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Andrew Cyrille: Bringer of Forms
by AAJ Staff
This article was submitted on behalf of Hank Shteamer. Percussionist Andrew Cyrille is as self-assured an artist as one is likely to encounter. “[Art is] all about trying to bring a form to life," he explains, “or give life to a form." Much of Cyrille's best work falls in the category of the ...
Nina Simone: The High Priestess Goes Home
by Ed Hamilton
Eunice Waymon was her real name, and Nina Simone became her pianistic claim to fame in the realm of music that started in the turbulent days of the Civil Rights Movement. Her voice and music ceased to be Monday, April 21st, in the South of France. She had recently completed her Millennium Tour with a second ...
Teddy Edwards: L.A. Tenor Legend of Central Avenue
by Ed Hamilton
Teddy Edwards was an unsung hero of magnificent ramifications---not only a jazz musician who played a tremendous amount of tenor saxophone, but an arranger, writer, composer and lyricist, died of cancer. Edwards was a cornerstone of the Los Angeles Central Avenue jazz club history. Club Alabam, Dunbar Hotel, Clark Hotel, The Plantation, were the club scenes ...
Charlie Hunter
by Celeste Sunderland
Charlie Hunter takes his mp3 player on the road, but at home in New Jersey the guitarist turns to the turntable. “I listen to a lot of music on vinyl, from the Blue Note and Verve jazz eras," he said one morning last month while balancing a telephone receiver and his four-month-old baby. ...
Meet Carmine D'Amico
by AAJ Staff
Carmine D'Amico is a studio and performance musician whose outstanding musical legacy and credits are too numerous to cover totally in this brief biographical sketch. I was fortunate to meet and get to know him through his association with my oldest brother, Richie Pratt. Carmine and Richie are still great friends and worked together often on ...
Charlie Biddle: Father of Montreal Jazz Festival
by Ed Hamilton
Charlie Biddle and his bass fiddle brought Jazz to Montreal and all of Quebec. Biddle died February 5th and only one city in North America really knows who he was and why he was so important to that city. Charlie as he was known to all was a bassist extraordinaire and jazz club restaurateur ...
Jonah Smith is Blowing Up the Spot
by Robert Krevolin
Through our sense of taste we are able to capture an essence and keep hold of it for a bit. We think about it; how it felt, the texture and sensations as our mind paints the picture. Be it good or bad, taste is a preserver of that essence. You may choose to relish in one, ...
Encore: Teddy Charles
by AAJ Staff
Over a post blizzard mid-February brunch just off Central Park West, one of jazz' neglected masters, Teddy Charles (who turns 75 this month) recalled one of his first recordings - clarinetist Buddy DeFranco's 1949 sextet featuring drummer Max Roach and guitarist Jimmy Raney. Six months prior was the vibraphonist's recording debut which was with Chubby Jackson's ...
Ray Barretto: Homage to Art Blakey
by AAJ Staff
By Russ Musto As he approaches his 74th birthday, Ray Barretto is the world's most famous conga player, the elder statesman of salsa. Unlike most other septuagenarians Barretto is neither looking forward to retirement or back on his career. Instead, he is reveling in a new role--that of leader of a jazz band. ...
Pianist Dave Burrell
by Matt Rand
"I just played at the Philadelphia Art Museum ," says pianist Dave Burrell. “It was a white tablecloth kind of night. It was right after the big snowstorm, and everybody was just wanting to relax. So I played ballads. I knew from the clientele that it wasn't a kind of audience that wanted to go into ...
