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Harvie S: Building A Better Jam Session
by Peter Rubie
Jam sessions are strange creatures. A friend recently told me a story about a session he went to in a private home where a visiting pianist had basically come loaded for bear and would not relinquish the piano chair until she was finally thrown off by the host so others could have a turn. I don't ...
Songbirds: An Interview with Singer Judy Niemack
by Peter Rubie
Apart from their mutual respect for each other, and the fact that they are jazz singers, there isn't a lot, superficially, that you would think Judy Niemack and Jay Clayton have in common. But you'd be wrong. Both have a classical music background, Clayton at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, before moving ...
One of the Boys in the Band: Discovering my Dad
by George Gozzard
George Gozzard was the baby of a pretty large family the jazz trumpeter Harry Roy Gozzard raised. Harry was one of those great working musicians we heard about in the 1930s and through the 1950s who played jazz and dance band gigs interchangeably. These were the days of months long (if not longer) engagements musicians would ...
My 'Other' Brother -- Remembering Jack Wilkins: 1944-2023
by Peter Rubie
Prologue This piece, in a shorter form, appeared as a post on my Facebook page a few days after my friend Jack Wilkins died on May 5, 2023. On behalf of a group of close friends I also helped write a remembrance piece for WBGO, one or two quotes of which are also included here. I ...
Scenes From The Life Of A Young Jazz Musician
by Jack Wilkins
Foreword Jack Wilkins is an iconic jazz guitarists of the 1970s who is still playing his ass off today, after a career leading and accompanying a host of groups with musicians such as Stan Getz, Buddy Rich, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Jimmy McGriff, Zoot Sims, Sonny Stitt, Eddie Gomez, Jack DeJohnette, Phil Woods, and the Brecker ...
I Hear a Rhapsody
by David Caudill
We put out a call to visitors to AAJ to tell us their stories about how jazz has impacted, indeed shaped their lives. David Caudill heard the call. David has lived in Cincinnati for three decades and spent a long career writing, both in journalism and for a short while in corporate communications. He ...
It's Not Your Fault—Just Evolve
by Christian Howes
Christian Howes is arguably one of America's finest jazz violinists, standing alongside past masters such as Joe Venuti, Stuff Smith, and John Blake. Many contemporary jazz violinists embrace a broad range of non-jazz styles as players because of choice or circumstance. They think of themselves as improvising violinists who play jazz. But like Jean-Luc Ponty before ...
Fit As A Fiddle: How the Violin Helped Shape Jazz, Part 2
by Peter Rubie
Part 1 | Part 2 This is Now I hate to confess this, but I've never been that keen on Stephane Grappelli's playing, as masterful and brilliant as he assuredly was. ("He plays with an accent," violinist and Berklee professor Rob Thomas confided to me when I hesitantly mentioned this to him. What Rob ...
Fit As A Fiddle: How The Violin Helped Shape Jazz, Part 1
by Peter Rubie
Part 1 | Part 2 That was then... Considering jazz is an art form that mostly makes it up as it goes along, it's ironically appropriate that printed records--i.e., data--from the days of its birth are decidedly sparse. We know, at least, that during the 18th and 19th Centuries in New Orleans white plantation ...
Some Kind Of NormalThe new, East Coast Jazz Festival
by Peter Rubie
Todd Barkan is a Jazz Club owner, which is a bit like saying Sonny Rollins is a saxophonist. It doesn't really tell you very much unless you already know about them. But it's a start. After a year of the plague (Covid-19 in case you're in doubt), being a club owner is not unlike being a ...