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Cootie Williams: Jumping in the 1940s
In 1943, the country was coping with a recording ban launched by the American Federation of Musicians in mid-1942. With live music under assault by new technology ranging from records and radio to the jukebox, the union decided to pull the plug on members making records until record companies agreed to pay into a fund to ...
Backgrounder: Jack Sheldon - Jack's Groove (1959)
Given the misery in Los Angeles, I thought today's Backgrounder would cause us to take a moment and reflect on a period when the city and county were just coming into their own and to hope for the region's speedy return to its former glory. Los Angeles was, is and will always be the world's epicenter ...
Perfection: Bill Evans - Reflections in D
In 1953, Duke Ellington recorded a solo piano piece that was lush, dreamy and introspective. The song was composed in the key of D, and Ellington called it Reflections in D. Ten years later, dancer Alvin Ailey choreographed an expressive modern dance for a solitary dancer set to the Ellington ballad. Ailey created the brief dance ...
Eric Ineke: JazzXPress Plays Cannonball Adderley
Dutch drummer Eric Ineke has just released a tremendously exciting new album that is easily one of my favorites—Swing Street—Plays The Music of Cannonball Adderley (Timeless). It's a gorgeous tribute to the esteemed alto saxophonist, composer and bandleader. Among Eric's many jazz accomplishments in the Netherlands was being a member of the Frans Elsen Septet. Born ...
Nancy Harrow: Second Thoughts (2024)
Like vocalist Carol Sloane, Nancy Harrow came up just as the music world flipped upside down. Jazz was out, rock and soul were in and that was that. But like Carol, Nancy powered forward. In the early 1960s and again beginning in the late 1970s, Nancy recorded 16 albums with Buck Clayton, Dick Katz, Jim Hall, ...
Soundless Footage From Norman Granz Sessions
Wow, what a find! Loren Schoenberg is senior scholar of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem and on the faculty at Juilliard. He has taught at the Manhattan School of Music and the New School and played tenor saxophone in Benny Goodman's band in the 1980s. Last week, he posted to YouTube two silent black-and-white clips ...
Chick Webb: The Rightful King of Swing
The King of Swing in the 1930s wasn't Benny Goodman or Count Basie. It was Chick Webb. The drummer fielded, managed and drove one of the best dance bands in the country and held court at New York's Savoy Ballroom, at 596 Lenox Avenue, between 140th and 141st Streets in Harlem. Webb's band was built to ...
Bill Evans: Stockholm, Sweden, 1964
Thank God for Europe and Scandinavia. If not for their government-sponsored TV stations, we'd never have intimate footage of American jazz stars in action. Today, two clips of the Bill Evans Trio in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 1964, with Evans on piano, Chuck Israels on bass and Larry Bunker on drums. Plus a bonus track: Here's ...
João Gilberto: Germany (1967)
In 1967, Gilbert Bécaud began hosting French TV's Gilbert Bécaud Show, which was taped in different European cities. Bécaud was known as “Monsieur 100,000 Volt" due to his animated and energetic stage style. That year, in Germany, the variety show included two songs performed by João Gilberto on guitar and vocal, Pierre Le Marchand on hi-hat ...
Julie London's Holiday Album (2024)
It's Christmas Day and once again it's time for the Julie London Christmas album that never was. I started this tradition 10 years ago because, for whatever reason, the jazz vocalist never recorded an LP of holiday favorites. All we have is the B-side of a Liberty 45 released in 1957—I'd Like You for Christmas, written ...
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