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Auntie Occident & The Free Radicals: Brothers, Let Us Prey
by Victor Verney
Music has galvanized activists during some of modern history's most revolutionary moments, from gospel chants doubling as hidden messages for runaway slaves to Joan Baez's rendition of “We Shall Overcome" during the March on Washington. Today, these are the style of torch songs performed by Auntie Occident & the Free Radicals, a jazz vocal quintet out ...
Kenny Barron: A Musical Autobiography
by Victor Verney
Kenny Barron has achieved recognition, long overdue, as one of the giants of modern mainstream jazz piano. Born in Philadelphia in 1943, he moved to New York in 1961, where he worked briefly with James Moody, Lee Morgan, Roy Haynes and Lou Donaldson. He then had extended gigs with Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Yusef Lateef and ...
Bebo Valdes: Bebo
by Victor Verney
Bebo Valdés Bebo Calle 54 2006 Bebo Valdés is more than the ranking patriarch of Cuban pianists: he is a living archive of the piano literature of Cuba, as this eponymously titled release amply demonstrates. More than simply a solo album--amazingly, his first ever--this release is a comprehensive ...
Seeing Music and the Challenges of Filming Jazz: The Exceptional Case of 'Calle 54'
by Victor Verney
Fernando Trueba Calle 54 Miramax 2001 In an era in which the visual media have increasingly come to overshadow both audio and textual forms, Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba's Calle 54 raises provocative questions about jazz movies and the challenges facing the creative filmmaker. It is, undoubtedly, a must-see/must-hear ...
Christian Howes & Billy Contreras: Jazz Fiddle Revolution
by Victor Verney
Christian Howes has often been referred to as the “Jimi Hendrix of jazz violin," notes Los Angeles Times critic Don Heckman. He and others, like AAJ's C. Michael Bailey, have taken exception to this title, pointing to the depth and range of Howes' artistry. While Heckman insists that Howes is a jazz player first and foremost ...
The Alex Levin Trio: A Reason For Being Alone
by Victor Verney
Pianist Alex Levin, a Philadelphia native, has demonstrated a two-track mindset scholastically, geographically, professionally and artistically. After moving to New York City to study piano at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, Levin transferred to Brown University, where he earned a degree in English literature. He then moved to Berlin, where his quartet The ...
Fredrik Lindborg: The General
by Victor Verney
There are those who insist that jazz musicians are born, not made. Swedish saxophonist Fredrik Lindborg makes an interesting exhibit in this “nature versus nurture" argument. He was determined from a very young age to become a jazz musician, and he credits this to the fact that his father began playing Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday ...
Pt. 2 - Junior High School
by Victor Verney
. . . continued from Pt. 1 Well, now I was more-or-less in a band. One thing I realized right away was that the law of supply and demand was working in my favor: guitarists and drummers were a dime a dozen, but keyboardists were few and far between. Moreover, most of the keyboardists, no matter ...
The Hammond Organ: Beauty In The B
by Victor Verney
The Hammond Organ: Beauty In The B Mark Vail Softcover; 319 pages ISBN: 0-87930-705-6 Backbeat Books 2002 The venerable Hammond B-3 organ has been grinding its way through jazz, as well as gospel, rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll, since 1954. This book, ...
Russell Malone: Live at Jazz Standard, Volume One
by Victor Verney
Russell Malone usually doesn't like to write about his recordings, he says, preferring instead “to let the music speak for itself." However, he makes an exception here to point out that this is his first live recording with his working band, a fact that's a little surprising to learn. Malone goes on to note his gratification ...
