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Impulse! Records: An Alternative Top 20 Zeitgeist Seizing Albums
by Chris May
There can be little argument that a jazz label ever captured a zeitgeist more completely than Impulse! did during its original 1960s incarnation. In the US, the fight back against white racism was cresting, opposition to the Vietnam war was growing, outrage over the assassinations of figures of hope such as President Kennedy, Martin Luther King ...
Erroll Garner: Erroll Garner Plays Gershwin & Kern
by Chris May
The British newspaper The Times once nailed Abdullah Ibrahim's appeal thus: “There are few musicians in jazz who can make you feel that essentially all is right in the world." The late Erroll Garner is another pianist whose music could be similarly described. You might argue that Ibrahim's task is harder, because much of his work ...
Denys Baptiste: Pathfinder For The New London Jazz
by Chris May
Bandleader, composer and educator Denys Baptiste is among the generation of musicians, many of them of Caribbean or African heritage, who pointed the way for the younger players who have emerged on the London jazz scene since around 2015. Baptiste's contemporaries include saxophonists Jason Yarde, Soweto Kinch, Steve Williamson and Courtney Pine, and trumpeter Byron Wallen, ...
New York Contemporary Five: Consequences Revisited
by Mark Corroto
This 2020 reissue of the New York Contemporary Five recordings from 1963-64 can't help but draw one's attention to the social unrest occurring in America in 2020. In 1964 the riots in Harlem and Philadelphia over police brutality were followed by similar riots a few years later in Watts, Newark, Detroit, etc. In the growing civil ...
Rudresh Mahanthappa: Hero Trio
by Mark Corroto
All great jazz musicians are omnivores, admired for their ability to ingest and synthesize large schools of music. Saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa is one such omnivore, maybe best described as an alpha predator. His music, whether it is advancing modern jazz or fusing the Carnatic music of southern India with his American experience, occupies the highest level ...
Savoy Almost Gave Me a Migraine & More!
by Marc Cohn
I promised to play more from that fabulous 1968 Houston Person release this week--so yeh, that's here (Soul Dance, Prestige 7621) with Boogaloo Joe Jones). It's criminally out-of-print, as is our Carmen McRae centennial feature (the classic As Time Goes By on JVC, issued for 'a minute' as an LP on Catalyst in the US many ...
Nick Finzer, Jeremy Pelt, Jonah Jones and More
by Joe Dimino
As we continue bringing you brand new jazz amidst the pandemic, this week we focus on Nick Finzer, Keith Oxman, Naama Gheber and Sebastien Ammann, featuring their albums and interviews in which they speak about their influences and how they are processing the world without live music. Enjoy! Playlist Nick Finzer “Weatherman" Cast of ...
Kenny Drew and His Progressive Piano
by C. Michael Bailey
As a commercial release, the 12-inch LP Kenny Drew and His Progressive Piano has a curious history. It was also released under the title The Modernity of Kenny Drew and contained music from two recording sessions, one held in New York City In 1953 and the second in Los Angeles in 1954. Some of the sides ...
Fire Music: When Jazz Speaks Out - Part 1
by Ludovico Granvassu
Music often distills the truth in ways that make it hard to ignore. The history of jazz is intertwined with the struggle for the advancement of the African-American society that birthed it. Many of its masterpieces were inspired by events that marked the civil rights movement, which, in turn, drew inspiration from them. Let's look back ...
Prestige Records: An Alternative Top 20 Albums
by Chris May
Along with Alfred Lion's Blue Note and Orrin Keepnews' Riverside, Bob Weinstock's Prestige was at the top table of independent New York City-based jazz labels from the early 1950s until the mid 1960s. Like those other two labels, Prestige built up a profuse catalogue packed with enduring treasures. Originally a record retailer, Weinstock ...
