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Dexter Gordon: Gettin' Around
by Samuel Chell
"The Tower of Power," “Long Tall," “LT"--you don't acquire such noms de troubadour by being retiring or inconspicuous in your approach to making music. Indeed, Dexter Gordon is such a forceful presence and commanding storyteller that he can be a heavy load, requiring nothing less than the listener's undivided attention. Gettin' Around, a 2006 release of ...
Horace Silver: Silver's Blue
by Samuel Chell
Horace Silver has always been an effective, if limited, catch-phrase soloist, an exemplary hard bop accompanist, and a brilliant miniaturist as a composer, contributing pieces that continue to surface and surprise with their inventive, irresistible melodies and inviting harmonic progressions. Unfortunately, the popular and critical success Silver realized with 1964's Song for My Father led to ...
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Live! at Slug's, NYC
by Samuel Chell
The drums and bass are miked too “hot," and the horns occasionally distort, but there are at least two compelling reasons to listen to this 2006 release of a 1968 on-location Messengers date featuring an unusual Blakey lineup. (No doubt some jazz fans will recognize Slug's as the unpretentious Bowery jazz saloon where Lee Morgan was ...
Sonny Stitt: New York Jazz
by Samuel Chell
"Genius" is a misunderstood, overused term. In music there have been only a few geniuses--visionaries who have tapped into the original, vital stream that we might consider musical consciousness and changed it--Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Armstrong, Parker, Coltrane. Sonny Stitt was not one of the geniuses, nor one of the innovators. Rather, he took the complex language ...
Sonny Stitt: Work Done
by Samuel Chell
Few musicians have sustained as many physical and mental shocks throughout the course of a nomadic, non-stop and frequently solitary career as Sonny Stitt. More often than not, the peripatetic saxophonist would arrive in town, call up the best local rhythm section and try to keep his spirits up for a five-night stand, finding time during ...
Duke Ellington: Complete Legendary Fargo Concert
by Samuel Chell
America's greatest jazz musician performing his own music on his favorite instrument--the orchestra--and not just any edition of Ellington's band but arguably his best, especially with bassist Jimmy Blanton and tenor sax great Ben Webster. What more could you ask for? An inspired performance? The band is tight and spirited thoughout this five-hour engagement. Faithful audio ...
Sonny Stitt: It's Magic
by Samuel Chell
This 2005 release of a shelved 1969 recording should hold the greatest interest for Sonny Stitt completists. The saxophonist is estimated to have led 150 recording sessions, of which I've now managed to collect 70--but given the current scarcity of some of his best recordings, including the out-of-print date with Oscar Peterson on Verve and the ...
Joe Lovano: I'm All for You
by Samuel Chell
No instrument is more synonymous with jazz than the tenor saxophone, due equally to the expressive capabilities of the horn and the legacy of great players who have been attracted to it. On the evidence of Down Beat readers' and critics' polls over the past decade, Joe Lovano would appear to be the favorite among contenders ...
Wynton Marsalis: Live at the House of Tribes
by Samuel Chell
Wynton Marsalis' dominance seems at times so complete that it's easy to either become suspicious of the musician represented by the vita sheet, or take it as a given that he's the world's greatest trumpet player, if not music-maker. Live at the House of Tribes offers little conclusive evidence for either position, but it certainly makes ...
Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker: Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945
by Samuel Chell
After the recent bonanza discovery of the 1957 Monk-Coltrane Carnegie Hall concert, this previously unissued recording of a 1945 Gillespie-Parker concert may strike some listeners as anticlimactic if not somewhat disappointing. There's no denying its historical significance--the only extended “live" recording of Diz and Bird from this seminal period--but collectors who have the Parker Dial and ...
