Results for "JazzWax by Marc Myers"

John Chin: Anything Mose!

June 14, 2021

I loved interviewing pianist Mose Allison for The Wall Street Journal and for JazzWax in 2010. Mose was a singular artist with a wry sense of humor and a rich, home-grown keyboard style who understood rural wisdom and suffering. Mose relocated to New York from Mississippi in the mid-1950s, and by the early 1960s, he had ...

Maria Creuza: Queen of Brazilian Ballads

June 11, 2021

As part of my ongoing series on great female Brazilian pop singers of the 1960s and '70s, I'm focusing today on Maria Creuza. In particular, I'm looking at the 10 or so albums she recorded for Brazilian RCA from 1973 to 1982. Born in 1944, Creuza's specialty were ballads about heartbreak, and she was Vinicius de ...

Jack McDuff: Live in Concert, 1964

June 10, 2021

In 1964, organist Brother Jack McDuff appeared at the Antibes Jazz Festival in Juan-les-Pins, France. He was backed by Red Holloway (ts), George Benson (g) and Joe Dukes (d). Like all videos shot in France, the following concert video provides an up-close look at what made these artists exceptional. A special thanks to Chris Cowles of ...

Documentary: Stan Getz

June 9, 2021

In 1993, Jean-Pierre Larcher released his documentary of Stan Getz called People Time. Issued two years after Getz's death, the film was named for the tenor saxophonist's final album, a duet recording with pianist Kenny Barron. Today, the documentary is hard to come by. I found it in parts at the site of the Stan Getz ...

Documentary: Oscar Peterson

June 8, 2021

Documentary: Art Tatum

June 7, 2021

Art Tatum changed pop and rock 'n' roll. As Les Paul tells it, he was originally a pianist with a trio and determined to be exceptional. Until his friend played him a record by Art Tatum. Paul says he stopped playing piano and switched to guitar. Had Paul not heard Tatum and had he gone on ...

Interview: Judy Wexler

June 4, 2021

It's tricky business jazzing up the music of 1960s singer-songwriters. Most efforts either wind up a pale reproduction or they try too hard to swing the originals. Every so often, however, an album comes along that hits the tone just right. Vocalist Judy Wexler's new Back to the Garden (Jewel City) is one of these just-right ...

Dior and the Birth of the Cool

June 3, 2021

In 1945, at the end of World War II, the center of Western art, music and architecture shifted to New York. With Europe and Asia in shambles, new schools of creative thought took hold in America that emphasized individualism, minimalism and color. By the late 1940s, this could be seen and heard in Manhattan in the ...

Marty Napoleon Centennial

June 2, 2021

You'd think that a guy who played piano as impressively as the late Marty Napoleon would be an aloof character. After all, Marty was the guy who replaced Earl “Fatha" Hines in Louis Armstrong's All Stars in 1952. That alone would have earned him the right to be a cool, reserved cat. But that wasn't Marty. ...

Doug Raney: Meeting the Tenors

June 1, 2021

In April 1983, guitarist Doug Raney, son of guitar great Jimmy Raney and a stunning player in his own right, assembled quite a sextet at the studios of Criss Cross Records in the Netherlands. Joining Raney were two tiger tenor saxophonists—Dutch player Ferdinand Povel and Swedish hornman Bernt Rosengren, who doubled on flute. In the rhythm ...