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Sex & Drugs & Jazz & Jive: Top Ten Stash Records Albums
by Chris May
With all the transgressive flair you would expect of bohemian New York City in the 1970s and 1980s, Bernie Brightman's Stash Records made its name with a hugely entertaining series of sex and drugs-themed compilations of swing-era recordings. The first was Reefer Songs in 1976. But Brightman's legacy extends much further. There was a finite amount ...
Fire Music: When Jazz Speaks Out - Part 1
by Ludovico Granvassu
Music often distills the truth in ways that make it hard to ignore. The history of jazz is intertwined with the struggle for the advancement of the African-American society that birthed it. Many of its masterpieces were inspired by events that marked the civil rights movement, which, in turn, drew inspiration from them. Let's look back ...
Black Lives Matter, Black Culture Matters
by Franz A. Matzner
Black lives matter. I am a jazz writer, so my lens on this truth is in some respects through music. The protests sweeping the country—and globe—are potent and necessarily focused on ending racial violence and police brutality. The images we see with increasingly open eyes of the barbaric treatment of African Americans are changing perceptions and ...
Jimmy Cobb: We're Remembering U
by Scott H. Thompson
Drummer Jimmy Cobb was a 91-year old NEA Jazz Master who was (until recently) still playing hard and keeping the groove with his trio consisting of Tadataka Unno on piano and Paolo Benedettini on drums. Remembering U (his 12th album as a leader and first release on his own Jimmy Cobb World label) was released in ...
John Swana: Philly Gumbo
by Victor L. Schermer
From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in June 2000. In addition to being one of the finest contemporary jazz trumpet players, John Swana is a human being who is spontaneously authentic and refuses to play a false role. Having reached the ripe old age of 38, John has ...
Chuck Granata: On Sinatra, The Beach Boys, and Johnny Mandel
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Chuck Granata is a record and radio producer, author, music historian and archivist. He has written four books on music and sound recording: Sessions with Sinatra: Frank Sinatra and the Art of Recording (Chicago Review Press, A Capella Books, 1999), Wouldn't it be Nice: Brian Wilson and the Making of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (Chicago ...
Michelle Lordi: Career Evolution
by R.J. DeLuke
Some artists are blessed to be born into situations where opportunities are at the ready. Education and training are easily obtainable. Maybe they have connections to the professional world, via their lineage or other friends. Even so, it's still up to them to produce and deal with the inevitable vagaries of their choice to pursue music ...
Big April Birthdays & More
by Marc Cohn
April birthdays this week on G&M with the Carmen McRae centennial, along with the 90th birthdays of Herbie Mann, pianist Frank Strazzeri (who toured in the 1970's with Elvis!), Claude Bolling and Richard Davis (the latter 2 still with us); as well as the 80th birthdays of George Adams and the very much alive Herbie Hancock! ...
Charles Pillow Ensemble: Chamber Jazz
by Jack Bowers
Chamber Jazz, alto saxophonist Charles Pillow's eighth recording as leader of his ensemble, is a generally sedate but remarkably engaging series of tone poems that combine contemporary jazz with elements of classical music to produce a hybrid that underlines what is most harmonious and charming in each genre. Chamber Jazz is what it says, and chamber ...
Denise Mangiardi: Brown Book
by Jerome Wilson
Denise Mangiardi dwells in two musical worlds, as both a jazz singer and an accomplished classical composer. She puts all her talents to good use on this CD, singing a collection of self-written ballads, folk songs and torch songs, over her own haunting arrangements. Mangiardi's moving string-writing appears on the two brief “Soundscape" instrumentals ...
