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Charlie Parker: Birth Of Bebop - Celebrating Bird At 100
by Mark Corroto
Let's face it, there is absolutely nothing new to say about the music of Charlie Parker, unless (insert joke here) you happen to be Phil Schaap. Lao Tzu's quote “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long" is fitting. John Coltrane was 40 when he died in 1967, Eric Dolphy 36 in 1964, ...
Blue Note Records: Lost In Space: 20 Overlooked Classic Albums
by Chris May
For anyone with a passion for Blue Note, it is hard to conceive of an album that has been “overlooked," let alone twenty of them. For connoisseurs of the most influential label in jazz history, the passion can be all consuming: if a dedicated collector does not have all the albums (yet), he or she will ...
Lift Every Voice And Sing: Twenty #BlackLives Albums That Matter
by Chris May
Jazz has been inextricably linked with social and political protest since at least the late 1930s, when Billie Holiday made famous the leftist songwriter and poet Abel Meeropol's “Strange Fruit." The song, which has a power to move that is undiminished by familiarity, likens the bodies of lynched African Americans to fruit hanging in trees.
Charles Tolliver: Blowing Down The Walls Of Trump’s Jericho
by Chris May
Charles Tolliver has played with practically every major African American jazz stylist of his generation, and composed for some of them, too. In addition, he is the co-founder of Strata-East, the most influential label at the intersection of hard bop and spiritual jazz during the 1970s. Tolliver's long and distinguished career continues to flourish, with a ...
Rudy Royston: PaNOptic
by Karl Ackermann
Like many jazz musicians in 2020, drummer/composer Rudy Royston has felt the direct effects of living in the coronavirus world. The Texas native, now a New Jersey resident, found his streams of income drying up without gigs, but then experienced a fortunate twist of fate that stood him up. Head above water, the artist pays it ...
Jerry Granelli: Updating Music of Past Heroes
by R.J. DeLuke
"I've earned the privilege of not playing anything I don't want to play," says drummer Jerry Granelli, whose past is replete with the names of many greats in jazz for whom he supplied rhythmic support—sometimes force—over several decades. “That used to be a fear," he adds, “You figured if you turned something down, the ...
Bill Stewart Interview
by Mike Brannon
From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in May 2002. Upon joining The John Scofield group in the mid '80s it seemed like drummer Bill Stewart just appeared out of nowhere. They of course did a number of tours and studio dates together while word got around about Stewart's ...
Impulse! Records: An Alternative Top 20 Zeitgeist Seizing Albums
by Chris May
There can be little argument that a jazz label ever captured a zeitgeist more completely than Impulse! did during its original 1960s incarnation. In the US, the fight back against white racism was cresting, opposition to the Vietnam war was growing, outrage over the assassinations of figures of hope such as President Kennedy, Martin Luther King ...
StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: We Insist! - Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite
This week, let's take a look back at an extended jazz composition of historical importance that, unfortunately, remains topical 60 years after its premiere. We Insist: Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite is the title of a 1960 album by drummer Max Roach, featuring a five-part work composed by Roach with singer and lyricist Oscar Brown Jr. ...
Fire Music: When Jazz Speaks Out - Part 3
by Ludovico Granvassu
As Martin Luther King put it in the opening address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival, “Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with ...
