Results for "Johnny Griffin"

Enzo Favata Tentetto: The New Village

by Mark Corroto
July 6, 2009

The ancient and the modern is the theme of composer/saxophonist Enzo Favata's The New Village. Together with his Tentetto, he fuses traditional vocals from Sardinia, his home, with the American jazz lexicon. Unlike the cultural larceny of Paul Simon's Graceland (Warner, 1986), Favata's music coalesces into an ingenuous expression of music. The saxophonist has ...

Johnny Griffin: The Best Of Johnny Griffin

by Martin Gladu
July 4, 2009

If big things often come in small packages, then Johnny Griffin's case as one of the music's top “tough tenors" really need not be plead. Affectionately nicknamed “Lil' Giant" for his diminutive stature, the late saxophonist was all but diminutive came time to rip through changes and defend his title--as would a proud, prized champion--as the ...

Carsten Dahl / Mads Vinding / Alex Riel: In Our Own Sweet Way

by Chris Mosey
June 24, 2009

After Paris, Copenhagen was the European refuge for American jazz musicians fleeing racial and sometimes political oppression in their homeland in the postwar years. Ben Webster is buried there (in the same cemetery as Søren Kierkegaard), Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin locked horns there. Such greats created a solid local scene, which continues to produce some ...

Rob Parton: Rob Parton Quartet

by Edward Blanco
June 16, 2009

Chicago trumpeter Rob Parton has been leading his phenomenal JAZZTECH Big Band for the better part of two decades now, but it was four years of quartet gigs at the Catch 35 Restaurant and Club in Chicago that inspired Rob Parton Quartet. Parton began performing at the club in 2005 with his favorite longtime drummer Bob ...

Pianist Antonio Ciacca Interviewed at AAJ

June 9, 2009

Antonio Ciacca knows a thing or two about multi-tasking. The New York-based pianist is a tireless statesman of jazz, composing music for his own small groups, arranging for various big bands and working as Director of Programming for Jazz at Lincoln Center. Adding to all of this, Ciacca and his wife are busy raising five children ...

Antonio Ciacca: Bringing People Together Through Swing

by John Barron
June 9, 2009

Antonio Ciacca knows a thing or two about multi-tasking. The New York-based pianist is a tireless statesman of jazz, composing music for his own small groups, arranging for various big bands and working as Director of Programming for Jazz at Lincoln Center. Adding to all of this, Ciacca and his wife are busy raising five children ...

Deborah Brown: Jazz Diva Extraordinaire

by Victor L. Schermer
May 26, 2009

Deborah Brown is one of the finest jazz vocalists in the business, a “singer's singer" with a magnificent voice and mind-boggling technique. Vocalist J.D. Walter mentioned her as an inspirational teacher and mentor in a recent AAJ interview but, despite being very possibly one of the greatest jazz singers of all time, due to her own ...

Hot Sake

Featuring the music of Johnny Griffin
Duration: 6:20
April 24, 2009

Tubby Hayes: Intensity: The 1965 Tapes

by George Kanzler
April 7, 2009

The late '50s and early '60s were a great time for jazz at clubs in downtown Manhattan. It was a heyday for tenor saxophonists; such giants as Sonny Rollins, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Sonny Stitt, John Coltrane, Johnny Griffin, Gene Ammons, Wayne Shorter, Booker Ervin and Tubby Hayes could be heard at cozy spots like New ...

Odean Pope: A Singular Voice in the Choir

by Elliott Simon
March 11, 2009

Grounded in the Baptist spirituals of his youth followed by a musical upbringing in Philadelphia with the likes of John Coltrane and organist Jimmy Smith as mentors, tenor saxophonist Odean Pope is the bridge between hard bop and free. His contributions to jazz are of major historical significance and through his over ...