Results for "Michael Cuscuna"

The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions Now Available on Mosaic Records

June 10, 2021

When you get your copy of Mosaic’s new five-CD collector’s set, The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions, you’ll be holding a master key to unlocking 1960s jazz. That’s a big statement. But when you consider how much was happening from 1963 to 1966, the years covered by this collection, and contemplate how many different ...

Michael Cuscuna: In The Vault Playing God

by AAJ Staff
October 17, 2020

From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in December 2000. Michael Cuscuna is one of the most important figures in the jazz reissue field today. He has been responsible for hundreds of releases for many companies, and he was fortunate to meet and befriend Alfred Lion during the final ...

Michael Cuscuna

Born: September 20, 1948

Michael Cuscuna (born 20 September 1948, Stamford, Connecticut) is a record producer, discographer and writer.

Cuscuna played drums, saxophone and flute during his teenage years, but was hardly professional material. Instead, he turned his attention to radio and recordings. He had a jazz show on WXPN and worked for ESP-Disk in the late 1960s, in addition to writing for Jazz & Pop Magazine, Rolling Stone and Down Beat. After stints at WMMR in Philadelphia and WABC-FM (now WPLJ) in New York as a progressive rock DJ, he took a position as a producer with Atlantic Records in the 1970s, recording Buddy Guy, Dave Brubeck and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. He also produced albums by Bonnie Raitt (Give It Up), Martin Mull, Luther Allison and Chris Smither. He also produced for ABC (doing reissues of Impulse! albums), Arista, Muse, Freedom, Elektra and Novus. From 1975 to 1981 he went through the Blue Note archives and recovered many unissued sessions which are now prized.

Bobby Hutcherson: The Kicker

July 26, 2017

It's unclear why Bobby Hutcherson's The Kicker wasn't released by Blue Note until 1999, despite being recorded in 1963. The album is flawless as far as I can tell. It swings, it's engaging, the musicians on the session were spectacular and there don't appear to be any instrumental errors or microphone snafus. If I were guessing, ...

Miles at the Fillmore - Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series Vol. 3

by John Kelman
March 21, 2014

By the time Bitches Brew (Columbia) was released in April, 1970—and despite receiving a 5-star review in Downbeat Magazine—trumpeter Miles Davis was already under fire from mainstream jazz critics as having “sold out," despite the densely constructed, improvisationally unfettered music being as unapproachable to an audience looking for accessible music as anything he'd done with his ...

Franklin Kiermyer: Further

by John Kelman
March 3, 2014

The number of jazz musicians whose lives and music have been impacted by John Coltrane is truly legion; few, however, have extrapolated the exploratory space travelled by the late, great saxophonist in his final two years as intensely--and successfully--as Canadian expat, one-time New York resident and now Oslo-dwelling drummer Franklin Kiermyer. While his international profile has, ...

Mosaic Records: Making Jazz History

by Bob Kenselaar
December 23, 2013

No one is more astonished by the longevity of Mosaic Records than Michael Cuscuna, the veteran record producer and one-time disc jockey who founded the label together with Charlie Lourie, a former clarinetist who worked in both jazz and classical contexts before becoming an executive at CBS records, Blue Note, and elsewhere. Arguably the premier reissue ...

Billy Vera: Still In The Game

by Scott Mitchell
September 10, 2013

It might be safe to say that a lot of people may know a little bit about Billy Vera but only a few people know a lot about Billy Vera. Billy is a singer, writer, producer, actor, Grammy winner, and music historian. He has performed with big bands, Billy And The Beaters, solo, and everything in ...

Wes Montgomery: Echoes of Indiana Avenue

by C. Michael Bailey
April 29, 2012

In welcome fits of serendipity, the manuscripts of previously unknown European classical compositions are found in attics, old churches or forgotten libraries and brought to light with no little fanfare. In the United States, there is an equivalent situation with hitherto previously unissued jazz recordings being revealed in the most unlikely places. In a recent example, ...

Maxine Gordon: The Legacy of Dexter Gordon

by Victor L. Schermer
March 19, 2012

Legendary tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon was a focal point of the bebop and hard bop revolutions. Later in his career, he achieved the status of an American icon with his lead role in Bernard Tavernier's 1986 film, Round Midnight, which garnered him an Academy Award nomination. His “homecoming" in New York City, after living in Europe ...