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Stuff Smith: Swing Violinist
by AAJ Staff
From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in 2002. When Hezekiah Leroy Gordon “Stuff" Smith picked up the violin, the house began to rock. The second major popularizer of the violin in jazz after Joe Venuti, Stuff received great success with his small high energy swing band in the ...
Deerhoof: Love-Lore
by Troy Dostert
"Where, in short, are the flying cars?" So asked David Graeber in 2012, in a widely-circulated essay entitled “Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit." Graeber, an anthropologist of a decidedly unconventional bent, dedicated much of his academic career to challenging preconceived wisdom concerning the allegedly unlimited potential of capitalist economics and its attendant ...
Doug Webb: Apples & Oranges
by Kyle Simpler
Chances are good that pretty much everybody in the US has heard Doug Webb's music. He's performed for numerous television programs, including Law and Order, Family Guy and The Simpsons, where he played Lisa Simpson's saxophone parts. He's also been featured on several movie soundtracks and recorded with artists in practically every genre of music, including ...
Susie Meissner: I Wish I Knew
by Jack Bowers
I wish I knew why the talented Philadelphia-based singer Susie Meissner chose to open her salute to the Great American Songbook with the only tune on the album that doesn't really qualify: Curtis Lewis' “The Great City." It's not a bad song but Cole Porter or Johnny Mandel it ain't. On the bright side, Meissner recovers ...
A Jazz Immuno-Booster: Part 8
by Ludovico Granvassu
The immuno-booster series is back. After all and, sadly, the pandemic is everything but over so our need for soothing and uplifting music is greater than ever. As usual, we've asked a number of prominent jazz musicians to share with our readers the music they rely for encouragement. For this instalment the selectors were ...
Eric Ineke JazzXpress Featuring Tineke Postma At Bimhuis
by Martin McFie
Eric Ineke JazzXpress featuring Tineke Postma Bimhuis Amsterdam, Holland September 5, 2020 Dutch drummer and bandleader Eric Ineke's JazzXpress featured Tineke Postma on her alto saxophone for a centenary celebration of Charlie Parker's fast, virtuoso bebop. Postma studied at the Amsterdam conservatory and the whole band is based locally. The ...
Susie Meissner: I Wish I Knew
by C. Michael Bailey
Over the past decade and three previous recordings, Philadelphia-based vocalist Susie Meissner has crafted an intelligently conceived and thoughtfully paced survey of the Great American Songbook. Meissner's considerations of the standard jazz repertoire, in concert with pianist John Shaddy's sturdy arrangements and educated performance manner, have emerged, evolving from chaste and reverent beginnings, into rich and ...
August Birthdays
by Marc Cohn
August birthdays this week, celebrating the centennials of Charlie Parker, singer Jimmy Witherspoon and bassist George Duvivier. George only did one session as a leader for a French label, which I have never been able to find. So, we pair him with other August celebrants: Jimmy Rushing, Lester Young, Arnett Cobb and Art Farmer. We also ...
Arturo O'Farrill: Four Questions
by Jerome Wilson
Surprisingly this set marks the first time Arturo O'Farrill has recorded a set of solely his own compositions. It was worth the wait because this music, played by his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, really demonstrates the cinematic sweep and variety of his writing. The set is constructed around two topical extended works. The first, ...
American Frederick Thomas: 'The Black Russian' Who Connected Jazz To The Margins Of Asia
by Arthur R George
The child of former slaves, Frederick Bruce Thomas' New York Times obituary called him “the sultan of jazz," for the jazz palace he founded in Constantinople (now Istanbul) after World War I, a jazz borderland beyond even the music's early Paris outpost. He was hosting bands in Constantinople in 1921 even before Louis Armstrong joined King ...
