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Richard Nixon & Spiro Agnew: Dick & Spiro Play Duke & Billy
by Ken Dryden
Anyone who has read much history probably knows that President Richard Nixon once serenaded ex-President Harry Truman during a White House visit by playing “Missouri Waltz" on the piano in his honor (he was unaware that Truman hated the song). But history buffs may overlook that Nixon's Vice President, Spiro Agnew also played piano and was ...
Bill Charlap: Intellect And Emotion
by R.J. DeLuke
"I don't ever remember a time when I didn't play the piano," reflects pianist Bill Charlap, who has become one of the giants of his generation on his instrument of choice, as evidenced by the array of other great players with whom he has performed. With his deft and agile approach he can summon a fiery ...
Sean Fyfe Quartet: Late Night
by Jack Bowers
The opening number on pianist Sean Fyfe's latest album, Late Night, is “Happy," which could serve as a subtext for the album as a whole. Even when performing a solo rendition of Billy Strayhorn's mournful “Lush Life," Fyfe somehow manages to sound happy, lending a sunny counterweight to the heart-breaking sense of loss that permeates Strayhorn's ...
Benny Benack III: Presentation matters
by Leo Sidran
Benny Benack III didn't necessarily start out thinking he would be a hipster crooner. He spent his 10,000 hours dealing with the trumpet, and he's still dealing with it. He tells me that he brings it with him everywhere--even on dates. He says, “Freddie Hubbard, Clifford Brown, Roy Hargrove, and Clark Terry were my early idols ...
2021: The Year in Jazz
by Ken Franckling
The jazz world continued grappling and adjusting in year two of the COVID-19 pandemic. International Jazz Day again went virtual for the most part. Singer Tony Bennett put the final stamp on his touring--and likely recording--career after his Alzheimer's disclosure. Trumpeter Irvin Mayfield was headed to federal prison. The National Endowment for the Arts welcomed four ...
Montreal Jazz Trio: Montreal Jazz Trio
by Dan McClenaghan
We had the Modern Jazz Quartet, sometimes tagged MJQ, from 1952 until--after a stop and start or two--the early 90's. They were a class act, playing in formal attire, playing classically-influenced jazz with a dollop (sometimes more than a dollop) of the blues. Restraint and laid back complexity was the name of the game.
Umlaut Big band: Mary's Ideas
by Mark Corroto
In the liner notes of Embraced (Pablo Live, 1978), Mary Lou Williams defends the late music of John Coltrane thus ..."the healing power comes from the deep feeling that is in jazz--the feeling of the Blues which is characteristic of all good jazz no matter what form it takes. Even John Coltrane's music was never without ...
Bergamo Jazz 2021
by Libero Farnè
Bergamo Varie sedi 16—19.9.2021 Nel febbraio 2020 su questo sito apparve una bella ed esaustiva intervista a Maria Pia De Vito, in qualità di neo nominata alla direzione artistica di Bergamo Jazz, prima donna dopo oltre quaranta edizioni del festival. Fra l'altro, in quella circostanza si colse opportunamente l'occasione per disquisire sul ...
Mark Murphy: An Essential Top Ten Albums
by Peter Jones
Revered by jazz singers the world over, Mark Murphy is barely known to the general public--which is curious, since he enjoyed a recording career that lasted more than half a century, made 48 albums in his lifetime, and played thousands of gigs with hundreds of musicians from Norway to Australia. A notoriously mercurial and secretive character, ...
Charles Mingus: An Essential Top Ten Albums
by Chris May
Charles Mingus was rarely a happy man and yet his music possessed a power to uplift listeners unlike that of most other composer / bandleaders before or after him. It still has that power in 2021, four decades after his passing and on the eve of his hundredth anniversary in 2022. In his personal life, too, ...
