Results for "Herb Ellis"

Herb Ellis

Growing up just outdside of Dallas, Texas, Ellis first heard the electric guitar performed by George Barnes on a radio show. This experience inspired him to take up the guitar, and he became proficient on the instrument by the time he entered North Texas State University as a music major. While in college Ellis heard recordings of Charlie Christian, his main jazz influence. After dropping out of collegeEllis spent time on the road with Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra, Jimmy Dorsey, and Soft Winds. It was with Dorsey that Ellis would record some of his first solos. He became prominent after performing with the Oscar Peterson Trio from 1953 to 1958

Tom Kennedy: Stories From Behind and Beyond The Bass

By JIM WORSLEY

Tom Kennedy has never considered himself a prospector, but surely has tapped into a goldmine. As if releasing a hotshot new record wasn't enough, the world class jazz and fusion bassist is in compositional bliss with a bevy of new material yet to be recorded. Kennedy and I talk at length about his new writing technique ...

Impulse! Records: An Alternative Top 20 Zeitgeist Seizing Albums

By CHRIS MAY

There can be little argument that a jazz label ever captured a zeitgeist more completely than Impulse! did during its original 1960s incarnation. In the US, the fight back against white racism was cresting, opposition to the Vietnam war was growing, outrage over the assassinations of figures of hope such as President Kennedy, Martin Luther King ...

Marshal Herridge: Chapter One

By JEROME WILSON

Marshal Herridge is a young bassist from Montreal who here releases his first CD, a set of energetic mainstream jazz, with a band containing three local musicians: guitarist Sam Kirmayer, pianist Andre White and drummer Guillaume Pilote. Herridge wrote all the music using a variety of familiar approaches. “HerridgeIn" has a brisk boppish melody ...

Chuck Redd: 40 Years On the Road

By MARK ROBBINS

Chuck Redd is a busy, busy man. This interview took place after one of his many sets during the North Carolina Jazz Festival, which celebrated its fortieth anniversary at the beginning of 2020. Coincidently, Redd is also celebrating his 40th anniversary of being on the road as one of the most versatile and in-demand drummers and ...

Nat "King" Cole: Hittin’ the Ramp: The Early Years (1936-1943)

By VICTOR L. SCHERMER

While he achieved fame and fortune as a pops crooner of the 1950s-60s, Nat “King" Cole firmly occupies a place in jazz history. Unlike Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney and others who began their careers as singers, Cole started out as a pianist, composer/arranger, and band leader, working small clubs in Chicago, soon adding vocals ...

Chuck Anderson: Original Jazz Works

By VICTOR L. SCHERMER

Philadelphia boasts three legendary guitarists--Pat Martino, Jimmy Bruno, and Chuck Anderson--who belong on anyone's “profiles in courage" list. Each has made heroic recoveries from disabling medical conditions, recovering their chops and playing better than ever. Anderson, who some time ago recovered from debilitating sleep apnea, and after recently suffering a massive coronary and spending two weeks ...

2019 Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland

By C. ANDREW HOVAN

2019 Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland Playhouse Square Cleveland, Ohio June 27-29, 2019 The year was 1979. Mainstream styles were on the wane and the major labels had largely abandoned jazz product, with the invention of the compact disc some three years in the future. The musical landscape in terms of jazz was ...

Nate Najar with the John Toomey Trio at Attucks Theatre

By MARK ROBBINS

In 1961, under the sponsorship of the U.S. State Department, jazz/classical guitarist Charlie Byrd toured South America. This trip proved to be fortuitous for both Byrd and North America for it introduced Byrd to the Brazilian Bossa Nova. Back in the states Byrd played Bossa Nova tapes for Stan Getz who then convinced producer Creed Taylor ...