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New Bill Evans on YouTube
Four Bill Evans live recordings have surfaced over the past few months on YouTube. Since the last two weeks of the year are often contemplative, these clips should be most welcome: Here's the Bill Evans Trio, with Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen on bass and Alan Dawson on drums, playing Beautiful Love in Denmark in 1965. This went ...
Backgrounder: Lucky Thompson + Oscar Pettiford
After I posted Tuesday on saxophonist Lucky Thompson, the emails poured in. So I decided to make my Backgrounder this week one of the Thompson albums I love dearly: Lucky Thompson Featuring Oscar Pettiford. The material was recorded in January and February 1956. The four January tracks are Bo-Bi My Boy, OP Meets LT, Tricotism and ...
Eliane Elias: Tiny Desk Concert
On December 9, Eliane Elias visited NPR's offices in Washington, D.C., with Marc Johnson (b), Leandro Pellegrino (g) and Rafael Barata (d,percussion) to perform a Tiny Desk Concert. These concerts are a video series of live performances that began in 2008 and are hosted by NPR's Music near the desk of All Songs Considered's host Bob ...
Video and Audio: Lucky Thompson
In February 1960, Lucky Thompson led an octet at the Paris Blue Note. Featured on stage were Thompson (ts,ss) backed by Leonard C. Johnson (tp), Jimmy Cleveland (tb), Marcel Rasko, Joe Rasko and Sahib Shihab (saxophones), Buddy Catlett (b) and Kenny Clarke (d), with Thelma Thompson on vocals. Thelma was Lucky's wife and would die three ...
Ain’t But a Few of Us
by AAJ Staff
The following is an excerpt from the section “Magazine Freelancers" taken from Ain't But a Few of Us: Black Music Writers Tell Their Story edited by Willard Jenkins (Duke University Press, 2022). Magazine Freelancers by John Murph John Murph has successfully channeled his voracious appetite for modern music into a keenly social outlook that takes ...
Backgrounder: Johnny Alf, 1971
Two sides of a single released in Brazil in 1953 by Johnny Alf set the stage for the bossa nova four years later. For those sides, Alf assembled a trio that featured him on piano, guitarist Garoto and bassist Vidal. The instrumentals were Alf's own Falseta (or Deceit) and Luiz Bonfa's De Cigarro em Cigarro (or ...
Take Five with Rocco Ventrella
by AAJ Staff
Meet Rocco Ventrella: Rocco Ventrella was Jazztrax's “Artist Of The Year" in 2015 and received a Grammy Awards Pre-Nomination for Contemporary Jazz Best Album for his 2007 release Give Me The Groove. In 2005, Ventrella recorded, arranged, and produced the Tribute To Grover Washington, Jr. album in memory of the late, great saxophonist. This remarkable recording ...
Tal Farlow Doc and 10 Tracks
Tal Farlow is widely considered the father of the modern jazz guitar. His commanding attack and speed had much to do with the large size of his hands. As for his robust sense of swing and rich jazz-chord voicings, they were unbeatable. Born in 1921, Farlow was self-taught and deeply influenced by Benny Goodman's guitarist Charlie ...
Minidoc: Vince Guaraldi in the Studio
Vince Guaraldi is best known as the jazz pianist accompanying A Charlie Brown Christmas and other TV's adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip. But Guaraldi was well established before those gentle 1960s holiday specials as a member of Cal Tjader's groups and the leader of his own superb trio. His biggest hit was Cast Your Fate to ...
Shorty Rogers: The Swingin' Nutcracker
Once again, it's that time of year to announce my choice for induction into the JazzWax Vintage Holiday Album Hall of Fame. This year marks the Hall's 15th season and one of JazzWax's oldest traditions. This year, let's welcome Shorty Rogers's The Swingin' Nutcracker, a hip and happening original interpretation of Tchaikovsky's music. You'll find the ...
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