Results for "Roland Hanna"

Roland Hanna

Sir Roland Hanna was one of the major figures in jazz. His diverse experience as a musician (pianist and cellist), composer, arranger, teacher, diplomat, and humanitarian made him a dynamic driving force in the development of the art form. Born in Detroit in 1932, Hanna's first musical influence was the gospel and rythm and blues heard in his preacher father's church. This was coupled with formal training in classical piano from an early age. His musical evolution continued beyond graduation from Cass Technical High School and through a two year assignment in the United States Army Band. After the army, he studied at the Eastman School and then Julliard

CTI Records: Ten Tasty Albums With No Added Sugar (Almost)

By CHRIS MAY

Few jazz producers divide opinion as much as Creed Taylor. He is a hero to many and a villain to as many more. His fans love him for his high production values. His detractors accuse him of dumbing jazz down with excessively sweetened orchestrations and other sales-oriented compromises. Nowhere is the dispute more heated than over ...

Shining A Light On Pianist Ron Thomas

By DAN MCCLENAGHAN

Pianist / composer Ron Thomas (b. 1942), was introduced to the piano by his father, Buddy, a self-taught player who learned the art of the ivories by analyzing piano roll performances. Ron was, according to his biography, three or four years old at the time. Those early lessons took root, and then along came Marilyn Monroe. ...

The Archive of Contemporary Music

By KARL ACKERMANN

In Lower Manhattan, sits a musical gold mine. It's the motherlode of recorded music though the small, brightly colored sign above a grey steel door provides only a cryptic clue. The dusty window display of rare 78 RPM records, broken into erratic pie charts serves as a vestige of the past and a cautionary tale about ...

Aaron Diehl: The Vagabond

By MIKE JURKOVIC

Cardinally invested, engaged and resolute on making the classical hop and the swing vice versa, pianist Aaron Diehl, double bassist Paul Sikivie and drummer Gregory Hutchinson take a deep dive into the many accords and asymmetries shared by Philip Glass and George Gershwin and come up victorious. Flush with tradition and vision, pianist Diehl's ...

Bruce Jones: Growing Up With Jazz

By LA-FAITHIA WHITE

The impact of living in a musical household, witnessing your dad and your uncles jamming in the basement can definitely create a positive and meaningful outlook for a young kid. Stories of growing up jazz come to mind for Bruce Jones, the eldest son of trumpeter, composer, and band leader Thad Jones. Bruce is also the ...

One Day in Brazil, 50 Years in Germany

By CHRIS M. SLAWECKI

Tony Adamo Was Out Jazz Zone Mad Ropeadope 2018 Some African cultures preserved their history not by the written but by the spoken word, kept by oral cultural historians known as griots. On Was Out Jazz Zone Mad, vocalist Tony Adamo aspires to serve in this same role, ...

Eric Dolphy: Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Sessions

By TROY DOSTERT

Although his iconic Out to Lunch! (Blue Note, 1964) is one of a handful of undisputed avant-garde jazz masterpieces, Eric Dolphy's stature has never quite risen fully to the level of the jazz titans. Some of this is probably due to his untimely death at age 36, just as he was reaching new creative peaks; and ...

CTI on BGO

By JAKOB BAEKGAARD

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." The echo of Charles Dickens' famous novel A Tale of Two Cities is suitable to describe the climate of jazz when Creed Taylor launched CTI. It was 1970 and acoustic jazz was in crisis. Following the invasion of rock, it had survived by becoming ...

Culture Clubs: A History of the U.S. Jazz Clubs, Part III: Kansas City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles & Beyond

By KARL ACKERMANN

Beyond the Hubs While jny: New Orleans, jny: Chicago, jny: Kansas City and jny: New York City were the incubators of modern jazz, they were by no means the only locations with an appetite for live music. Jazz artists whose point of origin could not sustain multiple venues ventured to locations near and far ...