Results for "Ray Copeland"

Atlantic Records: More Giant Steps: An Alternative Top 20 Albums

by Chris May
July 13, 2020

Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun's Atlantic Records differs in one key respect from Prestige, Riverside, Impulse!, Strata-East and Flying Dutchman, the most prominent labels covered so far in this Building A Jazz Library series. Those labels' discographies consist almost exclusively of jazz. Atlantic had parallel interests in soul and rhythm-and-blues and, later, rock. This had consequences, as ...

Hard Bop: An Alternative Top Ten

by Chris May
April 30, 2020

Hard bop was the jazz centre of the world from the mid 1950s to the mid 1960s, producing many hundreds of immortal albums. Trying to whittle these down to a definitive Top Ten is fun--but it is a subjective and ultimately impossible exercise. In an attempt to dodge those hurdles, the list which ...

Ray Copeland

Born: July 17, 1926

George Cables: The Pianist’s Dedication to the Group

by Victor L. Schermer
October 14, 2013

Anyone who is serious about jazz will tell you that George Cables belongs in the pantheon of the greatest jazz pianists. Everyone, that is, except George Cables. Exceptional in every way, he is yet a team player. He sees himself as part of the rhythm section, and has always emphasized the group over the soloist. He ...

The State of Reissues 2010: Dave Brubeck, Art Pepper, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Joe Pass

by C. Michael Bailey
March 27, 2010

Formed by the merger of West Coast record labels Concord and Fantasy in 2004, the Concord Music Group possesses the largest catalog of recorded jazz earth-side. With such a rich basement, Concord can be expected to launch reissue series from time to time. The label's newest such program is the Original Jazz Classics Remasters series. Original ...

Thelonious Monk: Thelonious Monk

by Chris Kompanek
December 10, 2009

The remastered Monk is actually two mini-sets melded into one with the first quintet consisting of the underrated trumpeter Ray Copeland, tenor saxophonist Frank Foster and bassist Curly Russell, with the legendary Art Blakey holding it all together on drums. These first four tracks (including a beautiful rendition of the Jerome Kern classic “Smoke Gets in ...