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Abdullah Ibrahim: 3
When I interviewed pianist Abdullah Ibrahim by phone in South Africa in 2011, he told me how much he looked forward to the arrival of the ice cream truck growing up in Cape Town in the late 1940s. But ice cream was only part of the joy. The truck blared recordings by Louis Jordan and his ...
Art Pepper: Smack Up, 1960
Recorded over two days in October 1960 for Los Angeles's Contemporary Records, Art Pepper's Smack Up featured six compositions by saxophonists, five of whom had recorded their songs for the label years earlier. It's unclear whether Pepper was compelled to do this by Contemporary or the idea was suggested to him. It's doubtful he came up ...
Jim Rotondi: Finesse
One of the first pairings of a jazz soloist with a big band and strings dates back to December 1947, and the event was largely an accident. At the time, Clef Records owner and producer Norman Granz was on a recording tear, trying to wax as much jazz as possible in advance of a threatened January ...
Classic Don Byas Sessions 1944-1946
Don Byas was a shadow. Too often in the 1940s, the tenor saxophonist was thought of by fans and critics as a close clone of tenor saxophone avatar Coleman Hawkins. In truth, Byas was a distinctive player in the same league as Hawkins and other saxophone greats Lester Young and Ben Webster. His thick, biting tone ...
Backgrounder: Johnny Hammond - Breakout
As Johnny “Hammond" Smith became increasingly popular, he added his middle nickname to avoid being confused with guitarist Johnny Smith and organ great Jimmy Smith. He began recording as leader in 1959 and was a sideman throughout the 1960s. In 1971, Creed Taylor signed him to Kudu Records, his soul-flavored subsidiary of CTI. Smith's album Breakout ...
Backgrounder: Jimmy McGriff - Step 1
Philadelphian Jimmy McGriff began as a pianist but fell in love with the organ after hearing Richard “Groove" Holmes play the Hammond B3 at his sister's wedding. He bought his first organ in 1956, spent six months at New York's Juilliard School of Music and then studied the organ privately with Milt Buckner, Jimmy Smith and ...
Backgrounder: Leon Spencer - Bad Walking Woman
After reviewing Wonderful!, Mike LeDonne's new organ jazz album yesterday, I was drawn to my favorites from the late 1960s and early 1970s. To give you a feel of this jazz period, I thought I'd select a few lesser-known gems. Today, I'm featuring Leon Spencer Jr.'s Bad Walking Woman. Recorded in 1972, this LP was Spencer's ...
Mike LeDonne: Wonderful!
Mike LeDonne is a bad-ass. I thought of five different ways to say this more elegantly but I kept coming back to the same phrase. Mike, whose mastery of the Hammond B3 organ is legendary, takes the instrument's sound up a notch on his new album, Wonderful! (Cellar), by enlisting an 11-member non-denominational gospel choir. The ...
Black Art Jazz Collective: 'Truth to Power'
Many jazz fans break out in a sweat when they see the word “collective" in the name of a jazz group. One assumes the music is going to be avant-garde and free form to the point of incoherence. You'll be happy to know that that the Black Art Jazz Collective's new album Truth to Power (HighNote) ...
Backgrounder: Ray Bryant - Alone With the Blues
Recorded in December 1958, Alone With the Blues was Ray Bryant's first solo piano album. Growing up, Bryant was deeply influenced by the church, and gospel always played a big part in his approach to jazz. His mother was an ordained minister in Philadelphia and made sure Bryant was with her in the pews. He began ...
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