Results for "Frank Zappa"

Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa was born on 21 December 1940, in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. His parents were second-generation Sicilian Greeks, the family had arabian and french origins too. His father played "strolling crooner" guitar. At the age of 12 Frank, who had relocated to California with his family, became interested in drums, learning orchestral percussion at summer school in Monterey. In high school he had some more harmony training because he was an unruly senior, and was given permission to take some harmony classes "to occupy his mind with". In fact, he found the training very boring. The first time he had any of his music performed was at Mount St

Gergo Borlai: The Missing Song

By JIM WORSLEY

The Missing Song has been heralded as a tribute to Gergo Borlai's nine most influential drummers still alive and performing today. This is much more than just listing them and perhaps covering one of their songs. Borlai composed eight of the nine new songs on this album. He plays them all in the manner, or mindset, ...

Trout Mask Replica

By ERIC GUDAS

“No Instruction Sheet": Trout Mask Replica's Unfathomable Origin Story If you were a teenager who liked freaky stuff, on a June day in 1969 you could bicycle down to your local record store and buy a brand-new, shrink- wrapped album with a man covering his entire face with an actual fish head on the cover. A ...

Bobby Shew / Bill Mays: Telepathy

By NICHOLAS F. MONDELLO

Trumpet and piano duo albums are relatively rare. Louis Armstrong and Earl “Fatha" Hines' “Weather Bird" (1928) was a groundbreaker, although a single. Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie (Pablo, 1974) and Clark Terry's One on One (Chesky Records, 1999), where CT played with fourteen different jazz pianists, come to mind. Telepathy, a horn-piano collaboration featuring trumpeter ...

Vince Mendoza: Streams of Influence Flowing into a River of Sound

By VICTOR L. SCHERMER

Vince Mendoza is a jazz composer, arranger, and conductor of consummate originality, skill, and adaptability, so much so that he has for several decades received frequent invitations and commissions from the whole gamut of ensembles and performers like the WDR Big Band, the Metropole Orkest in the Netherlands, the Los Angeles and Berlin Philharmonic, and the ...

Stefano Bollani: Il Gioco Della Vita

By PAOLO MARRA

Con istrionico disincanto Stefano Bollani rilegge, in una personale versione in Piano Solo, una delle opere rock più famose di sempre, “Jesus Christ Superstar," nel cinquantesimo anno dalla sua uscita. Il pianista in questo ultimo lavoro dal titolo Piano Variations on Jesus Christ Superstar, uscito il 3 aprile, si diverte a giocare con la materia musicale ...

Jan Bang e il Questionario di Proust

By PAOLO PEVIANI

Il tratto principale della mia musica Mi interessa lavorare su cose molto concrete come il ritmo, la tessitura, la melodia, l'armonia. Come dice una mia buona amica, la cantante norvegese Sidsel Endresen: se hai tempo, allora tutto il resto alla fine si risolverà. La qualità che desidero nei musicisti che suonano ...

Brent Birckhead, Chicago Underground Qt., Roger Kellaway and Other New Releases

By LUDOVICO GRANVASSU

Second part of this week's ride through the new releases prairie with music by artists that cover a lot of ground, from Chicago Underground Quartet to Jesse Harris, from Valentina Ciardelli's take on Frank Zappa to Roger Kellaway' interpretation of Paul Desmond, and much more For the first part of the show click ...

Jimmy Haslip: Amperes Beyond The BASSics, Part 1

By JIM WORSLEY

The name Jimmy Haslip needs no introduction. So, he doesn't get one. Seriously, we had a lot of ground to cover and he had so many great stories and interesting asides to share that we are breaking the interview into two parts as it is. So, without further ado... All About Jazz: I ...

Gong gave me jazz ears - an investigation into the recent evolution of Gong

By ANTHONY SHAW

Introducing the band Gong, or as they are frequently known on the internet the Gong-band, is somewhat similar to introducing a primary color to a blind person. The more words used, the less clear the idea. Suffice it to say that a band which has existed for over 50 years, has included well over 50 musicians ...