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Results for "Thelonious Monk"
Live from the Village Vanguard

by David Brown
I was at the Village Vanguard in NYC on Tuesday to hear Chilean tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana and her captivating quintet. With that experience in mind, tonight's lineup will showcase live recordings from this world-famous venue from Chucho Valdes to John Coltrane to The Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra. Then, works from Arturo and Chico ...
Kendrick Scott: Corridors

by Chris May
Some of the press releases coming out of Blue Note's Los Angeles HQ since the pandemic have been ripe for inclusion in British satirical magazine Private Eye's Desperate Marketing column. In this, the Eye prints particularly egregious, or just plain laughable, attempts by publicists to hook-up what they are selling with headline news events, or to ...
Kahil El'Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble: Spirit Gatherer

by Chris May
Anyone who was chair of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians for a decade knows a thing or two about keeping a group of independently minded artists focused on a common goal. Drummer and percussionist Kahil El'Zabar continues to demonstrate that with his Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, an acoustic, improvising trio with an African foundation ...
Charlie Ballantine: Jazz Guitar Without Borders

by Mark Sullivan
Indianapolis-born jazz guitarist/composer Charlie Ballantine has a special relationship with American music of all kinds: jazz, folk, the blues (his father was a blues guitarist, providing some of Ballantine's earliest musical memories) and contemporary rock. He is acclaimed as one of the finest and most versatile young guitarists on the scene today. Yours truly described his ...
London Crate-Diggers BBE Reveal Lost J-Jazz Gems

by Chris May
In his introduction to The Blue Note Years: The Jazz Photography Of Francis Wolff (Rizzoli, 1995), the late Charlie Lourie reported a remarkable event he had witnessed at the inaugural Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival in 1985. Where else but in Japan," wrote Lourie, can one see a field packed with fifteen thousand teens and twentysomethings roar ...
April Songs -Soulful Singles - Lesser known '50s players!

by David Brown
This week on the Jazz Continuum, a set of April themed tunes from Sarah Vaughn to Anthony Braxton, soulful singles from Sugar Pie DeSanto to Irma Thomas, plus a swinging' set of lesser-known jazz men from the '50s and more. Playlist Thelonious Monk Esistrophy (Theme)" from Live at the It Club-Complete (Columbia) 01:00 Charlie ...
George Dumitriu: Monk on Viola

by Karl Ackermann
In an NPR interview, avant-garde composer Volker Bertelmann--who wrote the soundtrack All Quiet on the Western Front (Netflix, 2022)--talked about re-imagining music, saying: You don't have to paint the river to express something about the river." That attitude applies to George Dumitriu's Monk on Viola, an unusually inventive reading of Thelonious Monk's work. The Romanian multi-instrumentalist ...
Bob Perkins: The Art of Listening

by Victor L. Schermer
This article was first published in November 2009. Bob is without a doubt an NEA Jazz Master. Please nominate him for an NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship. It's BP with the GM!" That's how the famed and venerable jazz disc jockey Bob Perkins signs on the air, with the code for Bob Perkins with the ...
Getting to the Jazz Point: An Exposé

by AAJ Staff
Jazz... famous for complex harmonies, syncopated rhythms and an emphasis on improvisation. The music at its best is a form of personal expression, valuing non-conformity and freedom. It has birthed and is to an extent, defined by musicianly quirks, idiosyncrasies and singularities. There are also a great many non-musical threads that bind the tradition together and ...
Marvin Blague: Epistrophal Astronomy: The Hidden Code of Thelonious Monk

by Geno Thackara
If you've ever wondered what planet Thelonious Monk came from, you are not alone. According to Marvin Blague, you're not wrong to wonder either. Like most jazz listeners, he was not sure what to make of Monk's clunky-sounding playing style on first listen. But where many of us gradually come to enjoy how the pianist used ...