Results for "Lanny Morgan"

Lanny Morgan

Born: March 30, 1934

Les DeMerle: Once in a Lifetime

by Jack Bowers
May 16, 2023

Drummer Les DeMerle recorded his first album, Once in a Lifetime, when he was a twenty-year-old prodigy in 1967. However, as is sometimes true in the music business, the album was lost in the shuffle at Atlantic Records and sat gathering dust until someone had the good sense to retrieve and release it some fifty-six years ...

Doug MacDonald: Jazz Marathon 2

by Jack Bowers
March 20, 2017

For those who thought that guitarist Doug MacDonald's happy-go-lucky jazz marathon had crossed the finish line with the release more than a year ago of Just for Fun, the good news is that MacDonald and his talented teammates have found their second wind and the marathon continues through a second effervescent two-CD session taped at the ...

Doug MacDonald: Just for Fun

by Jack Bowers
July 26, 2016

While there are no household names on guitarist Doug MacDonald's new 2-CD set, Just for Fun (alto saxophonist Lanny Morgan or perhaps drummer Roy McCurdy may come closest), the sidemen he has chosen for a lively concert date billed as a “jazz marathon" are more than likely among the more accomplished jazz musicians you've seldom or ...

Time Check: A Paucity of Riches?

by Jack Bowers
June 2, 2016

On May 18, Betty and I flew to Los Angeles to attend Time Check: A Buddy Rich Alumni Reunion, a four-day panorama sponsored by the L.A. Jazz Institute and held at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel, about a stone's throw or two from the LAX airport. We arrived early afternoon so we could also be present for ...

The Empire Jazz Orchestra: Out of the Mist

by Jack Bowers
February 15, 2016

Out of the Mist is the sixth album (and first in a studio) recorded by the Empire Jazz Orchestra, a professional repertory ensemble founded in 1992 and in residence since then at Schenectady County (NY) Community College. While there is no comprehensive theme underlining its latest enterprise, the EJO's stated purpose is to perform music from ...

Pointing Fingers... And Naming Names

by Jack Bowers
May 4, 2013

As the countdown continues toward the last Big Band Report in June, the time has come to point fingers and name names--in other words, to compile a short list of contemporary jazz musicians who have risen above the norm to help make life more pleasurable for one devoted listener. These are, mind you, personal choices, and ...

SuperSax Me

by Jack Bowers
January 13, 2012

Back in the early 1970s bassist Buddy Clark and saxophonist Med Flory conceived a brilliant idea: to form a group (primarily a reed section with rhythm) that would use orchestrated arrangements of saxophonist Charlie Parker's transcendent bop solos as the basis for its music. As for a name, nothing less than SuperSax would suffice. The nine-piece ...

"Modern Sounds," or: Running a Marathon in Full Body Armor

by Jack Bowers
November 8, 2011

From October 19-25 Betty and I were at the Los Angeles Marriott Airport Hotel to attend Modern Sounds, the L.A. Jazz Institute's four-day salute to West Coast jazz, followed by a day-long tribute to Stan Kenton on the hundredth anniversary of the legendary bandleader's birth. We arrived a day early to be primed and ready for ...

BuJazzO: That's German for Swinging Big Band Jazz

by Jack Bowers
September 4, 2011

On August 8, my friend Wes Pfarner and I drove to Santa Fe for a once-in-a lifetime event: a performance by the German Federal Youth Jazz Orchestra, better known to big band enthusiasts by its more condensed and colorful name, BuJazzO. The twenty-piece ensemble, directed by Jiggs Whigham, an American trombonist and educator from Cleveland, Ohio, ...