Profiles
Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.
Pete Brown: White Rooms & Imaginary Westerns, Part 2
Part 1 | Part 2 1966 was an important year in British popular music. Bob Dylan, performing with the Hawks, was booed for “going electric" at Manchester Free Trade Hall. The Rolling Stones topped the charts for the first time with “Paint It Black." The Beatles, fresh from the John Lennon “Bigger than Jesus" controversy, released Revolver, their finest album. Jimi Hendrix was introduced to the public with the single “Hey Joe." And poet Pete Brown began a ...
read morePete Brown: White Rooms & Imaginary Westerns, Part 1
Part 1 | Part 2Poet, lyricist, rock musician, producer and scriptwriter--Pete Brown has covered a lot of bases in his six decades in music and literature. His career embodies that era that began with the Beatles' “Love Me Do" in October 1962 and ended in January 1969 with the band playing live on the roof at Apple Corps in Savile Row. For a brief moment anything seemed possible and, in many ways, Brown has continued to cross artistic ...
read moreThe Very Singular Mr. Ran Blake
There have been few American composers and musicians, with the ability to encapsulate their country's music in all its racial and ethnic complexity. We might perhaps point to Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Charles Ives and perhaps, in their own distaff ways, Harry Partch and Steve Reich. In jazz, their number is fewer still--Duke Ellington and George Russell certainly and, at a stretch, Jelly Roll Morton. And then there's pianist and composer Ran Blake. Listening to any one of ...
read moreIssie Barratt: Every Solo Is A New Invitation
Issie Barratt is one of the most significant jazz educators in Britain today. From 1999-2004, Barratt was head of Jazz at Trinity College of Music but her role as Artistic Director of the National Youth Jazz Collective has been of even greater importance in developing young jazz talent. Now in its, thirteenth year, NYJC goes from strength to strength with a faculty of over seventy tutors, including many of the finest musicians in the country. Crucial in our very male ...
read moreJazz Heritage Radio Broadcasts 2019 Highpoint for USAF Airmen of Note
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 You may be surprised to learn that one of the best big bands on the 2019 jazz circuit in made up of musicians who simultaneously serve in the US Air Force. But as you hear on their Jazz Heritage Series 2019 Radio Broadcasts with guest artists Cyrille Aimée, Kenny Barron and Branford Marsalis, or on Global Reach, their around the world survey of jazz and jazz-related tunes from 2018, the ...
read moreUS Military Service Bands: Histories & Heroes
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 US Air Force Airmen of Note The premier jazz ensemble of the US Air Force, the Airmen of Note is one of six musical ensembles that comprise The US Air Force Band. Created in 1950 to continue the tradition of Major Glenn Miller's Army Air Forces dance band, the Airmen of Note present big band as well as more contemporary forms of jazz across the US, to deployments around the ...
read moreTula's Jazz Club: Soliloquy to a Seattle Jazz Institution
It was the tail end of a long weekend. Temperatures had risen to 80 degrees under a sunny only-in-Seattle blue sky, the waterways and markets humming with a sea of humanity. It was not a night one would expect many to venture into the quiet, dark solitude of Tula's Jazz Club, where for nearly 26 years the best of Seattle's vibrant jazz scene had come to roost. The scene up and down Second Avenue in Belltown was its usual interesting ...
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Contest Giveaway
ELIGIBLE WINNERS: 5 | DAYS REMAINING: 22
Prize: Ragmala: A Garland Of Ragas by Adam Rudolph
World music pioneer Adam Rudolph and his groundbreaking Go: Organic Orchestra join forces with Brooklyn Raga Massive to create the monumental new album, Ragmala – A Garland of Ragas (Meta Records). Ragmala bridges generations, cultures and traditions in a deep-rooted, forward-looking sound born of 21st-century innovation and hybrid voices. Epic in scale and ambition, the project features 40 world-class musicians including Gnawa master musician Hassan Hakmoun, legendary drummer/percussionist Hamid Drake, forward-thinking cornetist Graham Haynes, and tradition-blurring flutist...
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