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Backgrounder: Sam Lazar - 'Playback' (1962)
Odds are you have no idea who Sam Lazar is and that you're hearing about him now for the first time. Don't feel bad. The organist is one of jazz's most puzzling figures. Born in St. Louis, Mo., in 1933, he played piano and was in a St. Louis group led by Ernie Wilkins. When Wilkins ...
Perfection: Hal McKusick: You're Everywhere (1958)
By now, vocalists and musicians are surely tired of hearing me urge them to find great little-known songs to record and perform instead of tired old songbook standards. You don't stand out by following the crowd. A perfect example of a great little-known song is You're Everywhere, by Robert Nemiroff and Burt D'Lugoff, who were often ...
Ryan Truesdell: Gil Evans and Shades of Sound
I love producers and performers who fall madly in love with legacy jazz artists and go the distance to pay tribute to them. I'm thinking of what producer-director Kristian St. Clair did with his 2006 documentary and album This Is Gary McFarland and what jazz historian and album producer Gary Carner did in 2012 with baritone ...
Bill Evans: 'Moon Beams' and 'Interplay' (1962)
In April, May, June and July of 1962, pianist Bill Evans was ferociously busy in recording studios. Ten months earlier, his first working trio was at its peak, recording in exquisite form at New York's Village Vanguard. The three musicians had realized Evans's dream of playing conversationally—each member playing off the other two as equals rather ...
Backgrounder: Sal Salvador - Colors in Sound ('58)
The stereo revolution began in late 1957, when Sidney Frey of Audio Fidelity Records cut the first LP with the new sonic format and played it on December 13 for an audience in the auditorium at The New York Times on West 43d St. Within months, every major label was recording orchestral jazz to show off ...
Perfection: Phil Urso - P.U. Stomp (1952)
Man, tenor saxophonist and arranger Phil Urso could swing! And he pops up all over the place in the tastiest places. He was paired with Art Pepper on Picture of Heath (formerly known as Playboys); with Allen Eager at Birdland with Terry Gibbs in 1952; with Brew Moore in Kai Winding's Septet of 1953; with Zoot ...
Joe Diorio: A Guitarist's Guitarist
I first became aware of guitarist Joe Diorio in the1970s, when I bought a pair of Sonny Stitt albums on the Argo label—Move on Over (1963) and My Main Man (1964). I was instantly struck by how tasty Diorio played behind Stitt, especially his driving rhythm figures and fills. Born in Waterbury, Ct., in 1936, Diorio ...
Vince Guaraldi: Two Albums With a Latin Feel
Best known for his success composing and playing music for the Charlie Brown and Peanuts TV specials of the 1960s, Vince Guaraldi actually had a struggling jazz career through much of the 1950s. Born in the North Beach section of San Francisco, he started out playing with local vibraphonist Cal Tjader in 1951. His first leadership ...
The Airmen of Note Meets Stan Kenton
Today in the U.S., it's Memorial Day, a national holiday. To honor the men and women of the military who sacrificed their lives in service of our country and those we were defending, today we're listening to the Airmen of Note playing a set of Stan Kenton's music. Created in 1950 to continue the tradition of ...
Backgrounder: Marge Dodson - Lovely Way to Live
Vocalist Marge Dodson recorded just three albums. Her first two for Columbia were straightforward songbook efforts: In the Still of the Night (1959) and New Voice in Town (1960). But the third, for Decca, was way more interesting and so 1960s! A Lovely Way to Live (February 1968) was swinging, brash and groovy, from the psychedelic ...
