Results for "Russ Freeman"
Results for pages tagged "Russ Freeman"...
Russ Freeman
Born:
Jazz pianist Russ Freeman, was a key figure in the career of Chet Baker in the 1950s, when the trumpeter was making some of his most distinctive music. Though his contribution was eclipsed by Baker's relationship with the charismatic Gerry Mulligan, he was an ideal collaborator, imparting focus and narrative shape to Baker's sound. Born in Chicago, Freeman studied classical piano in Los Angeles. By the 1940s, when bebop was taking over New York's hip clubs, there were few west coast pianists who understood its harmonic complexities - and pianists, with their more sophisticated theoretical awareness, were often crucial to helping other instrumentalists get to grips with how the new idiom worked. With his training, and a spare but flexible technique, Freeman grasped bebop's mechanics fast
The Pacific Jazz Group: Pacific Jazz Group
by Jack Bowers
West Coast jazz from the mid-twentieth century makes a comeback on this earnest album by the Pacific Jazz Group, whose music owes its genesis to the Pacific Jazz label, which recorded many of the Coast's best and brightest stars during that historic and bounteous era. The idea was set in motion by pianist Dred Scott, one ...
Stan Kenton: Salute!
by Jack Bowers
Stan Kenton, one of the most renowned and influential bandleaders of the twentieth century, died on August 25, 1979. Fortunately—for the sake of history in general and creative music in particular—Kenton's remarkable legacy lives on, and in a perceptive and open-minded world would endure forever. Even to this day, small but devoted groups of enthusiasts share ...
Bill Goodwin: Not Less Than Everything
by Victor L. Schermer
Bill Goodwin is like a breath of fresh air blowing through jazz. From the time around 1954 when he was in jny: Los Angeles and just learning the drums, and inspired by Shelly Manne, to today, around his 80th birthday, he has loved jazz and the musicians unconditionally. He has befriended and worked with so many ...
John Di Martino: Passion Flower: The Music of Billy Strayhorn
by Dan Bilawsky
When esophageal cancer took Billy Strayhorn's life in 1967, his work and legacy rested squarely in the shadow of Duke Ellington's world. More than half a century later, though the two figures remain inextricably linked, Strayhorn's genius has moved past the penumbra of his legendary collaborator and employer, occupying its own clear place in the jazz ...
Brazilian Jazz Quartet: Pepper Pot
Last week, I was listening to early Brazilian bossa nova albums from the late 1950s when I came across an obscure one from 1958. The album was by a Rio group known as the Brazilian Jazz Quartet. Recorded in 1958 for Columbia, Coffee and Jazz featured alto saxophonist José Ferreira Godinho Filho (better known as Casé), ...
Craft Recording's "Chet" is a Rare Win for Baker
by Patrick Burnette
"There's a little white cat out here who's going to eat you up." —Charlie Parker (to Miles Davis) Chet Baker and Miles Davis. Two trumpet players born three years apart. Both unusually handsome and slight of build. Both lacking, as trumpeters, the qualities most often associated with those brass alphas of the jazz ...
Franco D'Andrea: La sostenibile leggerezza del suonare
by Mario Calvitti
L'occasione è troppo bella per lasciarsela sfuggire: il Maestro Franco D'Andrea è a Roma (siamo nella seconda metà di Settembre) per registrare il suo nuovo disco presso gli studi del Parco della Musica, e siamo stati invitati ad assistere alla sessione. Sono previste due giornate, e il nostro appuntamento è fissato per il primo giorno, nelle ...
Octobop: Live @ Savanna Jazz
by Jack Bowers
Having recorded half a dozen creditable albums in studio settings, saxophonist Geoff Roach's central California-based ensemble Octobop has added something new and exciting on No. 7--a hip and enthusiastic audience. Live @ Savanna Jazz was recorded in January 2018 at the nightspot which bears that name in San Carlos, CA. “I've always thought the band was ...
Meet Davis Wilson
by Tessa Souter and Andrea Wolper
Jeopardy contestant, amateur pianist, dance teacher, actor, sailor, postal worker, our July Super Fan has lived all over the place and done it all. Now based in St. Paul, Minnesota, he met “zillions of artists" as keeper of the flame at the old Artists' Quarter jazz club. But he stumbled upon one of the most memorable ...
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