Results for "Doug Watkins"
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Doug Watkins

Born:
Douglas Watkins was an American hard bop jazz double bassist from Detroit. An original member of the Jazz Messengers, he later played in Horace Silver's quintet and freelanced with Gene Ammons, Kenny Burrell, Donald Byrd, Art Farmer, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Sonny Rollins, and Phil Woods among others. Some of Watkins' best-known work can be heard when as a 22-year-old he appeared on the 1956 album, Saxophone Colossus by tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, with Max Roach and Tommy Flanagan. From that session, the tunes "Blue Seven" and "St. Thomas," especially, have become revered not only as evidence of Rollins' original genius but as fine examples of Watkins' work. According to Horace Silver's autobiography, Let's Get to the Nitty Gritty, Watkins, along with Silver, later left Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers because the other members of the band at the time (Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley and Blakey) had serious drug problems, whereas Watkins and Silver were tired of being harassed and searched by the police every time they went to a gig in a new city and club. In 1958 Watkins would join Donald Byrd for a European tour, taking up extended residence at Le Chat Qui Pêche, a jazz club on Paris' Left Bank
Wade Legge Trio

By Wade Legge
Label: Fresh Sound Records
Released: 2023
Track listing: Play, Legge, Play;
Flabbee-Do;
Bagdad Express;
I Only Have Eyes for You;
Perdido;
Dream a Little Dream of Me;
Wade Leg’s Blues;
A Swedish Folksong (Dear Old Stockholm);
Dance of the Infidels;
Aren’t You Glad You’re You;
These Foolish Things;
Why Don’t You Believe Me;
Sweet Sue, Just You;
All the Things You Are;
The Squirrel;
Gene’s Stew;
Spice;
Music House;
Joyce’s Choice;
Spice;
Bradley’s Beans;
Sugar Hips.
Dorothy Ashby: With Strings Attached, 1957-1965

by John Chacona
Imagine if Sidney Bechet, Charlie Christian and Jimmy Smith were barely remembered and recordings of their music were long unavailable and known only on the geekiest corners of Discogs. That is essentially the status of harpist Dorothy Ashby. Like the three figures cited above, Ashby essentially created a language for her chosen instrument, the harp, where ...
Dorothy Ashby: With Strings Attached, 1957-1965

by Angelo Leonardi
Questo lussuoso cofanetto di sei LP in edizione limitata dedicato all'arpista Dorothy Ashby è un importante contributo che colma l'attuale vuoto di registrazioni e rende giustizia a un'artista tanto importante quanto dimenticata. Non troverete il suo nome sulle massime storie ed enciclopedie del jazz, e la sua morte prematura dell'aprile 1986 (aveva 55 anni) fu data ...
Introducing Bassist Adi Meyerson

by Sanford Josephson
This article first appeared in Jersey Jazz Magazine. As a teenager in Israel, Adi Meyerson played the electric bass and was into fusion and rock, listening to Jaco (Pastorius) and stuff. I was about 17, and I think it was a family friend who gave me a bunch of Sonny Rollins albums. I kinda ...
Horace Silver: His Only Mistake Was To Smile

by Chris May
In his sleeve note for the audio restored Horace Silver album Live New York Revisited (ezz-thetics, 2022), British writer Brian Morton cut to the chase. [Silver]'s only mistake," he wrote, was to smile while he was playing... a challenge to the notion that jazz should be deadly serious and played with a pained rictus."
Sonny Rollins: Ten Colossal Albums

by Chris May
The history of modern jazz is a short one, but even so there are few musicians whose careers began in the bop era and who are still with us in 2022. Drummer Roy Haynes is one. Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins is another. Both players recorded with trumpeter Fats Navarro and pianist Bud Powell in 1949.
Bill Charlap: Intellect And Emotion

by R.J. DeLuke
"I don't ever remember a time when I didn't play the piano," reflects pianist Bill Charlap, who has become one of the giants of his generation on his instrument of choice, as evidenced by the array of other great players with whom he has performed. With his deft and agile approach he can summon a fiery ...
Murray Brothers: A Law Unto Themselves

by Ian Patterson
They are two of the most promising jazz musicians to have emerged from Ireland in some years. Bassist Conor Murray and twin brother Micheal Murray (alto saxophone) grew up with Irish traditional music in the small, GaeltachtGaelic-speakingtown of Falcarragh, in County Donegal. Both discovered jazz in their early teens and have been regulars at the annual ...
Charles Mingus: An Essential Top Ten Albums

by Chris May
Charles Mingus was rarely a happy man and yet his music possessed a power to uplift listeners unlike that of most other composer / bandleaders before or after him. It still has that power in 2021, four decades after his passing and on the eve of his hundredth anniversary in 2022. In his personal life, too, ...