Results for "Don Pullen"
Don Pullen

Don Pullen developed an extended technique for the piano and a strikingly individual style, post-bop and modern, but retaining a strong feeling for the blues. He produced acknowledged masterworks of jazz in a range of formats and styles, crossing and mixing genres long before this became almost commonplace. By chance, unfortunately for his future commercial success if not for his musical development, his first contact on arriving on the New York scene was with the free players of the 1960s, with whom he recorded. It was some years later before his abilities in more straight ahead jazz playing, as well as free, were revealed to a larger audience
A Different Drummer, Part 1: Mark Lomax II and Mauricio Takara

The drum is an instrument of power and presence. It is the heartbeat of music but with uncertain origins. In Africa, China, and Turkey, archeologists have found evidence to suggest that any of those regions may have been the forebearers of the beat, of the definitive expression of freedom. Data concludes that instrumental music is at ...
Frank Kimbrough: From Now to Forever - A Remembrance

On December 30, 2020, pianist Frank Kimbrough passed away at the age of 64. True to form, 2020 wreaked havoc until the end. The cause of death was not Covid-19, but the shock at the untimely loss of a revered artist was not any less powerful. Frank Kimbrough had the rare gift of touching ...
@ Bremen 1964 & 1975

Label: Sunnyside Records
Released: 2020
Track listing: Disc 1: Hope So Eric; Fables Of Faubus. Disc 2: Piano Solo; Sophisticated Lady; Parkeriana; Meditations On Integration. Disc 3: Sue’s Changes; For Harry Carney. Disc 4: Free Cell Block F ‘Tis Nazi USA; Black Bat And Poles; Fables Of Faubus; Duke Ellington’s Sound Of Love; Cherokee; Remember Rockefeller At Attica; Devil’s Blues.
Mark Sullivan's Best Releases of 2020

Despite the circumstances, this was a high volume year for album releases, rich in both quantity and quality. Mine is not a ranked listing, but more or less in reverse chronological order. Since I wrote fewer album reviews than average, for the first time I have included several releases that I did not review myself.
Jazz Musician of the Day: Don Pullen

All About Jazz is celebrating Don Pullen's birthday today! Don Pullen developed an extended technique for the piano and a strikingly individual style, post-bop and modern, but retaining a strong feeling for the blues. He produced acknowledged masterworks of jazz in a range of formats and styles, crossing and mixing genres long before this became almost ...
Charles Mingus: @ Bremen 1964 & 1975

It is 1964 and the big bass emperor rules the old continent as he commanded every stage he set foot on. So @ Bremen 1964 & 1975 just does not sound right. Charles Mingus Swings Bad Ass and Liberates Your Body and Your Mind @ Bremen sounds way more like it. Foras much as anything in ...
Chris May’s Best Releases Of 2020

Not the best year for live gigs in London, but Dele Sosimi's Afrobeat Orchestra just made it under the wire, lighting up the Jazz Cafe in late January. Rather like Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Sosimi's band has form as an incubator of young talent. A recent star in the making was trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi, who has ...
Charles Mingus: @ Bremen 1964 & 1975

Four hours of previously unissued, premier-league music by Charles Mingus is something to shout about, and @ Bremen 1964 & 1975 is about as good as the bassist and composer's posthumously released live albums get. Four CDs chronicle two extended, intense performances recorded in Germany by Radio Bremen. Both gigs featured all-star bands and both are ...
Another Set of Recent Listeners’ Favorites

The number of the week is five (as in Show 435)! So, it's time for listener favorites from recent shows (421-430). WHYR, Mixcloud, Pacifica and All About Jazz messages, emails, and one-on-one (masked!) feedback in the grocery store are all considered. That would generate some five to six hours of material. So, we have to exercise ...