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Art Blakey: The Musical Drummer
by Anton Rasmussen
“Jazz Washes Away the Dust of Everyday Life" --Art Blakey So said, Abdullah Ibn Buhaina (1919-1990), more widely known to the world of jazz by his pre-Islamic name: Art Blakey. Blakey was my first introduction into the musicality of jazz drumming and, in some senses, my introduction to a lifelong love of jazz.
Monnette Sudler: Daring To Dream
by Suzanne Cloud
She's not working. She's too sick. And it hurts to the bone that she can't play the way she used to because she has Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) lung disease and is waiting for a lung transplant. Nobody knows what causes this scarring and stiffening of the lung tissue, hence the idiopathic part of the name, ...
Jimmy Ponder: His Recorded Output
by Colter Harper
Jazz history has been intimately tied to its recorded output. Styles and genres are defined by landmark records, which stand responsible for representing the diffuse activities and artistic visions of a given musical community or individual. However, recordings are not simply glimpses of past musical realities but rather images of those realities filtered through various “lenses." ...
George Duke: The Master of the Game
by Jeff Winbush
[Editor's Note: The following piece was first published at AAJ contributor Jeff Winbush's The Domino Theory blog, and is reprinted here in tribute to George Duke, who passed away on August 5, 2013]I never caught George Duke live in concert. I never met the man in person. However, he did give me two hours ...
Inaldo Calvalcante de Albuquerque: The Man From Brazil
by Sammy Stein
Frevo maestro Inaldo Calvalcante de Albuquerque is known as Spok to players and friends. He is leader of the Spokfrevo Orquestra, which recently wowed audiences at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London. Between numbers, he spoke with passion about frevo music and his love of the genre, saying it was part of the soul and spirit ...
Doug Mettome: A Brief Life in Bop
by Richard J Salvucci
Douglas (Doug) Voll Mettome, the son of Nels P Mettome and Leafy Dawn Mettome was born into a prosperous family on March 19, 1925 in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he died on February 17, 1964. He was one of two children (a younger sister attended Northwestern University). Doug's musical career began early. His ...
Django Bates: From Zero to Sixty in Five Days
by John Kelman
It's rare enough to get to catch the premiere of a brand new work in a location as removed as Luleå, Sweden—just 100 kilometers south of the Arctic circle and in late May already experiencing 22-hour days and temperatures between 20 and 25 Celsius. But to get to experience the birth of a commission and to ...
Graham Bond: Wading in Murky Waters
by Duncan Heining
Organist and saxophonist Graham Bond was the most important and influential musical pioneer to emerge from British jazz in the 1960s. High praise indeed, but in his case it is warranted. His legacy might be defined less by the music he recorded and more by the impact he had on subsequent generations of musicians. However, that ...
Martin Archer: Making A Difference, Doing Things Differently
by Duncan Heining
Martin Archer is a one-man music industry. Saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, band-leader and label owner--Archer has made a virtue of doing things differently. From early beginnings in music forty years ago, he has built his label Discus into a catalog that is as fine in quality as it is eclectic in taste and content. Based in ...
Eric Harland's Voyager: Going Places
by Zach Hindin
Where most debut acts aim to make a statement, Eric Harland's first lead project, Voyager, is decidedly conversational. Harland, arguably the consummate jazz drummer of his generation, has staffed his quintet with a potent if precocious musical brain trust. The year after pianist Taylor Eigsti first played with pianist Dave Brubeck (he was 12 at the ...
