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Perfection: Ted McNabb & Co.: Mountain Greenery
Who was Ted McNabb? And what company did he keep, as the album cover above intimates? You won't believe the story behind this 1959 album or the album's superb arrangements and musicians. I came across this LP by accident in 2012. Back then, few jazz fans even knew it existed. The record was arranged and conducted ...
How Bud Shank Invented Surf Music
In 1966, just before the country went psychedelic and the place to be was off the grid and deep in the woods, there was the beach. The passing this week of Mike Hynson—star of that year's cult surf film The Endless Summer, produced and directed by Bruce Brown—took me back to my childhood. When I was ...
Take Five with Saxophonist Zishi Liu
by AAJ Staff
Meet Zishi LiuZishi Liu is a Boston-based saxophonist and music curator originally from China. He made history as the first Chinese artist to play at Boston's famed Regattabar in collaboration with Blue Note Jazz Club in 2025. His work has been featured by WGBH, contributing to the broader narrative of Asian representation in jazz.
Backgrounder: Hank Mobley Quartet (1955)
Tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley began recording in New York in 1953 as part of the Max Roach Sextette. The session was for Debut, a label founded a year earlier by Roach, bassist Charles Mingus and Mingus's then wife Celia. Mobley's first recording session for Blue Note came a year later as a sideman on The Horace ...
YouTubers Dig Bill Evans (Guitarists)
I love watching videos of musicians covering songs made famous by jazz legends. I've posted quite a few of these as part of my YouTubers Dig series. Today, I thought I'd share 10 clips with you of guitarists covering songs recorded by Bill Evans: Here's Waltz for Debby... Here's Two Lonely People... Here's Time Remembered... Here's ...
Documentary: Melvin Sparks
Melvin Sparks was one of the finest and most important guitarists during the jazz-funk movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. For the Prestige label, Sparks recorded with Lou Donaldson, Sonny Stitt, Leon Spencer Jr., Johnny Hammond Smith, Caesar Frazier and many others. He was known for his Houston shuffle rhythm guitar and funky jazz ...
Backgrounder: Herbie Nichols Trio - Master Takes
Pianist Herbie Nichols has long been considered a Thelonious Monk disciple. In truth, Nichols had his own modernist bag that combined bebop's jagged attack and Dixieland's hard syncopation. A fascinating artist who was largely ignored during his lifetime (1919-1963), Nichols is perhaps best known for penning the jazz standard Lady Sings the Blues. Nichols began recording ...
Interview: Artie Shaw Takes the Gloves Off
I've long known that Artie Shaw was outspoken, mercurial and blunt. As a boy wonder in the band business in the 1930s, Shaw was also temperamental and didn't tolerate boredom or repetition for long. But I didn't realize how outspoken he was until I heard a lengthy interview with Shaw that surfaced last week. Pete Neighbour, ...
Take Five with Saxophonist Noah Peterson
by AAJ Staff
Meet Noah Peterson While his troubadour days are behind him, Noah continues to have musical adventures. From his many bands and explorations of different genres of music Noah always has his fingers in something. His latest adventure includes his brand new quartet recording of all original music Coming Home To You and the rebirth of The ...
Dave Stryker: Goes to the Movies (2024)
Jazz artists have been recording “at the movies" albums since 1962, when arranger-conductor Manny Albam recorded Jazz Goes to the Movies for Impulse. Jerome Richardson, Eddie Harris, Erroll Garner and even Bill Evans recorded Hollywood compilation LPs along with dozens of other jazz artists. Prior, there were Broadway, movie and TV show soundtracks centered on one ...
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