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Salute to Stan Kenton: Artistry in Contrast
by Jack Bowers
Artistry in Rhythm, the Ken Poston / Los Angeles Jazz Institute's 2009 homage to the renowned bandleader Stan Kenton, was held October 8-11 at the Sheraton LAX Four Points Hotel. As always, there was much to see, hear and admire: films, panel discussions, special presentations and, last but not least, no fewer than nineteen concerts by ...
Brett Favre Isn't The Only Comeback Kid
by Jack Bowers
The ink was barely dry on last month's report that trumpeter Rob Parton had decided to break up his superlative Chicago-based JazzTech Big Band after more than twenty years at the helm before Parton was back with a brand new ensemble, one whose purpose, he says, “is to mirror that of the European Radio Orchestras where ...
Jacksonville: Big City, Big Band, Big Plans
by Jack Bowers
Almost everyone who's even mildly interested knows that the big band scene in the US isn't what it used to be. On the other hand, the big bands aren't yet dead, as some alarmists have claimed, or even on life support. Thanks in part to college and armed services programs, there are perhaps as many or ...
Breakfast Wine: Missing Too Long
Bobby Shew's Breakfast Wine is so rare that it does not appear in the Shew discography on the trumpeter's own web site. Nonetheless, the PAUSA long-playing vinyl album released in 1985 is a highlight not only of Shew's recording career but also of all jazz releases in the last two decades of the twentieth century. I ...
Toshiko Akiyoshi - Lew Tabackin Big Band: Mosaic Select
by Samuel Chell
Jazz was never more schizophrenic than in the 1970s. On the one hand, musicians equally savvy about mixing genres and running mixing boards were selling out arenas and producing lucrative, widely played albums, with bass-heavy danceable beats or soothing instrumental sounds tailor-made for air play on FM radio. At the other extreme, many of the jazz ...
Jack Nimitz: Baritone-in-Chief
by Jack Bowers
Baritone saxophonist Jack Nimitz died June 10, 2009 at his home in Studio City, California. He was 79 years old. That's hardly headline news except to a relative handful of jazz enthusiasts who were privileged to hear and appreciate his consummate artistry over the span of more than half a century when Nimitz was at the ...
Deborah Brown: Jazz Diva Extraordinaire
by Victor L. Schermer
Deborah Brown is one of the finest jazz vocalists in the business, a “singer's singer" with a magnificent voice and mind-boggling technique. Vocalist J.D. Walter mentioned her as an inspirational teacher and mentor in a recent AAJ interview but, despite being very possibly one of the greatest jazz singers of all time, due to her own ...
Bud Shank: A Voice for the Ages
by Jack Bowers
I'll always have fond memories of the 2007 Prescott (Arizona) Jazz Summit, as it was the last time I had the great pleasure of seeing and hearing the phenomenal alto saxophonist Bud Shank doing what he did best: enfolding an entire audience in the palm of his hand with a seemingly endless stream of irrepressible notes ...
John Blount Featuring Dave Tucker and the New Big Band: Better Days Ahead
by Nicholas F. Mondello
The cover art on trumpeter John Blount's Better Days Ahead depicts glorious sunshine. Visually beautiful, it is most appropriate for this CD--which will probably help propel Blount, Dave Tucker and the New Big Band to great things and better days ahead. Blount spent decades as lead trumpeter and featured soloist with the U.S. ...
Louie Bellson: Tasteful Drummer, Sweeter Guy
by Jack Bowers
To say that drummer extraordinaire Louie Bellson, who left us on February 14, 2009 at age eighty-four, had a remarkable career would be to explicitly understate the record. Bellson's success at age 17 in a nationwide contest sponsored by one of his idols, Gene Krupa, and Slingerland Drums set the talented wunderkind on a path that ...
