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Greek Legend Manolis Mikelis
Today, jazz flourishes in Athens—or at least did before the virus lockdown. Many clubs dot the city, and gifted Greek jazz musicians perform there. Greek jazz greatness begins with a pianist whose name might be new to you—Manolis Mikelis. That's because Mikelis barely recorded, preferring to play live throughout Europe during his lifetime. Back in the ...
Lennie Niehaus (1929-2020)
Lennie Niehaus, a Los Angeles alto saxophonist and prolific composer for big bands and his own octet starting in the 1950s before moving on to television and Clint Eastwood-directed films, died May 28. He was 90. Lennie was one of the giants of the West Coast linear jazz sound. Along with Bill Holman, Shorty Rogers, Gerry ...
Lenny Breau: 7-String Swing
In August 1982, Canadian jazz guitarist Lenny Breau was in Nashville to record, of all things, a country album. Or rather, a guitar album with Western Swing sensibilities. For the studio session, Breau played a seven-string guitar and a six-string electric guitar. He was backed by the legendary Buddy Emmons on pedal-steel guitar, Jim Ferguson on ...
Bobby Spellman: Cool Revenge
The birth of the cool took place at 14 West 55th Street in Manhattan in 1947. There, at arranger Gil Evans's bare-bones apartment, musicians constrained by bebop's small-group limitations began meeting to develop a new sound. Inspired by Claude Thornhill's sighing sectional approach to orchestral jazz, the revolutionary arrangers included Evans, Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, George ...
Jimmy Cobb (1929-2020)
Jimmy Cobb, a drummer whose sensitive, smoldering touch on Miles Davis albums such as Kind of Blue and Some Day My Prince Will Come gave the trumpeter's masterful sextet and quintet a sheer, elegant quality, died on May 24. He was 91. Jimmy began his recording career on Dinah Washington 78s in the late 1940s followed ...
Another big loss for jazz
Drummer Jimmy Cobb, for 29 years the only surviving member of trumpeter Miles Davis' Kind of Blue sextet, died yesterday at his home in Manhattan. He was 91 and had been battling lung cancer. Cobb was the fourth NEA Jazz Master to pass away in 2020. In addition to the seminal Kind of Blue album, he ...
Byrd, Ellis and Kessel: 1982
On July 17, 1982, three virtuoso jazz guitarists performed together on stage at the Congresgebouw in the Hague, the Netherlands, during the North Sea Jazz Festival. Known then as the Great Guitars, the pickers were Charlie Byrd, Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel. They were backed by bassist Joe Byrd, Charlie’s brother, and drummer Chuch Redd. The ...
Pete Rugolo and the Beaver
The death of Ken Osmond last week came as a shock to anyone who grew up watching TV's Leave It to Beaver in the early 1960s. The shock for me wasn't that Osmond had died but that he had been alive all this time. The word on the playground in the late 1960s and early '70s ...
Norman Mapp: Nothin' But Soul
Norman Mapp was one of the finest male jazz vocalists of the 1960s, topped only by Johnny Hartman. Leading jazz players in the late 1950s and '60s were hip to Mapp, but virtually everyone else drew a blank. Odds are you aren't familiar with him either or the one album he recorded—Jazz Ain't Nothin' But Soul. ...
Videos: Art Blakey Tour, the '60s
In the 1960s, drummer and Jazz Messengers leader Art Blakey shifted with the times and gave hard bop a more political, pan-nationalism feel. The more the group toured, the more Blakey yearned to incorporate the rhythms and vibe of other cultures. Here are five clips that recently went up at YouTube illustrating Blakey's evolution: Here's 49 ...
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