Results for "Hal McKusick"

Nick Travis: A New York Studio Jazzman

by Richard J Salvucci
February 28, 2020

It may well be that in the world of the Internet, no one is ever truly forgotten. That's obviously true of people commonly known as “the great and the good." Yet even in the more obscure branches of human endeavor, the principle holds. Nowhere, more so, it seems, than in music, and even in ...

Hal McKusick

Born: June 1, 1924

Five Solos by Hal McKusick

June 7, 2018

Yesterday, I was thinking about the late Hal McKusick. So I thought I'd share five clips with you of Hal playing solos: Here's Hal on also saxophone playing Don't Worry About Me... Here's Hal on You're Everywhere... Here's Hal playing I'm Glad There Is You on clarinet... Here's Hal on alto saxophone playing Irresistible You... Here's ...

Zappa and Jazz: Did it Really Smell Funny, Frank?

by Geoffrey Wills
September 15, 2015

The following is an excerpt from “Chapter 2: Early Encounters with Jazz" of Zappa and Jazz: Did it Really Smell Funny, Frank? by Geoffrey Wills (Matador, 2015). When, at the age of fourteen, Zappa entered Mission Bay High School in San Diego in 1955, his first exposure to the elitist snobbery of a ...

Hal McKusick: You're Everywhere

July 30, 2015

Soon after I started this blog in 2007, I interviewed saxophonist Hal McKusick at length. Hal appeared on dozens of my favorite albums and his heart-touching tone was unmistakable. In the years that followed our initial conversation, we spoke every few weeks by phone. Hal was always generous with answers to my questions and hugely encouraging. ...

Hal McKusick: 1924-2012

April 14, 2012

Hal McKusick, an East Coast jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger whose seductively smooth sound, tireless work ethic and flawless technique were admired by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Art Farmer, Johnny Mandel and every other musician he worked with since the early 1940s, died on April 10 of complications from a fractured hip. He was ...

Ryan Truesdell: The Gil Evans Project

by Victor L. Schermer
July 25, 2011

Imagine the commotion when previously unknown manuscripts of Beethoven or Bach were discovered. In the jazz world, the equivalent of such an event might occur with regard to the music of innovators like Duke Ellington or Gil Evans. Indeed, that is exactly what composer-arranger-conductor-producer Ryan Truesdell has uncovered with Evans' music. He researched and found a ...

All About Jazz Musician Database Tops 24,000 Profiles

June 18, 2010

The All About Jazz Musician Center is growing by the day and has just eclipsed 24,000 musician profiles. AAJ profiles work a little like Wikipedia, where musicians, fans, industry folks can create and maintain them. Most of the profiles are created by an individual, but we now create skeleton profiles from CD reviews and calendar date ...

Hal McKusick: Cross Section-Saxes

May 11, 2010

Hal McKusick was and remains a jazz musician's musician. Even in his earliest days in Boyd Raeburn's band in the mid-1940s, Hal's distinct sound on the alto saxophone was admired by bandmates Lucky Thompson, Oscar Pettiford and Dizzy Gillespie as well as contemporaries like Charlie Parker, Claude Thornhill and Quincy Jones. Hal's ability to navigate the ...

Back in the Saddle Again...Sort Of

by Jack Bowers
January 4, 2010

After an absence of more than 45 years, your correspondent returned to the airwaves on December 15, 2009 co-hosting a three-hour program of big-band holiday music on KSFR-FM in Santa Fe, NM. I was invited to share a part of my CD library by Arlen Asher, one of New Mexico's finest jazz musicians, who has been ...