Results for "Junior Mance"

Junior Mance

Born: October 10, 1928

Junior Mance, born Julian Clifford Mance, Jr., in Chicago, Illinois on October 10, 1928 is a jazz pianist, composer, and recording artist of thirty plus albums as a leader and numerous recordings as a sideman. Junior began playing the piano at the age of five, but did not begin formal training until the age of eight. He started playing professionally during his early teens. He attended Roosevelt College in Chicago as music major. In 1947 Junior left Roosevelt College to join Gene Ammons' band and began his recording career with Gene. He joined Lester Young in 1949 for almost two years, and rejoined Ammons several months in 1951 before being drafted into the U

Bill Evans: Ten Essential Sideman Albums

by Chris May
September 19, 2023

Bill Evans attracts a special sort of fan. Clinically obsessive is a reasonable description. While far from undiscerning, we find something, usually plenty, to enjoy in every record Evans played on. And we want them all in our collection. Evans' hardcore fans include practically every musician who played with him. Eddie Gomez, his ...

José James: Why The Female Of The Species Is Groovier Than The Male

by Peter Jones
April 4, 2023

Jazz singer José James considers Erykah Badu to be the Joni Mitchell of his generation, a woman who has constructed a world of her own in order to tell her own alternative story. To prove the point, earlier this year he released On & On (Rainbow Blonde), a whole album of Badu songs, which he has ...

Beginnings Part 2 with Kenny Davern, Nat Adderley, Annie Ross and Junior Mance

by Monk Rowe
November 29, 2022

Bill McBirnie: Forever

by Chris M. Slawecki
April 3, 2022

Canada's Bill McBirnie is known around the world for his flute prowess in Latin, pop, jazz and classical music settings. For example, he was personally recruited by Sir James Galway to serve as Resident Jazz Flute Specialist on Galway's official website. McBirnie published The Technique and Theory of Improvisation: A practical guide for flutists, doublers and ...

Monsters from the Jazzlab

by Chris M. Slawecki
March 17, 2022

Rodrigo Almonte Distancia Odradek Records 2021 “Every piece of music on Distancia is an honest representation of a pilgrimage of different distances that I had to walk, musically and geographically speaking, in order to find inspiration and to create a representation of myself as a musical ...

Richie Pratt

Born: March 11, 1943

Beginnings - Kansas City Richie Pratt (March 11, 1943 – February 12, 2015, born Richard Dean Tyree) was an American jazz drummer. He embarked upon a career as a professional musician on the New York scene in the early 1970s, it was as much due to an unanticipated sporting injury as anything else. Pratt was born into a musical family (his mother was a church pianist and a brother is saxophonist, Chris Burnett) and grew up in the Kansas City metro city of Olathe, Kansas. He first studied music via the piano, as well as, attended various music camps as a youth prior to attending college as a music major at the University of Kansas. Prolific Years - New York City Richie Pratt’s prolific tenure as a first-call percussionist on the highly competitive New York City music scene began after he suffered a career-ending injury during his second season with the Giants

Paul Shinn, Dave Brubeck & Junior Mance

by Joe Dimino
February 14, 2021

The first tune on the 686th Episode of Neon Jazz comes from a Kansas City pianist Paul Shinn live from the Green Lady Lounge in 2015. That begins a theme of Kansas City-based artists throughout the line-up of songs to celebrate the Kansas City Chiefs reaching Super Bowl 55. We also pay proper respects to Junior ...

Junior Mance (1928-2021)

January 20, 2021

Junior Mance, a pianist and early proponent of church-infused soul-jazz who played and recorded with nearly all of jazz's post-war greats before beginning a leadership career in 1959, died on January 16. He was 92. Junior's playing channeled both urban gospel and rural spirituals and hymns, resulting in a style that exuded introspective soul. Junior's brand ...

Uptown Jazz Tentet: What's Next

by Jack Bowers
November 20, 2020

A tentet is a rather strange bird; too large to be labeled a small group, yet too small to be counted as a big band, it resides somewhere near the edges, mapping out its own musical profile. Some may rate that an asset, while others may deem it a mere hybrid, unworthy of their consideration. Wiser ...