Results for "Ruby Braff"

Ruby Braff

Born: March 16, 1927

Ruby Braff began his jazz career as an out-of-time traditionalist playing with veteran jazzmen of an earlier age, and rose to establish his own standing as one of the handful of leading artists playing in traditional and mainstream idioms.

He did so on the back of one of the most beautiful instrumental sounds in jazz, a prodigious gift for phrasing melody, and an acute harmonic sense which revealed his awareness of more modernist developments in jazz. Louis Armstrong remained his touchstone and only avowed master, but his playing also reflected the influence of musicians like Bix Beiderbecke and Bobby Hackett. His musical voice, though, was always very much his own.

Todd Robbins, Part 2: Dave McKenna as saloon pianist…

by Mike Jones
October 26, 2026

In Part 2 of their conversation, the magician, sideshow artist, and ragtime pianist tells Jonesy about his mid-80s job emceeing the piano room at the Fortune Garden Pavilion, where he brought on Tommy Flanagan and Dave McKenna under a greenhouse roof. Dave McKenna asked Todd Robbins to introduce him as “a saloon pianist," so Todd did, ...

Take Five with Pianist Lenore Raphael

by AAJ Staff
October 25, 2026

I'm a jazz pianist, Steinway artist, jazz educator, and host of Lenore Raphael's JazzSpot on purejazzradio.com. Music has been part of my life since I was three years old--maybe even earlier! I began with classical studies before discovering jazz at age 12. Since then, I've enjoyed a full career performing at major clubs and ...

Albert Marquès / Rachel Therrien: Dialogue (Vol. I & II)

by Artur Moral
January 30, 2026

Except for the most radically experimental music, in a jazz context increasingly dominated by written scores that leave little room for improvisation, the appearance of a musical diptych centered on the latter is undoubtedly most welcome. This applies both to individual discourse and to creation shared simultaneously by various performers. Granted, many listeners may be absolutely ...

Chet Baker: A Conversation in 1977

by Rob Rosenblum
January 13, 2025

This interview took place in 1975 when Baker was making frequent trips to the Albany, New York area. At the time of this interview Baker, was playing with saxophonist Nick Brignola at Shaker's Steak House in Troy, N.Y. Back in the early 1950's, a young trumpet player whose personal appearance and demeanor was more ...

Fats Waller 120 - Marshall Allen 100

by David Brown
May 28, 2024

In this episode, we celebrate two artists. In the first set, pianist and songwriter Fats Waller who was born 120 years ago this week. In the second set, we celebrate Philadelphia's ambassador to the cosmos, Marshall Allen leader of the Sun Ra Arkestra, who turned 100 on May 25. These two men's lives span the entire ...

A Fanfare of Trumpets from Yazz Ahmed to Bubber Miley + Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Band

by David Brown
May 31, 2023

This week on the Jazz Continuum we get ready for Philly Shows with Helen Sung, Fieldwork and Craig Taborn. Live from Haverford College with Marian McPartland and Sun Ra. A fanfare of trumpets gather with Ruby Braff, Bubber Miley, Freddie Hubbard, Roy Eldridge, Yazz Ahmed and International Sweetheart of Rhythm Clora Bryant. We dig into a ...

The Essential W. Royal Stokes: Jazz, Blues, and Beyond 2020

by C. Michael Bailey
March 6, 2021

The Essential W. Royal Stokes: Jazz, Blues, and Beyond W. Royal Stokes 560 Pages ISBN: # 979-8611405475 Hannah Books 2020 Musician-actor Martin Mull once expressed that, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." That is certainly good for a laugh, but there is a lot of music out ...

November Birthday Salutes

by Marc Cohn
November 23, 2018

It's time to celebrate November birthdays! Among the worthies, we also celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Phil Woods recording Alive and Well in Paris, which was slated for release on Impulse! in the States, but never released here; there must be a story about this, but I'm in the dark. It is an absolutely stunning ...

Al Muirhead: Northern Adventures

by Jack Bowers
February 28, 2017

When you've been a musician as long as Al Muirhead has, you not only earn many friends in the business, you also recognize who among them can play. For Northern Adventures, Muirhead's second album as leader of his own group, the eighty-one-year-old Canadian trumpeter assembled a who's who of the finest musicians his country has to ...