Results for "JazzWax by Marc Myers"

A.K. Salim: Blues Suite, 1958

June 5, 2015

One of the least researched and nearly forgotten master arrangers of the 1950s is Ahmad Khatab Salim—better known as A.K. Salim. He had a muscular, powerhouse orchestral style akin to Ernie Wilkins, but with less of a determined build and more instrumental complexity. Salim also had one of the finest Latin-jazz pens, scoring some of the ...

Stan Getz on Roost: 1950-52

June 4, 2015

On May 17, 1950, Stan Getz began recording for the Roost label as leader. On that date, Getz was backed by Al Haig (p), Tommy Potter (b) and Roy Haynes (d), and the quartet recorded six sides. Over the next two years, Getz recorded 59 tracks in all for the label, including quartet and quintet studio ...

17 Hot CD Discoveries

June 3, 2015

I finally had time yesterday to review the CDs I set aside over the past month to share with you. Here are 17 albums that I think you'll enjoy... Enoch Smith Jr.: Misfits II Pop (Misfitme). Pianist-composer Smith and vocalist Elizabeth Charles embrace soulful jazz of the 1970s, when songs on independent labels leveraged '60s spiritualism. ...

Carmell Jones Quartet, 1960

June 2, 2015

For years, trumpeter Carmell Jones was thought to have made his first recording in October 1960 in Los Angeles on a date led by tenor saxophonist Curtis Amy for the Pacific Jazz label. Two months earlier, Jones, at age 24, had left Kansas City and traveled to Los Angeles in search of studio work as a ...

Lou Bennett: Enfin, 1963

June 1, 2015

Lou Bennett, one of finest organists of the 1960s, is little known among many jazz fans today, largely because he rarely played in the U.S. after 1960. Bennett was a bop pianist who began his career leading a piano trio in Baltimore in the late 1940s, switching to organ after hearing Jimmy Smith in 1956. He ...

Interview: Mick Jagger

May 30, 2015

Last Tuesday, I interviewed the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger for my “Anatomy of a Song" column in the Arena section of this Friday's Wall Street Journal (go here). As readers of JazzWax know, my “Anatomy" column takes a deep dive into how an iconic song was written and recorded through interviews with the song's primary writers ...

Herbie Mann: Sunny, 1994

May 29, 2015

Who Were the Kim Loo Sisters?

May 27, 2015

The Andrews Sisters were from Minneapolis. So were the Kim Loo Sisters (above). In all probability, you've heard of the former but not the latter. For every headliner in the late 1930s and '40s, there were dozens if not hundreds of artists who didn't become huge. Reasons vary, ranging from bad breaks or lacking that little ...

Chet Baker: The Lyrical Trumpet

May 26, 2015

Orrin Keepnews doesn't get enough credit for the Chet Baker albums he produced on Riverside. In all, Orrin recorded five albums with the trumpeter in 1958 and '59—Chet Baker Sings: It Could Happen to You, Chet Baker in New York, Chet Baker Introduces Johnny Pate, The Lyrical Trumpet of Chet Baker and Chet Baker Plays the ...

The Things We Did Last Summer

May 25, 2015

Yesterday I couldn't get The Things We Did Last Summer out of my head. The song was written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne for Frank Sinatra, who recorded it in 1946 for Columbia under the direction of Alex Stordahl. Here's Sinatra's original followed by seven terrfic versions...   Here's Fats Navarro in 1949, a rare ...