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News: Recording

Mal Waldron: 'Searching in Grenoble' 1978

September 29, 2022

Struggling to record The End of a Love Affair on February 20, 1958, Billie Holiday abruptly ended a take for her album Lady in Satin with resigned frustration. “No good. I don't know it. Mal, please try to play... as loud as you can. I don't know the tune." Mal was Mal Waldron, her accompanying pianist. ...

News: TV / Film

Documentary: Art Blakey

September 28, 2022

Dick Fontaine remains one of the world's finest music documentarians. The British filmmaker also has had a knack for identifying major trends early and capturing them in their nascent form. Among his subjects have been the Beatles (filmed four days after Ringo joined the band at Liverpool's Cavern club in 1962), Ornette Coleman (1966), Sonny Rollins ...

News: Video / DVD

Sonny Stitt: 10 Great Organ Intros

September 27, 2022

Sonny Stitt loved organ intros. The bigger and more dramatic the better, with plenty of keyboard articulation and suspense. When the organ opener was played just right, it came off like a groovy fanfare that set up his entry on tenor or alto saxophone. To celebrate this sound, I pulled 10 of my favorite organ openers ...

Article: Interview

My Conversation with Pharoah Sanders

by AAJ Staff
September 26, 2022

From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in February 1999. When I first heard “The Father And The Son And The Holy Ghost" off of John Coltrane's Meditations, I was floored. I got the same reaction when I first heard Maria Callas sing “Vissi d'arte" in Victor de Sabata's ...

News: Obituary

Pharoah Sanders (1940-2022)

September 26, 2022

Pharoah Sanders, a tenor saxophonist who initially was associated with free-jazz players in the 1960s, including Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Don Cherry and John Coltrane, but who went on to record several critical pan-African spiritual albums under his own name before developing a softer, more romantic sound in the 1980s and beyond, died on September 23. ...

News: Performance / Tour

Underscoring what jazz is...

September 24, 2022

Every once in a while, it is good to get a healthy reminder of what jazz is. Some people think it is a repertoire of classic material, be it beloved jazz standards or pages from the Great American Songbook. But jazz is not specific material, though we all have favorites we like to hear now and ...

News: Video / DVD

Backgrounder: Frank Wess's 'Trombones & Flute'

September 16, 2022

Frank Wess was a powerhouse big-band tenor saxophonist and flutist and a lyrical player in small groups, especially those he led. One of my favorite ensemble albums by Wess is Trombones & Flute, which he recorded for Savoy in July 1956. The personnel featured a chunk of Count Basie's band, for which Wess played at the ...

News: Music Industry

Who Was Joe Kennedy Jr.?

September 15, 2022

Yesterday I posted on a new box set from Fresh Sound featuring the complete recordings of Ahmad Jamal's Three Strings between 1951 and 1955. In the post, I wrote that in the late 1940s Ahmad played in a Pittsburgh group called the Four Strings that never recorded. The Four Strings folded after Joe Kennedy Jr., the ...

News: Music Industry

Ahmad Jamal: Complete Okeh, Parrot & Epic

September 14, 2022

There's always plenty of talk about musicians who had an enormous impact on jazz's direction. From Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young to Charlie Parker, Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Horace Silver, Lennie Tristano, Shorty Rogers, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Bill Evans, John Coltrane and beyond. Always skipped over, for some reason, is Ahmad Jamal. Now Fresh Sound ...

News: Recording

Roberto Magris: Duo & Trio

September 13, 2022

I've known Roberto Magris for many years, dating back to the early days of this blog. In fact, I interviewed him in 2008. The Italian jazz pianist is enormously gifted as a player and composer. I love his feel. He swings, and his playing is always hip and breathtakingly beautiful. Now he's out with an album ...