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Perfection: Keely Smith - The Song Is You (1958)
Few pop singers in the 1950s could swing like Keely Smith. Anita O'Day was certainly one of them, but Smith was the finer vocalist and surely knew more songs and required fewer takes in the studio. In some respects, Smith was the female Frank Sinatra, able to move ahead of the beat, behind it and go ...
10 Favorite Movie Trumpet Solos
No instrument better expresses dignity, loneliness and wistfulness in movie themes than the trumpet. For more than two decades after the arrival of talkies, movie themes were largely an orchestral affair, especially after arranger-conductors who had escaped Nazi Germany in the late 1930s went to work in Hollywood. The exception during this period was Harry James's ...
Forget it, Jake, It's Chinatown
Whenever temperatures soar into the high 90s, my thoughts turn to the Chinatown film score. My Pavlovian reaction dates back to the summer of 1974, when I worked as a ticker-ripper and usher at a General Cinema duplex movie theater before the start of college. Among the many great movies out that summer was the Jack ...
Backgrounder: Tina Brooks - True Blue (1960)
No other category of artist in American history had to fight harder to have his or her creativity recognized than the jazz musician. This war was waged on three fronts—with themselves, with the culture and with their record label. If any one of these three battles was lost, the other two often collapsed as well. In ...
Take Five with pianist, composer Itamar Dahan
by AAJ Staff
Meet Itamar Dahan Itamar Dahan is a Brooklyn-based jazz pianist, composer, and producer originally from Israel. Known for his deeply lyrical style and bold harmonic language, he has performed with legendary artists including NEA Jazz Master Reggie Workman, Billy Hart, Omer Avital, and David Broza. A graduate of The New School's Jazz program on a full ...
Backgrounder: Joe Puma - East Coast Jazz/3
I love precious jazz guitarists who place a premium on harmony, swing and compelling chords. One of the best in this category was Joe Puma. In the 1950s, Puma was a session sideman on many recordings and led his own groups. He recorded into the 1990s and died in 2000 at age 72. One of his ...
Roger Nichols (1940-2025)
Roger Nichols, a sunshine-pop songwriter whose late 1960s and 1970s melodies were among the richest and catchiest of the genre, particularly when teamed with lyricist Paul Williams and groups such as the Carpenters and Three Dog Night, died May 17. He was 84. Nichols also wrote with lyricists Tony Asher and Bill Lane, and was noted ...
Sly Stone (1943-2025)
Sly Stone, whose late-1960s eclectic brand of polished Bay Area funk-pop launched a music revolution that influenced artists ranging from Miles Davis to Stevie Wonder, Prince and all the major funk bands that followed in the 1970s and beyond, died yesterday. He was 82. The singer-songwriter, arranger and multi-instrumentalist was a fashion trend-setter and tireless composer ...
Denny Zeitlin: With a Song in My Heart
Pianist Denny Zeitlin's very first recording was for Columbia in 1963, as a sideman on Jeremy Steig's Flute Fever. His first trio leadership album, Cathexis, came next for Columbia in February 1964, with Cecil McBee on bass and Freddie Waits on drums. Carnival followed in October, with Charlie Haden on bass and Jerry Granelli on drums. ...
