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Jazz Organ Stories: Jimmy Smith
by AAJ Staff
By Pete Fallico Nineteen ninety-four marks forty years for Jimmy Smith on the Hammond organ. Although he made the switch from the piano in 1953, Jimmy did not really find his voice on the organ until the following year. Woodshedding took place in the warehouse where he and his father worked as plasterers. Jimmy recalls: “I ...
Jimmy Smith: NEA Jazz Master
by AAJ Staff
By Pete Fallico The following documents were submitted to the National Endowment For The Arts by the Jazz Organ Fellowship in early 2004. To the best of our knowledge our efforts were directly responsible for the eventual selection of Jimmy as one of their Jazz Masters for the year 2005. Jazz ...
Matt Wilson: Connecting with the People
by Celeste Sunderland
Two sticks beat incessantly on a snare and a tom while a third rests snuggly in Matt Wilson's armpit. Poised on his steed of a stool, arched foot tapping methodically on the high-hat pedal, the bespectacled, mock turtleneck wearing, just-turned-forty-year-old resembles a Revolutionary War hero. In reality he's a New York jazz musician on stage at ...
And Now... Sirone
by Andrey Henkin
2004 was a busy year for Sirone. The bassist for the legendary Revolutionary Ensemble saw one of that group's five recordings reissued for the first time (and become the only document of the group to make it to the CD era); a few months later, spurred by the resurgent interest in the group, the trio reformed ...
Cool Konitz
by Russ Musto
Lee Konitz is cool. He was cool even before it was cool to be cool and he was cool even when it wasn't cool to be cool. And he's still cool. Since his earliest days performing Gil Evans' innovative arrangements with the Claude Thornhill Orchestra in 1947, the alto saxophonist has played with a distinctive sound ...
Nina Simone: Recognition of a Signifyin' Songbird
by Marc Minsker
Nina Simone spent her entire life jumping. Jumping from one continent to another, from the South to the North, from the church to the blues, from jazz to pop. Her incredibly diverse repertoire demonstrates the kind of genre-hopping she undertook during her long and illustrious career. But what's most impressive about Nina Simone's work is not ...
Myra Melford
by Kurt Gottschalk
Tracing Myra Melford's influences is a bit like playing connect-the-dots on a map. She grew up outside of Chicago, but only came to work with that city's jazz pioneers in New York, years after seeing an Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians [AACM] concert while she was a student at Evergreen State College in Washington ...
So Long, Brother Ray
by Marc Minsker
Ray Charles Robinson September 23, 1930 - June 10, 2004 Regardless of where you live in America, the media's coverage of Ronald Reagan's death has overshadowed the passing of Ray Charles. Charles was certainly more accessible and universally loved than Reagan; he was even asked to play at Reagan's second inaugural ball. Even Reagan ...
Michael Marcus Takes the Iron Horse to the Blue Note
by Rex Butters
Widely traveled multi-reedist Michael Marcus speaks with the same exhuberance and enthusiasm he demonstrates blowing next to Bay Area master Sonny Simmons in the Cosmosamatics and fronting the powerhouse Michael Marcus Trio, which he leads into the Blue Note this month. “After the Cosmosamatics tour, I took the train to Milan to mix the new Michael ...
Chris Griffin: the Last of Goodman's Biting Brass
by David French
Chris Griffin spent the afternoon of his 89th birthday in a Connecticut casino lounge listening to a big band play hits from the Swing Era. Most of the audience was older, many of them dancers who applauded favorites by Glenn Miller and Frank Sinatra. Griffin sipped red wine in a booth with a good view of ...
