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Bob Brookmeyer: Jack of All Trades, Master of Valves
by Jack Bowers
Bob Brookmeyer, a Renaissance man among jazz musicians who died December 15, 2011, four days before his eighty-second birthday, will be remembered as many things: composer, arranger, musician, educator, outspoken arbiter who brooked no nonsense and wasn't shy about letting others know when he believed they were not giving the music he loved the best they ...
Clifford Brown: With Strings
by Chris May
Clifford BrownWith StringsEmarcy1955 Recordings setting soloists alongside string ensembles were not a staple of the bop years, but, when trumpeter Clifford Brown recorded With Strings, he had two illustrious predecessors. In 1946, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie recorded four Jerome Kern standards with an ensemble arranged by Johnny Richards. ...
Neal Hefti: The Movie Years
Even among the giants of the orchestra business, Neal Hefti was special. Over just three decades, the composer-arrangerturned out masterful bop, swing and film charts with a distinctly jaunty and jovial feel. In the 1940s, his Repetition (1947) for Norman Granz and his bop charts for Harry James' band in 1949 are perfect examples. In the ...
NYJAZZ Initiative: Mad About Thad
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Mad About Thad is a superb homage to the man Charles Mingus once called “Bartók with valves." Thad Jones--middle brother of the Pontiac, Michigan dynasty that produced pianist Hank Jones and his younger brother, drummer Elvin Jones--was one of the true unsung geniuses of the trumpet. He was also less frequently recognized as a composer, except ...
Rodger Fox's Wellington Jazz Orchestra / Sammy Nestico-SWR Big Band / Gran Canaria Big Band
by Jack Bowers
Rodger Fox's Wellington Jazz OrchestraJourney HomeTbone Records2011 Alan Broadbent and Rodger Fox's Wellington Jazz Orchestra: a rendezvous that took many years to bring about and is clearly long overdue--but as the saying goes, better late than never (in this case, much better!). Broadbent, a Grammy-winning composer / arranger ...
Frank Sinatra & Count Basie: Sinatra-Basie: The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings
by Todd Gordon
Fifty years ago, Reprise Records heralded its first release. The label was founded by singer/actor/entertainer Frank Sinatra, who had been with Capitol Records since 1953 and was yearning for total creative freedom; something he felt was denied to him, despite his enormous commercial and critical success. His own first release on the label ...
Stanley Jordan: Friends
by Larry Taylor
In a successful career of over 25 years, guitarist Stanley Jordan has always displayed his versatility--equally adept at blues, straight-ahead jazz and ever inventive with classical masterpieces. His virtuosity and improvisational prowess are a given, and on Friends, he also shows his skill on piano on two numbers. Primarily, he brings in old pals from various ...
Concord Music Group Reissues Classic Chairman & the Count Recordings
By the early 1960s, Frank Sinatra and Count Basie had already cemented their respective reputations as two of the most versatile and enduring entertainers of the 20th century. When these two titans united in the studio for recordings on Reprise—Sinatra's own label, which he'd launched at the start of the decade—the results were historic. The first ...
Jay Phelps Big Band: Snape, UK, August 17, 2011
by Bruce Lindsay
Jay Phelps Big BandSnape MaltingsSnape, UKAugust 17, 2011 Trumpeter Jay Phelps, a native of Vancouver who moved to the UK in his teens, first came to the attention of the British jazz scene as a member of Tomorrow's Warriors. In his early 20s he co-founded Empirical, playing on that band's debut ...
Denise Donatelli: Songbird With A Grammy Nomination
by Marcia Hillman
Los Angeles-based vocalist Denise Donatelli won a Grammy nomination with her third CD, When Lights Are Low (Savant Records, 2010). An East Coast native and a recipient of classical piano training, she turned to singing jazz, wound up relocating to the West Coast and has since pursued her performance and recording career. This interview was conducted ...
