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Guitar Gods & Goddesses: An Alternative Top Ten Albums
by Chris May
Although it has been present in jazz since the 1920s, when it was routinely used in rhythm sections, as a solo instrument the guitar struggled to make itself heard--literally--until the second half of the 1930s, when reliable pick-ups and portable amplifiers became available. Foremost among the pioneers of the electrified instrument was Charlie Christian, a member ...
Gabriel Vicéns: A Growing Voice In Jazz
by R.J. DeLuke
Guitarist Gabriel Vicéns from Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, has only been on the New York City scene for about five years. But his rich tone and engaging style have gained him a reputation--still growing--as a remarkable voice and an artist with something valid to say. He's not a guitar shredder, though he has plenty of ...
Thelonious Monk: An Alternative Top Ten Albums Of Deep And Staggering Genius
by Chris May
Thelonious Monk's position in cultural history grows in stature with each passing year and every new generation. Lionised by jazz fans and a continuing influence on musicians, Monk in 2020 is also held to be a hero by the hip hop movement. While his music no longer has the power to shock that it once possessed, ...
Michael Cuscuna: In The Vault Playing God
by AAJ Staff
From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in December 2000. Michael Cuscuna is one of the most important figures in the jazz reissue field today. He has been responsible for hundreds of releases for many companies, and he was fortunate to meet and befriend Alfred Lion during the final ...
Charlie Parker: Ten High Flying Albums Of Paradigm Shifting Genius
by Chris May
Born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1920, and brought up across the state line in anything-goes, jazz-friendly Kansas City, Missouri, controlled from the mid 1920s to the late 1930s by the spectacularly corrupt politician Tom Prendergast, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker lived fast and hard and passed in 1955, aged only 34 years. A founding father of ...
Paul Gonsalves @ 100 And More July Birthdays
by Marc Cohn
Time to celebrate July birthdays! Among the living, David Sanborn @ 75, pianist Mark Soskin, trumpeter Theo Croker, Kenny Burrell and Ahmad Jamal @ 90! We celebrate the saxophonists: Paul Gonsalves @ 100 and Hank Mobley @ 90. Along the way, birthday salutes to Philly Joe Jones, Lee Morgan, Charlie Christian, pianist Billy Taylor and Johnny ...
Jazz Musician of the Day: Charlie Christian
All About Jazz is celebrating Charlie Christian's birthday today! As the man who popularized the guitar in a jazz setting, his legacy lives on. Charlie Christian was born on July 29, 1916 in Bonham, Texas but was raised in Oklahoma City from the time he was two years old. Charlie's immediate family were all musically talented- ...
Brandon “Taz” Niederauer: A Minor with a Major Future
by Alan Bryson
Though only seventeen, guitarist/singer/songwriter Brandon Niederauer has amassed a staggering list of accomplishments. At age ten he was a guest and performer on The Ellen DeGeneres Show--the YouTube clip of which has over 3,200,000 views. Two years later he landed a role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Broadway Musical, School of Rock. He has performed a Hendrixesque version ...
Hedvig Mollestad: Ekhidna
by Gareth Thompson
In 2003, the English writer John Murray published his Booker Prize-listed novel Jazz Etc. It narrated the life and times of a female guitarist, the improbably named Fanny Golightly, from working class Cumbria. One observer in the story describes Golightly's playing thus: “I suppose jazz is the only name for it. It was as delirious as ...
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 ...
