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Deep Dive: Somewhere in the Night
The theme song most people know best for Naked City, a popular TV police-drama series that aired from 1958 to 1963, was called Somewhere in the Night. But it was referred to most often as the Naked City Theme, largely because there already was an older and completely different pop song called Somewhere in the Night ...
Joe Bataan: Gypsy Woman
Following my post yesterday on salsa and Joe Bataan's Ghetto Records, many readers emailed me about Joe Bataan and boogaloo. As I posted yesterday, boogaloo was a funky Latin-soul hybrid geared to expressive freestyle dancers. The boogaloo began in New York, primarily in the Latin dance clubs of Manhattan and the Bronx. Among the first boogaloo ...
Early Salsa: The Story of Ghetto Records
If you plan on discussing the origins of salsa, you'd better make a large pot of Café Rico coffee. You're going to be arguing late into the night. There are multiple definitions of the music as well as a raging debate over its roots, starting point and how it evolved. To me, as a former resident ...
John Stein: 'Lifeline'
It's rare when a two-album set is released celebrating the career of a living jazz artist. It's even more rare that the double album should now be No. 4 on JazzWeek's jazz album chart. That's exactly what has happened with John Stein's Lifeline (Whaling City Sound). Both accomplishments are a testament to John's straight-up swing and ...
Video: Eric Ineke Recalls Frans Elsen
During the summer of 1970, Dutch pianist Frans Elsen (1934-2011) decided to vacation in Norway. Inspired by the desolate environment and the small towns that surrounded him, Elsen wrote and arranged a Norwegian cycle. Upon returning to the Netherlands, he played the music backed by a group more contemporary than his usual ensembles. In the early ...
Backgrounder: Antonio Carlos Jobim's 'Wave'
The ever beautiful Getz/Gilberto may have been the album that popularized the bossa nova when released in 1964, but Antonio Carlos Jobim's Wave was, for me, its instrumental peer. Both albums were produced by Creed Taylor, the former on Verve and the latter on Creed's CTI imprint at A&M Records. This Jobim masterpiece was arranged by ...
Video: Joan Chamorro and the WDR Big Band
Earlier this week, Kurt Kolstad send along an email that included a link to the following clip. In May, Germany's WDR Big Band performed Darn That Dream, arranged and conducted by Joan Chamorro, the musical director of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band in Barcelona, Spain. Alba Esteban (below) of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, performed the ...
Interview: Brian Charette on 'Jackpot'
Brian Charette knows his way around an organ. He began playing a Hammond M3 in high school but didn't graduate to the B3 until he moved to New York at age 20. While gigging in the city, he was schooled by Brother Jack McDuff in Harlem at Showman's Jazz Club. Brian also knows how to write ...
Backgrounder: Horace Silver, 'Horace-Scope'
One of my favorite Horace Silver albums is Horace-Scope. Recorded on July 8 and 9 in 1960, the Horace Silver Quintet at the time consisted of Horace Silver on piano, Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Junior Cook on tenor saxophone, Gene Taylor on bass and Roy Brooks on drums. The tracks are Strollin', Where You At?, Don ...
Hank Mobley in Holland, 1968
Tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley is as beloved as Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. And for good reason. Mobley recorded for Blue Note throughout the 1950s and '60s, and for Cobblestone in 1972, and he appears on many albums as a leader and sideman. Though not a jazz game-changer in the same regard as Sonny and Coltrane, ...


