation at all outside of British shores, it could well be down to the fact that he provided the soundtrack for the seminal British gangster movie Get Carter. At the time he was the pianist/leader in a trio with bassist Jeff Clyne and drummer Chris Karan; the latter appears on the music collected here.

The programme, recorded between 1967 and 1970, consists of Budd leading small groups backed by strings arranged by Tony ...

The Boswell Sisters: Nothing Was Sweeter Than

by Nic Jones
December 3, 2006

Jazz vocal groups have never been thick on the ground, and insofar as there is any such lineage at all, it's safe to say its existence is largely down to the Boswell Sisters. Their harmonies amounted to the opposite of sibling rivalry, and the liberties they took with tempo and key changes were to have a positive effect on a young Ella Fitzgerald and others.

The trio lacked the transformative powers of Louis Armstrong, who after all could give musical ...