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Mal Waldron: 'Searching in Grenoble' 1978
Struggling to record The End of a Love Affair on February 20, 1958, Billie Holiday abruptly ended a take for her album Lady in Satin with resigned frustration. “No good. I don't know it. Mal, please try to play... as loud as you can. I don't know the tune." Mal was Mal Waldron, her accompanying pianist. ...
Documentary: Art Blakey
Dick Fontaine remains one of the world's finest music documentarians. The British filmmaker also has had a knack for identifying major trends early and capturing them in their nascent form. Among his subjects have been the Beatles (filmed four days after Ringo joined the band at Liverpool's Cavern club in 1962), Ornette Coleman (1966), Sonny Rollins ...
Sonny Stitt: 10 Great Organ Intros
Sonny Stitt loved organ intros. The bigger and more dramatic the better, with plenty of keyboard articulation and suspense. When the organ opener was played just right, it came off like a groovy fanfare that set up his entry on tenor or alto saxophone. To celebrate this sound, I pulled 10 of my favorite organ openers ...
Pharoah Sanders (1940-2022)
Pharoah Sanders, a tenor saxophonist who initially was associated with free-jazz players in the 1960s, including Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Don Cherry and John Coltrane, but who went on to record several critical pan-African spiritual albums under his own name before developing a softer, more romantic sound in the 1980s and beyond, died on September 23. ...
Backgrounder: Frank Wess's 'Trombones & Flute'
Frank Wess was a powerhouse big-band tenor saxophonist and flutist and a lyrical player in small groups, especially those he led. One of my favorite ensemble albums by Wess is Trombones & Flute, which he recorded for Savoy in July 1956. The personnel featured a chunk of Count Basie's band, for which Wess played at the ...
Who Was Joe Kennedy Jr.?
Yesterday I posted on a new box set from Fresh Sound featuring the complete recordings of Ahmad Jamal's Three Strings between 1951 and 1955. In the post, I wrote that in the late 1940s Ahmad played in a Pittsburgh group called the Four Strings that never recorded. The Four Strings folded after Joe Kennedy Jr., the ...
Ahmad Jamal: Complete Okeh, Parrot & Epic
There's always plenty of talk about musicians who had an enormous impact on jazz's direction. From Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young to Charlie Parker, Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Horace Silver, Lennie Tristano, Shorty Rogers, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Bill Evans, John Coltrane and beyond. Always skipped over, for some reason, is Ahmad Jamal. Now Fresh Sound ...
Roberto Magris: Duo & Trio
I've known Roberto Magris for many years, dating back to the early days of this blog. In fact, I interviewed him in 2008. The Italian jazz pianist is enormously gifted as a player and composer. I love his feel. He swings, and his playing is always hip and breathtakingly beautiful. Now he's out with an album ...
Jack McDuff: Live at Parnell's, 1982
In June 1982, Brother Jack McDuff was in Seattle to play a week-long run at Parnell's, the city's major jazz club. Joining the organist was Danny Wollinski on tenor saxophone, Henry Johnson on guitar and Garrick King on drums. McDuff even brought along his own Hammond B3 organ for the date. Fortunately, the club's resident sound ...
Backgrounder: Bill Evans - 'Solo Sessions, Vol. 1'
In January 1963, producer Orrin Keepnews brought Bill Evans into the studio to record solo. It's unclear whether Orrin did this to bank away Evans tapes prior to him signing with Verve or whether this was done because Evans needed cash and Keepnews decided to record him early in order to advance him payment. Either way, ...
