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Results for "Billy Strayhorn"
The Marcus Shelby Orchestra Plays the Douglas Beach House, Half Moon Bay California
by Bill Leikam
Marcus ShelbyDouglas Beach HouseSan FranciscoNovember 15, 2009Fifteen jazz musicians gathered onstage at the Douglas Beach House (home to the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society) November 15 to perform numbers from Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn as well as original compositions by the orchestra's band leader, Marcus Shelby. The compositions were part ...
Gerald Wilson Orchestra: Detroit
by Robert J. Robbins
Commissioned by the Detroit International Jazz Festival and premiered on the occasion of the composer's 91st birthday, Gerald Wilson's six-movement “Detroit Suite" demonstrates that after nearly seven decades in the music business, the nonagenarian composer and arranger still has a great deal to offer in terms of musical creativity. Wilson spent the latter part of his ...
Roni Ben-Hur: Fortuna
by J Hunter
The most famous lyric from Charlie Chaplin's bittersweet song “Smile" is, “Smile, though your heart is aching/Smile, even though it's breaking." Roni Ben-Hur knows that methodology, and how: Smile (Motema, 2008), Ben-Hur's benefit disc with fellow guitarist Gene Bertoncini, was originally conceived as a duet with Ben-Hur's longtime bassist Earl May, who died before recording began. ...
Chris Greene Quartet: Merge
by Bridget A. Arnwine
The Chris Greene Quartet is willing to try anything once. No matter the genre of music, put it in this group's capable hands and bear witness to music taking on a whole new style and feel. On the group's third recording, Merge, saxophonist Chris Greene leads his quartet of four years all over the musical spectrum. ...
Gerald Wilson Orchestra / Dallas Original Jazz Orchestra / University of North Texas Two O'Clock Lab Band
by Jack Bowers
Gerald Wilson Orchestra Detroit Mack Avenue Records 2009 Composer / arranger / ageless wonder Gerald Wilson, most of whose recent albums (Monterey Moods; New York, New Sound; Theme for Monterey; State Street Sweet) have been built around sectional themes, returns “home" on Detroit to paint an earnest musical ...
Michael Janisch: Purpose Built
by Chris May
Since moving to Britain from the US in 2005, bassist Michael Janisch has put much of his energy into collaborative projects involving musicians from the two countries. It's hardly a radical idea, but it's as good a shtick as any with which to carve a profile, and along with his prodigious instrumental talents, Janisch is an ...
Justin Walter: A Call To Arms
by Bruce Lindsay
Justin Walter is the trumpeter in Ann Arbor-based band Nomo and a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Manhattan School of Music. A Call To Arms is his first album as leader and a marked contrast to his recordings with Nomo, a band with a distinctive take on Afrobeat rhythms, welding them to electronics ...
Take Five With Mike Wolk
by AAJ Staff
Meet Mike Wolk:Performing music that swings, sounds cool, with great harmony and melody is my life's work. I prefer the structure of straight-ahead jazz as it gives me a chance to play the lines, phrases and licks that create an emotional response from my bandmembers and the audience.I live in Charleston, South ...
Vocalist Sylvia Brooks Releases "Dangerous Liaisons"
Some music you listen to, some music you feel. Be it smoky and sensual or fiery and fierce, we all recognize the instant when our breaths catch, our pulses race, and our hearts know. In compiling Dangerous Liaisons, Sylvia Brooks has said “I don’t feel I chose these songs, but that they’ve chosen me.” And she ...
No "Vanity" Here: Jackie Ryan, Denise Donatelli, Lisa Sokolov, Kat Edmonson
by J Hunter
One of the whinier columns ever to appear in a major jazz publication concerned “Vanity Projects"--that is, sessions bankrolled by rich men for their marginally talented spouses/girlfriends/siblings/whatever. Unfortunately, those kind of recordings do exist, and in far greater numbers than desirable. However, the author's implication was that most female vocal projects could be categorized in this ...
