Results for "History of Jazz"
Shut Up, He Explained: On Talking Heads In Jazz Flicks

by Con Chapman
As an avid watcher of jazz documentaries, my thoughts on the genre may be summed up by the words of two of my favorite writers, Raymond Carver and Ring Lardner. Carver named his first short story collection Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?--the words are spoken by a character named Ralph to his wife Marian, who ...
Where Clifford Brown Learned to Play: Love In A Wilmington Neighborhood

by Arthur R George
Part 1 | Part 2 Robert Boysie" Lowery was trumpeter Clifford Brown's first music instructor in the early 1940s, and mentored decades of young musicians thereafter in jny: Wilmington, Delaware. He taught as a sideline to club work, a resource for his community but caring not so much about being paid for his lessons. ...
Jazz at the Blackhawk: Reflections of Cal Tjader’s First Live Album

by Geo Thelen
The historic Blackhawk jazz club (1949-1963) was formerly located at 200 Hyde Street on the northeast corner of Turk Street in the heart of San Francisco's tenderloin district. The smoky neighborhood nightclub launched the career of Johnny Mathis, helped Dave Brubeck find an audience, and gave numerous national artists such as Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk ...
Jimmy Zito: Young Man With a Horn

by Richard J Salvucci
So, we can start with a question? Name me another musician who played with both Ted Fio Rito and (maybe) Frank Zappa? Aside from Jimmy Zito. Time's up. No, it's not some kind of trick question. I doubt there was another. But wait a second, Jimmy Who? Even if you're a trumpet devotee, Zito's name is ...
Thad Jones Centennial

by David Demsey
On March 28, 2023, the great arranger, bandleader, cornetist, and composer Thad Jones (1923-1986) would have turned 100 years old. As influential as he was during his lifetime, that influence has grown even more pervasive since his death. Thad was a Detroit native, a member of one of the royal families" of jazz: His ...
Rhythm and Roots: The Influence of Jazz on Ska and Early Reggae

by Kyle Simpler
If any country could be identified solely by its music, Jamaica would probably be a prime example. Over the years, reggae music has become one of the most identifiable art forms in Jamaica, but this was not always the case. Reggae rose to prominence in the late sixties, and much of its roots are in American ...
Banding Together Against Segregation in Los Angeles

by Eve Goldberg
Once upon a time, jazz musicians in jny: Los Angeles led a groundbreaking struggle for racial justice and economic opportunity that sent ripples of change across the country. Most of us are aware of the seminal names and events of the civil rights era: Rosa Parks spearheading the Montgomery bus boycott; Martin Luther King ...
Groove Town: Buffalo Jazz And Its Legacy - Historical Insights

by Barbara Ina Frenz
From early on, Buffalo attracted musicians as a place to live and pursue their artistic endeavorsand they were excellent ones: Lil Hardin Armstrong, Jimmie Lunceford, Pete Johnson, and Stuff Smith. Dodo Greene, two masters of polyrhythm, Frankie Dunlop and Clarence Becton, as well as pianist and bassist Wade Legge grew up here. Two distinctive voices on ...
Hasaan Ibn Ali: Requiem (And Praise) For A Heavyweight Pianist

by Victor L. Schermer
"The new release of Hasaan's Retrospect In Retirement Of Delay: The Solo Recordings (Omnivore Recordings, 2021), which features him in privately recorded performances from 1962 to 1965, reveals his profundity, his overwhelming power, his mighty virtuosity. It does more than put him on the map of jazz historyit expands the map to include the vast expanse ...
Bebop, Beats, and the Drive of Beat Literature

by Arthur R George
"Mulberry-eyed girls in black stockings, Smelling vaguely of mint jelly and last night's bongo drummer... fling their arrow legs / To the heavens / Losing their doubts in the beat" of jny: San Francisco nights, announced poet Bob Kaufman's Bagel Shop Jazz." (Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness, New Directions Publishing, 1965; Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman, City ...