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Stan Tracey: True-Grit Brit
by AAJ Staff
By Jack Massarik In London he's known as the patriarch of jazz piano, the godfather of British modern jazz and similar epithets that you earn only by being a significant player for a very long period of time. Stan Tracey first hit New York in 1951, when he took a dance-band gig on ...
Nedra Wheeler: Bass is the Place
by Rex Butters
Nedra Wheeler anchors any ensemble in which she plays with a rhythmic authority blended with a melodic playfulness. Her big bass sound drives a variety of bands, including Nate Morgan's hard swinging trio, Tracey Chapman's latest Roxy performance, the Women's Jazz Ensemble, and her own sextet. The LA native has taken her art to Europe and ...
Bernard Peiffer: Formidable
by Don Glanden
Now that the long awaited solo piano recording by Bernard Peiffer is available to the public, it is my expectation that many people will be anxious to learn more about this remarkable musician and the making of Formidable. In February 2001 I met with Stephan Peiffer in my office at The University of the ...
Barry Harris in New York
by Tom Dwyer
Barry Harris is one of the world's most respected jazz piano players and teachers, considered by many to be the foremost interpreter of the music of Bud Powell, Tadd Dameron and Thelonious Monk. For more than half a century, Harris has played with the giants of jazz including Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Cannonball Adderley ...
Bobo Stenson
by Andrey Henkin
Many listeners and writers of jazz (this correspondent included) have been at times guilty of perpetuating the myth of the 'Nordic Sound' in jazz. Not only is this inaccurate, it is also a gross simplification of a culturally diverse region. Pianist Bobo Stenson, himself probably a victim of this categorization during his career, stated in a ...
Andrew Hill: Time Lines and Full Circles
by Paul Olson
Andrew Hill's a busy man. “I'm playing in New York in March and after that, I'm going to Europe for a European promo for a few days with the quintet, he smiles. “The next month, I'm touring Europe then touring Europe again a bit after that. I have a commitment to do a ...
Regina Carter: Improvising a Life in Jazz
by AAJ Staff
Regina Carter's mother had everything planned out. Her precocious daughter, whose violin teacher was so impressed with Regina's musical potential that she was placed in an accelerated Suzuki program at age 4, would become a classical violinist. Regina would play in a respected symphony orchestra -- preferably in her hometown of Detroit. She would earn a ...
Steve Lacy's Japan Tours: 1975-2004
by Gilles Laheurte
As stated in my first article about Steve Lacy and Japan, there is a great deal of mystery about his deep inner connection with Japan, and I reiterate that it should remain that way. Yet, his recorded output during his 12 completed tours is so important--in terms of the music, not in terms of the number ...
Thinking Mingus
by Bill Siegel
"But jazz is decadent bourgeois music," I was told, for that is what the Soviet press had hammered into Russian heads. “It's my music," I said, “and I wouldn't give up jazz for a world revolution." --Langston Hughes“No matter what LeRoi Jones says to the contrary, the essence of this music, this 'way of ...
Lisa Thorson's Opening of the Jazz Stage
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by Norman Weinstein
Jazz composer and vocalist Lisa Thorson has long been a leader in making live jazz accessible to the broadest possible audience. In the words of the blues great Sonny Boy Williamson, she “brings eyesight to the blind", and from “just one word from her lips,... the deaf can hear." To achieve such miraculous feats, Thorson, unlike ...
