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Nick Finzer: A Celebartion of J.J. Johnson
J.J. Johnson was one of the most admired jazz trombonists of the post-war years. In addition to playing with a superb technique and tone, he brought a certain elegant soul to the instrument as a solo artist. Johnson began recording in 1942 with the Benny Carter Orchestra, and then had a stint with Count Basie in ...
Backgrounder: Gigi Gryce's Nica's Tempo, 1955
Gigi Gryce was one of jazz's most sensual arrangers. Like Billy Strayhorn, Tadd Dameron, Quincy Jones, Benny Golson and others, Gryce favored a cool sophistication in his compositions and arrangements. He was so exceptional as an orchestrator that it's easy to forget he was also a terrific alto saxophonist. One of Gryce's finest albums and a ...
Pat Britt: Jazz From San Francisco, 1966
If alto saxophonist Pat Britt hadn't stolen bologna from a Bay Area supermarket in 1958, we might never have known his name or his role in helping to found the Bach & Dynamite Dance Society, a jazz club still operating today on Miramar Beach in Half Moon Bay, Ca. The beach-house club became Half Moon Bay's ...
Perfection: John Coltrane's "You Say You Care"
Continuing my new series called Perfection, today's sublime track is John Coltrane's cover of Jule Styne's composition You Say You Care, which Styne wrote for Broadway's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949). The song is from Coltrane's Soultrane album, which features John Coltrane (ts), Red Garland (p), Paul Chambers (b) and Art Taylor (d). Recorded in February 1958 ...
Take Five with Saxophonist Anthony Bruno
by AAJ Staff
Meet Anthony Bruno Anthony Bruno Chicago-based saxophonist has dedicated his life to music as a performer, educator, and creator. Born into a musical family, playing music has been a hallmark of his existence. Rooted in jazz but drawn to pop, rock and R&B, Anthony writes and plays unapologetically from the soul. Since 2020, he has had ...
Backgrounder: Kenny Dorham: Una Mas, 1963
The second to last studio album trumpeter Kenny Dorham released as a leader before he died in 1972 was Una Mas (One More Time). Featuring just three original songs, the album was one of his best. An early adapter of bebop in the mid-1940s, Dorham was most famously in Charlie Parker's quintet of 1948 and '49, ...
Doc: The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith
From 1957 to 1965, photographer W Eugene Smith lived in loft space at 821 Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Smith had already established himself as a pioneer of the journalistic photo essay—a collection of images that told a story in magazines, most notably Life. Before the rise of the documentary in the early 1960s with the advent ...
Stan Getz: Six New Videos
Fortunately for us, Stan Getz was one of the most documented jazz saxophonists on videotape during concerts both here and abroad. Six clips of Getz that recently went up at YouTube: Here's Stan Getz and trumpeter Chet Baker with Jim McNeely (p), George Mraz (b) and Victor Lewis (d) in Stockholm in 1983... Here's Getz playing ...
Take Five with Evgeny Lebedev of LRK Trio
by AAJ Staff
Meet Evgeny Lebedev of LRK Trio Billboard award winner and laureate of numerous jazz contests, Evgeny Lebedev has quickly established himself as one of the brightest jazz musicians of his generation. A graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston he is a winner of the international jazz competition in Belgium, prize-winner of the Bösendorfer ...
Backgrounder: Ben Webster - King of the Tenors
Too often we think of the post-war tenor saxophone revolution as being solely in the hands of the tough Coleman Hawkins and laid back Lester Young. There actually was a third revolutionary in the mix—Ben Webster. The breathy Ellingtonian swinger had a gruffer sound than Prez but was more romantic and seductive than Hawk. And while ...


