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2022: The Year in Jazz
by Ken Franckling
Current events impacted the jazz world in significant ways throughout 2022. In its third year, the coronavirus pandemic continued to lurk in some settings, while others recovered in robust fashion. Russia's war on Ukraine was felt by musicians and triggered an outpouring of support for its victims. Initiatives to ensure greater equity in jazz advanced. The ...
Backgrounder: Frank Wess's 'Trombones & Flute'
Frank Wess was a powerhouse big-band tenor saxophonist and flutist and a lyrical player in small groups, especially those he led. One of my favorite ensemble albums by Wess is Trombones & Flute, which he recorded for Savoy in July 1956. The personnel featured a chunk of Count Basie's band, for which Wess played at the ...
Bill Charlap's Stardust
by C. Andrew Hovan
As was evident in his first trio releases for Criss Cross, pianist Bill Charlap is genuinely interested in beauty. In his hands, even the most overt swingers seem to find melody expressed as a prime ingredient, with a lithe use of space and dynamics providing the shading to his most personal expressions. While 2000's Written in ...
Eyal Vilner Big Band: The Jam!
by Jack Bowers
Simply leading a big band in 2022 is cause for celebration. Leading a big band as sharp and talented as Eyal Vilner's New York- based ensemble is cause for far more than that. Vilner, an Israeli-born composer, arranger and woodwind specialist, formed the band in 2008, one year after arriving in New York City. He has ...
Frank Wess, Eliane Elias & Victor Gould
by Joe Dimino
We begin the 730th Episode of Neon Jazz with pianist & composer Victor Gould with a song off his latest release In Our Time. We also travel down a familiar road with new music from Marc Johnson, Senri Oe, Gemma Sherry and Johnathan Blake. We also shine a spotlight on the debut release from Kansas City ...
Christian Sands: Renaissance Man
by R.J. DeLuke
Christian Sands is more than a jazz pianist, though he excels at it and it is central to his art. After all he started playing at about the age of two and first performed in public at age nine. Sands is a prolific composer. He has written music for television. He wants to do ...
Results for pages tagged "Frank Wess"...
Richie Pratt
Born:
Beginnings - Kansas City Richie Pratt (March 11, 1943 – February 12, 2015, born Richard Dean Tyree) was an American jazz drummer. He embarked upon a career as a professional musician on the New York scene in the early 1970s, it was as much due to an unanticipated sporting injury as anything else. Pratt was born into a musical family (his mother was a church pianist and a brother is saxophonist, Chris Burnett) and grew up in the Kansas City metro city of Olathe, Kansas. He first studied music via the piano, as well as, attended various music camps as a youth prior to attending college as a music major at the University of Kansas. Prolific Years - New York City Richie Pratt’s prolific tenure as a first-call percussionist on the highly competitive New York City music scene began after he suffered a career-ending injury during his second season with the Giants
David Billingsley, Charles Mingus, Bobby Watson and more
by Joe Dimino
This week we profile a lot of jazz musicians that we interviewed during the pandemic. We begin with Minneapolis pianist David Billingsley with a song off his new debut CD Hymns from Grandma's Living Room. We also feature Henry Robinett, Gary Smulyan and DreamRoot. Finally, we profile a new track off Bobby Watson's latest album Keepin' ...
Atlantic Records: More Giant Steps: An Alternative Top 20 Albums
by Chris May
Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun's Atlantic Records differs in one key respect from Prestige, Riverside, Impulse!, Strata-East and Flying Dutchman, the most prominent labels covered so far in this Building A Jazz Library series. Those labels' discographies consist almost exclusively of jazz. Atlantic had parallel interests in soul and rhythm-and-blues and, later, rock. This had consequences, as ...
Prestige Records: An Alternative Top 20 Albums
by Chris May
Along with Alfred Lion's Blue Note and Orrin Keepnews' Riverside, Bob Weinstock's Prestige was at the top table of independent New York City-based jazz labels from the early 1950s until the mid 1960s. Like those other two labels, Prestige built up a profuse catalogue packed with enduring treasures. Originally a record retailer, Weinstock ...
