Results for "Don Byas"

Don Byas

Born: October 21, 1912

Don Byas was one of the most respected and recorded tenor players of the 1940’s. In that fruitful period he had few peers in the the area of prolific productivity. Byas was a masterful swing player with his own style, an advanced sense of harmony, and a confidence and adventurousness that found him hanging around the beboppers and asking to play. He held his own and did so while insistently remaining himself: he never picked up the rhythmic phrases, the lightning triplets, which are indigenous to bop. Yet Charlie Parker said of him that Byas was playing everything there was to play. Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in 1912, he played alto as a teenager, subbing in territorial bands like Bennie Moten's and Walter Page's Blue Devils

Day of the Dead Show - A Sonic Alter

by David Brown
November 1, 2022

This week, we bring you G-Town Radio's 5th annual Day of the Dead weekend. For this week's Jazz Continuum program, we will feature a variety of jazz musicians paying homage to friends, mentors, and icons in the Jazz Continuum. Think of this as a sonic alter to those who came before in the music.

New Releases + Some Soul, Electric Funk and a Hot California set of '50s Cool

by David Brown
September 20, 2022

This week new releases from Chad Taylor and James Brandon Lewis, a soulful set of Ramsey Lewis (RIP), getting funky with the Electric Eddie Harris, Les McCann and Yusef Lateef, then a shift to a hot California set of '50s cool, and more. Playlist Thelonious Monk “Esistrophy (Theme)" from Live at the It Club-Complete ...

JD Allen: Just Keep Going

by AAJ Staff
July 26, 2022

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 1, “JD Allen: Just Keep Going" from Philip Freeman's Ugly Beauty: Jazz in The 21st Century (ZerO Books, 2022). Queens, New York seems purposely designed to confuse travelers. It's January 2, 2020, a brisk but sunny day, and I'm to meet saxophonist JD Allen at Samurai ...

Javon Jackson: Wading In Spiritual Waters

by R.J. DeLuke
May 23, 2022

Saxophonist Javon Jackson, he of the sonorous tenor tone and the inquisitive musical mind, embarked last year on a musical project with a different twist. Jackson, a follower of Sonnys Stitt and Rollins, is known as a a jazz fiend, one of the dauntless players of his era. His superb playing is marked by ...

Documentary: Don Byas Returns

July 27, 2021

In 1970, tenor saxophonist Don Byas returned from Europe to perform at New York's Village Vanguard. He had been living abroad since 1946. A Dutch documentary called Homecoming was made of Byas's one-time return. The artist who Byas refers to as his close friend is pianist Jaki Byard. The band he plays with is the Thad ...

A Conversation with Jackie McLean

by AAJ Staff
July 14, 2021

From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in October 1998. All About Jazz: You grew up in the same neighborhood as Bud Powell. How did he impact your life? And, what was Bud Powell the man like? Jackie McLean: He certainly lived in the vicinity of my ...

New Book Teaches Newcomers How To Listen To Jazz

October 3, 2022

“Lots of people want to listen to jazz, but they don’t know where to start,” says Mark Barnett, author of Getting Into Jazz, a new book from Canoe Tree Press that offers lively tips on how to listen, along with step-by-step guides through some classic jazz CDs featuring such artists as Louis Armstrong, Stan Getz and ...

Be Bop Live

Label: Ezz-thetics
Released: 2020
Track listing:
CD 1:
Groovin' High; Big Foot; Ornithology; Hot House; Salt Peanuts; Chasin' the Bird; Out of Nowhere; Scrapple from the Apple; Be Bop; Hot House; Oop Bop Sh'bam; Scrapple from the Apple; Barbados; Salt Peanuts.
CD 2:
Scrapple from the Apple; Barbados; Be Bop; Groovin' High; Confirmation; Salt Peanuts; Ornithology; Cheryl; KoKo; Bird of Paradise; Now's the Time; Be Bop; A Night in Tunisia; Salt Peanuts.

Trumpets? Yes (And More)

by Marc Cohn
June 5, 2020

Lots of trumpeters this week (mostly 21st century music): Marcus Printup, Ron Horton, Roy Hargrove, Farnell Newton, along with Buck Clayton (and Buddy Tate) plus Emmett Berry (and Don Byas). Big band (a bit off center) from Marty Ehrlich and Django Bates and the Charlie Parker centennial (Koko, including the 'famous' breakdown) and our chronological Sonny ...