Results for "Modern Jazz Quartet"

Jazz & Film: An Alternative Top 20 Soundtrack Albums

by Chris May
June 24, 2020

Jazz and the movies have a shared history stretching back almost a hundred years. The relationship came into its own in the US in the mid twentieth century. Elia Kazan's 1950 movie Panic In The Streets is an early example of how film makers used jazz-based soundtracks to enhance drama and atmosphere and create ambiances of ...

Prestige Records: An Alternative Top 20 Albums

by Chris May
June 9, 2020

Along with Alfred Lion's Blue Note and Orrin Keepnews' Riverside, Bob Weinstock's Prestige was at the top table of independent New York City-based jazz labels from the early 1950s until the mid 1960s. Like those other two labels, Prestige built up a profuse catalogue packed with enduring treasures. Originally a record retailer, Weinstock ...

John Lewis @ 100 and More May Birthdays

by Marc Cohn
May 29, 2020

May birthdays this week on G&M! Some big ones (of course): the John Lewis centennial, Dave McKenna @ 90, Arthur Blythe and Carlos Ward @ 80. It's also Stevie Wonder's 70th this month, and May celebrant salutes are in the house (Theo Hill, Ronnie Foster, Mel Lewis, and Groove Holmes) doing 'Wonderful' tunes. We also celebrate ...

Ian Shaw, Iain Ballamy, Jamie Safir: What's New

by Chris May
March 22, 2020

What's new? Not the dozen songs on this enchanting trio album. Most of them have been around for well over fifty years and people will likely still be enjoying them in another fifty. The composers include Duke Ellington, Richard Rodgers, Burt Bacharach, Jimmy Van Heusen, Michel Legrand and Leonard Bernstein. Musically sophisticated and lyrically literate, the ...

Aaron Diehl: The Vagabond

by Mike Jurkovic
February 16, 2020

Cardinally invested, engaged and resolute on making the classical hop and the swing vice versa, pianist Aaron Diehl, double bassist Paul Sikivie and drummer Gregory Hutchinson take a deep dive into the many accords and asymmetries shared by Philip Glass and George Gershwin and come up victorious. Flush with tradition and vision, pianist Diehl's ...

Modern Jazz Quartet

Active since: 1952

The Modern Jazz Quartet was a major jazz institution, a band that, counting a seven-year “vacation,” lasted 43 years. During a time when jazz musicians were stereotyped as unreliable, rarely sober and erratic, the MJQ played at concert halls while wearing tuxedos. They are not known to have ever been late, missed a gig, or disappointed an audience. The Modern Jazz Quartet’s evolution began in the Dizzy Gillespie big band of 1946. Due to the complexity of the charts and the strain that it caused in the trumpet section, Gillespie featured his rhythm section on an occasional number

Newk, Dave (And Paul), Fats & More

by Marc Cohn
January 24, 2020

Have you gotten used to writing or typing 2020 yet? I'm getting there just from filling out Gift and Messages paperwork and metadata! But let's get to the music, starting with a few 21st century tunes from Orrin Evans (putting the street beat to Ornette), trumpeter John McNeil and Russian saxophonist Makar Kashitsyn. Then Bobby Broom ...

Katriona Taylor

Jazz is Katriona’s passion and you can’t help being moved by her voice. Born in London, Katriona grew up with a background of music and tennis, her father is former UK and International tennis champion Roger Taylor. Seeking intellectual fulfilment, Katriona qualified and practised as a city lawyer, before her love of music enticed her to forge a new career as a full time singer. After gaining a Masters qualification in acting and singing at London’s prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama, and with an absolute passion for Latin music and jazz, Katriona began writing her own songs

Gaetano Di Giacomo

Drummer | Composer | Educator Originally from Italy Gaetano Di Giacomo studied drums and percussion in Bologna before obtaining a degree in Drums and Music Performance from Trinity College after moving to the UK. In the early part of his career, Gaetano cut his teeth working on the jazz and pop scene travelling extensively and performing at festivals and venues in Italy, UK, Japan, Finland, USA, France, Norway, Denmark. ​ It wasn't long before Gaetano attracted the attention of the UK jazz scene's top players. A versatile drummer, Gaetano takes an active role in many aspects of the London Jazz scene

The Modern Jazz Quartet and the Third Stream (1956 - 1961)

by Russell Perry
October 15, 2019

As the Modern Jazz Quartet, members of which were once Dizzy Gillespie's rhythm section in the 1940s, moved into the 1960s, they continued to swing in their own quiet way, even as their music director, pianist John Lewis, explored the third stream, a synthesis of jazz and classical music. Having been founded in 1952, the MJQ ...