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Jazz for the Fireplace
With Thanksgiving coming next Thursday and the December holidays just around the corner, you'll likely find yourself in front of a fireplace or cooking for friends in the coming weeks. Or simply unwinding by yourself. To make those evenings extra cozy, here are 10 jazz albums that are hip and remarkably soothing. Here are album titles ...
Havana Big Bands: Late '50s
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 ...
Jack McDuff: Moon Rappin'
As years go, 1969 was a doozy. The country had just come off of two horrible assassinations in 1968 along with news of the Mai Lai Massacre. The following year began with President Nixon's inauguration in January. Any hope that Teddy Kennedy would replace his slain brother in Shakespearean fashion was dashed with the Chappaquiddick incident ...
Don Ellis: Shock Treatment
One of the most fascinating and overlooked jazz orchestral leaders, arrangers and composers of the 1960s and '70s was Don Ellis. His scores were so ferociously busy and avant-garde, it's amazing he could find anyone who could play them. But he did, and those who signed on with him became ardent devotees. Nearly all of Ellis's ...
The Kids Dig Barry Galbraith
Barry Galbraith was a superb and tasteful jazz guitarist who played on dozens of albums behind big bands and combos. While he regretfully recorded just one album as a leader (Gone With the Wind, Decca, 1958), he wrote many jazz guitar books on comping, soloing, fingering, daily exercises and more. They are considered a must for ...
Take Five With Will Sellenraad
by AAJ Staff
Meet Will Sellenraad Will Sellenraad has earned a fast growing reputation of being at the forefront of creative musicians working in New York City. Known for his brilliant improvisations and his compelling, melodic compositions, this New York City native melds the various styles, phrasings and concepts of the jazz idiom with the raw elements of soul, ...
Ana Mazzotti: Sao Paulo Sound
Brazil in the 1974 was a country of joy and pain. The military had taken control in a coup 10 years earlier and would rule with harsh anti-communist rule until 1985. Strangely, the dictatorship reached the height of its popularity in the 1970s with sizable economic growth known as the “Brazilian Miracle." But prosperity came with ...
John Klemmer: Waterfalls
Like the Fender Rhodes electric piano, the Echoplex transports me back to the 1970s. First marketed in 1961, the unit allowed notes played on instruments to echo with a ripple effect. The Echoplex is prehistoric technology by today's digital standards. But back in the 1970s, when the unit became popular during jazz's electric fusion era, the ...
Jimmy Halperin: Cycle Logical
By my count, there are five major jazz tenor-saxophone schools. A school is defined as a particular approach or way of improvising that's so distinct and exceptional other saxophonists adopt it. On my list of tenor saxophonists whose styles became schools are Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Warne Marsh, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. Nearly all other ...
Bill De Arango on EmArcy
Speed set Bill De Arango apart. When he arrived in New York from Cleveland in 1944, he fit in almost immediately on 52nd Street. In 1945, when World War II ended and bebop began nudging swing aside, De Arango was perfectly positioned. A terrifyingly fast player, he was among the few guitarists at the time who ...
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