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Artie Shaw: Hop, Skip and Jump
Speaking of Alec Wilder (yesterday's post), the composer may have had an inadvertent influence on Artie Shaw's decision to start his Gramercy Five combo in 1940. Forming small jazz groups within big bands was nothing new. Benny Goodman, Bob Crosby and Tommy Dorsey had created them in the 1930s. What was different about Shaw's first sextet ...
Roland Hanna Plays Alec Wilder
Sometimes you wind up with the greatest albums by accident. A couple of weeks ago I purchased a batch of Helen Merrill CDs online. When they arrived, I began listening to them, one after the next. Three tracks into the fourth CD, I suddenly realized Helen wasn't singing (hey, I go into a zone when I'm ...
Benny Golson: Two New CDs
Benny Golson is one sublime composer and tenor saxophonist. For too long, Benny (who turns 80 on Sunday) has been unfairly pegged as a glossy Los Angeles artist whose music is more closely identified with the jazz of TV ads and movies than the jazz of art and meaning. This is absurdly shortsighted. Listen to Benny's ...
Solving the Metronome Riddle
"Ernie Caceres?" That's what I asked myself last Thursday after finishing my post on the historic Metronome All-Stars recording session of January 3, 1949. The date produced two singles, Overtime and Victory Ball, and featured an amazing cast of jazz giants. Except, that is, for Caceres [pictured], who was the baritone saxophonist. A solid player with ...
Interview: Buddy Defranco In '49
Sixty years ago this month (January 3, 1949, to be precise), one of the greatest gatherings of jazz musicians took place at an RCA Victor recording studio. The 14 musicians on hand that day were winners of the 1948-49 Metronome magazine readers' poll. Unlike other jazz magazine polls at the time, Metronome had a deal with ...
Anita O'Day Said It
"This fellow came back stage to me and said, 'Hi Anita, I just joined the band.' And I said, 'Hi, good luck in whatever you do,' you know. About two days later he says, 'Would you ask Stan [Kenton] to let me take a solo, please? I want to just take a little solo.' 'Okay, I'll ...
Bill Evans Said It
"Enthusiasm is infectious, although the artist never really believes that one specific performance to which an audience responds is really that much better than a hundred others. “We have noticed that our audiences seem to be getting younger, and this gives me new impetus. If we were just getting half a dozen drunks every night, I ...
Jazz CD Shopping in Paris
It's been about five years since I went record shopping. The old-fashioned kind, where you run fingers through CDs, listen to samples of them on headphones, and ask salespeople questions and get knowledgeable answers. Of course, I shop for CDs all the time in New York, but online, which is certainly satisfying but much less fun. ...
Alfred Cobbs Said It
"See, what happened in that era, when we go to record, we go down to the studio. The man say, 'Okay, Jimmie [Lunceford, pictured], what you got?' 'Okay, I got this number, I got that number.' 'Good, let's record it.' Now those were numbers that we had played on the road, and numbers that we had ...
Carmen McRae Said It
Since we are talking about pianists, what is it you look for in a piano accompanist? “That's a hard question. Accompanying someone cannot be explained by a singer to a pianist. He either knows what to do or he doesn't. An accompanist and a guy who can play the piano are two different things. You have ...
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