Results for "Charlie Ferguson"

Charlie Ferguson

Vocalese (1952 - 1961)

by Russell Perry
September 10, 2019

Arising out of bebop vocals, a number of singers in the 1950s began to replicate famous instrumental solos with the human voice. The practice, initiated by Eddie Jefferson, King Pleasure and Annie Ross was known as vocalese and reached its peak in the extraordinary recordings of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Playlist Host Intro 0:00 ...

Stan Kenton Legacy Orchestra: Flyin' Through Florida

by Jack Bowers
August 22, 2018

The number of jazz-centered big bands “on the road" these days can be counted on the fingers of one hand with a digit or two to spare. The Glenn Miller and Count Basie orchestras remain randomly active, the Duke Ellington and Woody Herman progeny somewhat less so. As for the rest . . . R.I.P. Stan ...

The Stan Kenton Legacy Orchestra: Storming Through the South

by Jack Bowers
August 1, 2016

First, three hearty cheers and a laurel wreath for trumpeter Mike Vax who has kept the splendid Stan Kenton Legacy Orchestra together (with some inescapable changes in personnel, not to mention name) for twenty-five years, supervised no less than eighteen annual road tours and produced half a dozen in-concert albums, the most recent of which, Storming ...

Bruce Lofgren's Jazz Pirates: Wind and Sand

by Jack Bowers
October 3, 2015

Batten the hatches and shiver the timbers--guitarist Bruce Lofgren's Los Angeles-based Jazz Pirates are climbing aboard with their fourth album for Night Bird Records and Lofgren's eighth as leader of his own ensemble. While these buccaneers aren't really after gold or silver (although a little of that wouldn't hurt), they do fancy that some of their ...

Stan Kenton Alumni Band: Road Scholars Live

by Chris M. Slawecki
August 8, 2014

For more than twenty years, the Stan Kenton Alumni Band has kept the pulse of big-band jazz strongly beating through regular touring under the direction of trumpet master Mike Vax, who served as the Orchestra's first trumpet, soloist and road manager (and also spent one year leading The Dukes of Dixieland, a genuine New Orleans musical ...

Musings on Jazz, Blues and the Sabbath

by Chris M. Slawecki
August 4, 2014

Margie Baker Sings With So Many Stars Consolidated Artists Productions 2014 Margie Baker didn't begin her career as a jazz and blues vocalist in the San Francisco area until she was nearly 40, but she made up for this delayed entry with endurance: She was often featured at the Monterey ...

Stan Kenton Alumni Band: Road Scholars

by Jack Bowers
February 2, 2014

Road Scholars? A clever title indeed, but these gentlemen (and three ladies) are more akin to “road maestros," an appraisal that is abundantly clear from A to Z on this latest recording by trumpeter Mike Vax's turbo-charged Stan Kenton Alumni Band, taped at various concerts during the band's 2013 spring tour, a two-week, three-thousand-mile odyssey that ...

Swingin' on a Riff . . . Hangin' by a Thread?

by Jack Bowers
June 14, 2013

Betty and I returned to Albuquerque on Memorial Day after attending Swingin' on a Riff, the latest in a series of marvelous semi-annual events presented by Ken Poston and the Los Angeles Jazz Institute for more than twenty years at venues in and around L.A. This one was held May 23-26 at the Los Angeles Marriott ...