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From George Coleman to Meeco: Ten Overlooked Classics
by Chris May
The only thread running through this installment of Building A Jazz Library is that of unsung quality. No particular artist is spotlighted, nor any particular genre. There are simply ten, randomly selected albums, recorded in the US and Europe between 1953 and 2021, which show jazz off at its finest, but which, for one reason or ...
Ornette Coleman: Genesis of Genius: The Contemporary Albums
by Jeff Kaliss
For many an Ornette Coleman devotee, devotion was pledged with the singular saxophonist's The Shape of Jazz to Come (Atlantic). It was recorded in May and released in November of 1959, and it's a matter of when in our life we caught up with it. For some of us, that's when we first felt liberated by ...
March 2022
by Pat Youngspiel
Jun MiyakeWhispered Garden Enja Records / Yellowbird Records 2022 Leaving the hazy Lost Memory Theatre (Enja, 2013, 2015, 2018) behind and moving on to the equally shrouded Whispered Garden, Paris-based trumpeter, composer and sound-architect Jun Miyake introduces us to a musical magnum-creation, his newest, that seems to encompass everything from ...
Bill Stewart: Ain't No Funk In Iowa
by Mike Brannon
This article was first published at All About Jazz in May 2002. Upon joining The John Scofield group in the mid '80s it seemed like drummer Bill Stewart just appeared out of nowhere. Of course, Scofield and Stewart did a number of tours and studio dates together while word got around about Stewart's unique ...
Ornette Coleman: New York Is Now & Love Call Revisited
by Mark Corroto
These sessions, the last two Ornette Coleman would record for Blue Note Records, in April and May of 1968, are generally remembered for the rhythm section. Was it Coleman or producer Francis Wolff that invited John Coltrane's former sidemen, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones to record? Was this a scheme to draw the Coltrane ...
Joe Henderson, Bill Evans, Jim Hall: Buried Treasure from Germany's MPS Label
by Chris May
Between its founding in 1968 and sale in 1983, the original incarnation of the recently revived German label MPS—the initials stand for Musik Produktion Schwarzwald (Music Production Black Forest)—notched up around five hundred releases. Some were recorded in the US by American musicians, many more were recorded in Europe and featured bands made up of European ...
Bill Goodwin: Not Less Than Everything
by Victor L. Schermer
Bill Goodwin is like a breath of fresh air blowing through jazz. From the time around 1954 when he was in Los Angeles and just learning the drums, and inspired by Shelly Manne, to today, around his 80th birthday, he has loved jazz and the musicians unconditionally. He has befriended and worked with so many of ...
George Coleman: An Alternative Top Ten Albums
by Chris May
Born in Memphis, Tennessee, saxophonist George Coleman cut his teeth in local rhythm and blues bands and made his first recording, aged twenty, with B.B. King in 1955. That year he switched from alto to tenor, because King already had an alto player; but Coleman has continued to play the alto from time to time and, ...
Hanksgiving: A Tribute to Hank Jones, Part 1
by Ludovico Granvassu
For our seasonal Hanksgiving show, this year we pay tribute to Hank Jones, both as a pianist and a composer, by playing music from his albums as a leader and sideman, and renditions of his music by musicians that came after him. The collaboration with Malian master musician Cheick Tidian Seck kicks off a playlist which ...
Vince Guaraldi’s Christmas Sauce: Adding Spice to Charlie Brown Vanilla
by Arthur R George
It's not simply that pianist Vince Guaraldi slipped jazz past the unsuspecting in composing A Charlie Brown Christmas, the evergreen “Peanuts" animation and soundtrack that has become inescapably part of the holiday. First broadcast in 1965, going on to six decades ago, A Charlie Brown Christmas is a tradition unto itself. It returns to television through ...
