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George Mraz
Born:
A native of the Czech Republic, George Mraz was born in 1944. He began his musical studies on violin at age seven and started playing jazz in high school. He attended the Prague Conservatory in 1961 studying bass violin and graduating in 1966. While studying at the Prague Conservatory Mraz was deeply moved by the Voice Of America radio broadcasts of Willis Conover, who was his connection to a vast new world of possibilities across the ocean. "The first jazz I ever heard was actually Louis Armstrong when I was about twelve years old. They had an hour of his music on one Sunday in between all these light operettas and stuff they played on the radio in the Czech republic (then Czechoslovakia)
Ornette Coleman's and Horace Silver's "Lonely Woman" — A Disambiguation
by Artur Moral
Reality is filled with confusion and misunderstandings; some are suggestive or creative, while others are disappointing or, worse, malicious. The jazz world is no stranger to the first type: specific compositions are often confused or misidentified as if they were the same. Usually, this happens because of similar melodies or titles that are sometimes identical. This ...
Richie Beirach: Sea Priestess
by Scott Lichtman
Pianist Richie Beirach has been a foundation of the jazz community since the '70s, having released over 70 albums through 2022. His style combines romanticism with a dissonant compositional flair. His music, usually expressed in solo, duet and trio formats, sounds exceptionally intimate. Beirach could create chemistry with most anyone and has collaborated with luminaries such ...
Late-Period Art Pepper Box Sets
by C. Michael Bailey
In his essay, “Endgame," which opens the liner notes to Art Pepper: The Complete Galaxy Recordings (Galaxy, 1989), music critic Gary Giddens said of Art Pepper's professional comeback: “Pepper's sudden reappearance in 1975 was something of a second coming in musical circles. For the next seven years, his frequent recordings and tours, and ...
Jimmy Rowles
by Carol Sloane
Part 1 I had just finished my night's work at a long-since vanished jazz club in Greenwich Village called Hopper's. I was singing with The New York Jazz Quartet: Sir Roland Hanna, George Mraz, Richie Pratt, and Frank Wess. The year was 1977. Mraz said he was going to walk over to Bradley's* to listen to ...
Tommy Halferty, Cormac O'Brien, Greg Felton At Scott's Jazz Club
by Ian Patterson
Tommy Halferty, Cormac O'Brien, Greg Felton Scott's Jazz Club Jazz In The Round Belfast, N. Ireland March 31, 2023 Sergei Rachmaninoff surely wouldn't have minded. As Chamber Choir Ireland was tackling the Russian composer's choral masterpiece All Night Vigil in a Belfast monastery, across town in Ballyhackamore another ...
The Easy Way
by Richard J Salvucci
It is fair to wonder how Jimmy Giuffre would be remembered had he not gone off on to the wilder shores of atonality, collective improvisation, and free jazz with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow in the early 1960s. It is easy to forget that Giuffre was regarded as a rising star, both as a multi-instrumentalist (he ...
John Abercrombie: The First Quartet
by John Kelman
With the release of Arcade (1979), Abercrombie Quartet (1980) and M (1981), John Abercrombie's entire ECM discography as a leader is finally available on CD. Looking back at these albums and their position in his oeuvre, they are revealed as seminal documents of Abercrombie's arrival as a distinctive writer, improvising guitarist and bandleader, delivering on the ...
Joe Lovano: Cleveland's Ultimate Jazz Titan
by Matthew Alec
Friday, June 24th, 2022, saxophonist Joe Lovano's group Sound Prints (alongside trumpeter and co-leader Dave Douglas) delivered a tour de force performance to spellbound audience members at the historic Mimi Ohio Theatre in Playhouse Square as a part of Cleveland's annual Tri-C JazzFest. Seasoned group interplay between drummer Rudy Royston, bassist Matt Penman, and pianist Leo ...
John Scofield: John Scofield
by Ian Patterson
John Scofield has spent the best part of his illustrious career leading or co-leading trios and quartets, with just the occasional quintet or sextet outing. Even his only duo collaboration, Solar (Palo Alto, 1984) with John Abercrombie, expanded to a quartet with George Mraz and Peter Donald on three of the seven tracks. Yes, Scofield enjoys ...
