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Thelonious Monk: Palo Alto
There are no bad recordings of pianist Thelonious Monk together with tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse. Well, maybe two—when they were in a top-notch group assembled in the late 1940s to back a so-so vocalist named Frankie Passions, who recorded two lackluster pop songs. But starting in the fall of 1958, at New York's Five Spot, they ...
Richie Beirach: Exploring Who Matters Most Among the Jazz Pianists
by Victor L. Schermer
[The following is a commentary on pianist Richie Beirach's 2020 e-book The Historical Lineage of Modern Jazz Piano: The 10 Essential Players (Conversations between Richie Beirach and Michael Lake), downloadable for free here.] Jazz piano has always garnered (no intended reference to Erroll Garner) special interest among the instruments because it is truly an ...
One Lineup, Two Approaches
by Jerome Wilson
These two releases have the same instrumental lineup, a jazz quintet fronted by saxophone and trumpet plus a string quartet. They even use the same trumpet player, Michael Rodriguez. However the two CDs take this formation down different paths. Brian Landrus For Now Blueland 2020 Baritone ...
Thelonious Monk: Palo Alto
by Mike Jurkovic
Earth-shattering? The best live Thelonious Monk recording ever? Who knows? Probably not. But it is Monk, so Palo Alto, comes to us with all the scholarly fandom brouhaha we accord these wonderful little things that gratefully drop in our laps from troubled time to troubled time. For anyone not paying attention to the jazz ...
Great Young Singers - Cécile McLorin Salvant, Charenee Wade, Jazzmeia Horn, Veronica Swift
by Russell Perry
In 1987, the first Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition was held. Among the winners were Marcus Roberts and Joey DeFrancesco. On a roughly annual basis, the competition is held, now focussing on a different instrument each year and renamed in 2019 the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Competition. The competitions in 2010 ...
Charlie Parker: Ten High Flying Albums Of Paradigm Shifting Genius
by Chris May
Born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1920, and brought up across the state line in anything-goes, jazz-friendly Kansas City, Missouri, controlled from the mid 1920s to the late 1930s by the spectacularly corrupt politician Tom Prendergast, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker lived fast and hard and passed in 1955, aged only 34 years. A founding father of ...
Piano Forte: Chick Corea & Ran Blake/Frank Carlberg
by Doug Collette
Originally classified as a percussion device, the piano these days is also generally considered a stringed instrument and, certainly under the right hands, those eighty-eight keys have the ability to conjure up fluid lines that effectively combine melody and rhythm. It is hardly a surprise then that such a versatile tool has evolved into one of ...
Charlie Parker: In Praise of Bird on His 100th Birthday!
by Victor L. Schermer
A hundred years ago, on August 29, 1920, soon after jazz was born, Charlie Parker came into this world, and in the 35 years of a life cut short by addictions and impulse-driven living, he changed the face of the music. His innovations as one of the creators of bebop and his stunning sound and virtuosic ...
Heavy Rotation For A Pandemic Summer
by Mark Corroto
In the summer of 2020 one result of the COVID-19 isolation, and artists inability to tour and perform is that they have time to deal with projects halted by this pandemic. Musicians, producers, and engineers have mixed, mastered and released an abundance of music. Many of the titles have been, and will be covered by our ...
Chick Corea: Plays
by Mike Jurkovic
As we huddle and binge on our national and moral failings, having as buoyant and engaging an artist come into our homes, as Chick Corea does on Plays, is simply a great, beautiful thing, and one of the core reasons that, even in the face of the daily ire, the majority of us hold tight the ...
