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News: Obituary

Buddy De Franco (1923-2014)

December 27, 2014

Buddy De Franco, a highly accomplished and exquisite jazz clarinetist who began his career in several leading swing bands of the 1940s before pivoting to bebop in the late 1940s and early '50s and teaming with leading jazz artists throughout the LP era, died on Dec. 24. He was 91. Buddy's first recording in 1943 was ...

News: Obituary

Buddy DeFranco, 91, Versatile Jazz Clarinetist, Dies

December 27, 2014

Buddy DeFranco, the innovative clarinetist who rose from the remains of the swing era to forge new and lasting prominence as the instrument’s pre-eminent interpreter of bebop, died on Wednesday in Panama City, Fla. He was 91. His death was confirmed by his wife, Joyce. From 1939, the year he graduated from a high school music ...

Article: Album Review

George Gee: Swing Makes You Happy!

Read "Swing Makes You Happy!" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 17, 2014

The George Gee Swing Orchestra swings in the manner of Gee's friend and mentor, Count Basie, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale (Gee's group numbers only eleven, and that includes vocalists Hilary Gardner and John Dokes). Even so, the Basie spirit is ever-present, and if Swing Makes You Happy, Gee's eighth album as leader (and first ...

Article: Interview

Coleridge Goode: 100 Not Out!

by Duncan Heining
December 9, 2014

To celebrate the 100th birthday of Jamaican-born bassist Coleridge Goode, All About Jazz publishes Duncan Heining's 2012 interview with Goode. A remarkable man and musician, the bassist connects aspects of British jazz from the 1930s through the war years and on through the fifties, sixties and seventies. He played with Caribbean-born and black British jazz pioneers ...

Article: Album Review

Benny Bailey / Nashville Big Band: A Bird in the Hand

Read "A Bird in the Hand" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
November 23, 2014

To accentuate the positive: A Bird in the Hand is Georgia-based drummer Ben Bailey's debut album as a big-band leader, and a splendid one it is, thanks to Bailey's ample talents and those of the Nashville Big Band. The recording arose from a chance meeting in 2011 when another well-known timekeeper, Duffy Jackson, traveled to from ...

Article: Live Review

Tampere Jazz Happening 2014

by Henning Bolte
November 21, 2014

Tampere Jazz Happening Tampere, Finland October 30--November 2, 2014 On the way from the airport to the city of Tampere you pass by Nokia, situated fifteen kilometres west of Tampere, the Scandinavian city famous for its gumboots and cables, and famous for its mobile phones. For a while 'Nokia' was synonymous ...

Article: Interview

Cecil McBee: Masterful, And Always Equipped

by R.J. DeLuke
November 17, 2014

Cecil McBee is one of the finest bass players on the scene, a status he's held among musicians for many years, even if the public is slower to pick up on the achievements of this 79-year-old musician extraordinaire. A natural, he was quick to connect with musicians in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. But ...

Article: My Blue Note Obsession

The Magnificent Thad Jones – Blue Note 1527

by Marc Davis
November 10, 2014

Man does not live by hard bop alone, even on Blue Note. Sometimes, you just got to have a ballad. When you're in the mood, this is the record for you. Thad Jones provides the horn, and he has never been better. Jones is best known as co-leader of the big band that bore ...

News: TV / Film

How Ken Burns Murdered Jazz

October 31, 2014

Ken Burn’s interminable documentary Jazz starts with a wrong premise and degenerates from there. Burns heralds jazz as the great American contribution to world music and sets it up as a kind of roadmap to racial relations across the 20th century. But surely that distinction belongs to the blues, the music born on the plantations of ...

News: Video / DVD

Count Basie Quartet: 1968

October 29, 2014

Count Basie's piano is deceiving. We're so used to hearing the pow of his band after one of his abbreviated blues introductions that we forgot just how glorious a player he was. In the following video, we have a chance to hear and see Basie's minimalist swing style develop in the raw, without brass or reeds ...