Results for "JazzWax by Marc Myers"
Bobby Spellman: Cool Revenge
The birth of the cool took place at 14 West 55th Street in Manhattan in 1947. There, at arranger Gil Evans's bare-bones apartment, musicians constrained by bebop's small-group limitations began meeting to develop a new sound. Inspired by Claude Thornhill's sighing sectional approach to orchestral jazz, the revolutionary arrangers included Evans, Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, George ...
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Jimmy Cobb (1929-2020)
Jimmy Cobb, a drummer whose sensitive, smoldering touch on Miles Davis albums such as Kind of Blue and Some Day My Prince Will Come gave the trumpeter's masterful sextet and quintet a sheer, elegant quality, died on May 24. He was 91. Jimmy began his recording career on Dinah Washington 78s in the late 1940s followed ...
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Byrd, Ellis and Kessel: 1982
On July 17, 1982, three virtuoso jazz guitarists performed together on stage at the Congresgebouw in the Hague, the Netherlands, during the North Sea Jazz Festival. Known then as the Great Guitars, the pickers were Charlie Byrd, Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel. They were backed by bassist Joe Byrd, Charlie’s brother, and drummer Chuch Redd. The ...
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Pete Rugolo and the Beaver
The death of Ken Osmond last week came as a shock to anyone who grew up watching TV's Leave It to Beaver in the early 1960s. The shock for me wasn't that Osmond had died but that he had been alive all this time. The word on the playground in the late 1960s and early '70s ...
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Norman Mapp: Nothin' But Soul
Norman Mapp was one of the finest male jazz vocalists of the 1960s, topped only by Johnny Hartman. Leading jazz players in the late 1950s and '60s were hip to Mapp, but virtually everyone else drew a blank. Odds are you aren't familiar with him either or the one album he recorded—Jazz Ain't Nothin' But Soul. ...
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Videos: Art Blakey Tour, the '60s
In the 1960s, drummer and Jazz Messengers leader Art Blakey shifted with the times and gave hard bop a more political, pan-nationalism feel. The more the group toured, the more Blakey yearned to incorporate the rhythms and vibe of other cultures. Here are five clips that recently went up at YouTube illustrating Blakey's evolution: Here's 49 ...
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Dick Twardzik and Jay Migliori
Boston had a heavy home-grown jazz scene in the 1940s and '50s. Top music schools were thee, a steady college demographic ensured a sophisticated club audience, and Boston was a major stop on the East Coast club touring circuit. Jazz musicians who benefited from the rich jazz activity were Serge Chaloff, Dick Wetmore, Charlie Mariano, Jaki ...
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More Harry James in Hi-Fi
Throughout the 1950s, Count Basie saw Harry James in his rear-view mirror. For James, Basie was an inspiration and a model on which to record. Their connection dated back to 1939, when James recorded Two O'Clock Jump, a trumpet-driven interpretation of Basie's popular One O'Clock Jump credited to Basie, James and Benny Goodman. The update became ...
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Paul Bley: Early Trios
Pianist Paul Bley is often thought of today as a free-jazz trailblazer and avatar of the avant-garde. But in the beginning, in the early 1950s, Bley was a swinging modernist, leaning heavily on bop. Bley led a trio in New York and recorded three albums—Introducing Paul Bley (Debut), Autobiography in Jazz (Debut) and Paul Bley (Emarcy). ...
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Sound That Seduced the World
Come on, let's fly down to Rio de Janeiro. Between 1956 and 1963, the bossa nova emerged from the small clubs along Copacabana beach and flourished worldwide before the Brazilian military coup in 1964 ended one of modern music's most potent and sensual genres. Here's Australian director Greg Appel's delicious hour-long documentary on the bossa nova, ...
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