Home » Search Center » Results: Jo Jones
Results for "Jo Jones"
Working the Rhythm Section: Tom Lawton, Lee Smith, and Dan Monaghan
by Victor L. Schermer
As Duke Ellington's standard goes, “It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got that Swing." The rhythm section (piano, bass, drums, with guitar and percussion sometimes added) is the core of the typical jazz ensemble. They set the frame for the leader, singer, and soloists and contribute their own solos as well. Even though they ...
“Jazz In The Key Of Light" Spotlights Jazz Greats And Rising Stars
Veteran jazz writer and photographer Ken Franckling has published a new book, Jazz in the Key of Light (Eighty of our Finest Jazz Musicians Speak for Themselves). It illuminates more than 80 musicians through a different format than the traditional fine art photography book. Images of its featured jazz artists, in performance or moments of personal ...
Mark Sherman: Truth Of Who I Am
by DanMichael Reyes
Vibraphonist Mark Sherman likes using the term consummate to describe musicians and colleagues that he's played with. While it would be difficult to speak to every notable musician that Sherman's played for and ask about their opinion about Juilliard graduate and professor, it is safe to assume that they would also describe Sherman as a consummate ...
Albert Murray: The Hero Of The Blues And Jazz
By Greg Thomas Albert Murray, one of America's most significant writers and thought leaders of the 20th century on the blues, jazz and their influence on American culture, died in his Harlem home on the evening of August 18, 2013. In his non-fiction books The Omni-Americans, The Hero and the Blues, Stomping the Blues, The Blue ...
A Great Day in Harlem: The Spirit Lives - 50 Years On
by Ian Patterson
This encore presentation from January 2009 celebrates Jean Bach, director of A Great Day in Harlem. Ms. Bach died on May 27th at her home in Manhattan. She was 94.It is probably the most celebrated ensemble jazz portrait of all time. Fifty-seven of the greatest jazz musicians gathered together on the steps of a ...
Take Five With Clay Grossman
by AAJ Staff
Meet Clay Grossman:Clay Grossman, a mainstay on the Chicago jazz scene for almost four decades, began his professional career at the age of the 19. He has been passing on his sage drum knowledge and wisdom to aspiring students of the drum- set over 20 years. He studied drums with Marshall Thompson and Ian ...
Jo Jones: The Drums, 1973
We tend to think of jazz drummers simply as guys who are fast with a set of sticks or brushes and good at keeping time. But like all great jazz musicians, the best drummers know the instrument's long history and the styles of all those who came before them. This was especially true of Jo Jones, ...
After 15 Years, a "Caravan" Ends Its Journey
by Jack Bowers
For nearly fifteen years now, I've been writing two monthly columns here at All About Jazz: this one (Big Band Report) and Big Band Caravan. That is about to change. Starting next month, the two will be pared down to one inclusive column using as its title Big Band Report. So rather than searching the AAJ ...
Eddie Durham: Genius in the Shadows
by Jim Gerard
On December 13, 1932, in the eye of the Great Depression that was devastating the record industry, the Bennie Moten Orchestra shuffled “on their uppers" into a converted church in Camden, N.J., and silently launched the Swing Era, three years before clarinetist Benny Goodman's formal inauguration as the “King of Swing" at the Palomar Ballroom in ...
Jamming For Dollars
by Bruce Klauber
The History, Care, Feeding and Booking of the Jazz Jam Session“Fusion and the new stuff? It doesn't offend me, but a lot of the soloists sort of sound alike, like they all learned the same licks from the same school. When I was coming up in the 1940s, it seemed that every corner bar had a ...
