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Results for "Wide Open Jazz and Beyond"
Kenny Wheeler
by Peter Madsen
For years I've admired the great Canadian musician Kenny Wheeler because of his fantastic compositions and arrangements, his incredible sound on both the trumpet and flugelhorn, his superb recordings as well as his wide open artistic vision. Last week I went to a big-band concert that featured Kenny as the guest performer and composer. At 70+ ...
Dewey Redman
by Peter Madsen
There's a story about a saxophonist being approached by an excited fan after a concert to get his autograph. The fan asks him to sign a CD he says he had just bought of his. Happy to oblige he takes the CD, looks, and with mixed emotions sees that it's a CD recorded by his son, ...
Taro Okamoto: Too Many Unknown Greats
by Peter Madsen
New York is full of improvising musicians that spend thousands of hours practicing their instruments and dream of becoming the next Joshua Redman or Joe Lovano. They come by the busloads from all over the world. Many enroll at one of the universities or schools in the area that have a world famous jazz program. They ...
Adam Kolker
by Peter Madsen
The sometimes heard, “those that can't do, teach" is a description not very fitting of the jazz world as hundreds of great musicians have become professors at some of the finest educational institutions around the world as well as teach privately at home. Many elder statesmen such as pianists Kenny Barron and Barry Harris as well ...
Pee Wee Ellis
by Peter Madsen
I was half-asleep in my bunk on a Fred Wesley tour bus a few years ago heading for the next where-the-hell-are-we European city when the sound of an amazing saxophonist literally pulled my eyes wide open. It sounded like an old bootleg recording of Sonny Rollins playing standards that I was unaware of, full of rhythmic ...
Toninho Horta
by Peter Madsen
I've been very fortunate in my career to have met and sometimes even play with a few musical geniuses. These are special musicians who have developed an intimate relationship between their instrument and their inner selves to transcend the mechanical act of playing into the artistic act of soulful and spiritual self-expression. One such ...
Anthony Cox
by Peter Madsen
I'll never forget my first encounter with the astounding Minneapolis bassist Anthony Cox. It was 1977 at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire where I was nearing the end of my music studies looking forward to escaping with my degree in hand, when this African-American man (not a common sight at this lily-white University in ...
Fred Ho: We Refuse To Be Used And Abused
by Peter Madsen
When I began playing jazz over 30 years ago I felt that it was music leaning its sounds in the leftist direction. Being in the jazz world gave me the feeling of being in a secret underground, a place outside the all-American white-bread Christian society that was always telling me what to believe and how to ...
Authentic Jazz?
by Peter Madsen
I'm sitting here in my narrow little coach class seat with almost no legroom for a 6'4" mutant like myself returning from a great one-week tour with an amazing Austrian recorder player named Winfried Hackl. Winfried plays all different sizes of recorders including a huge bass recorder he built himself that has a beautiful deep sound. ...
Don Cherry
by Peter Madsen
Back about fifteen years ago I had the great fortune of playing with one of the most innovative trumpeters and world music masters, the late Don Cherry. To this day I am touched by the memory of his personal and musical presence at our brief encounter. What I remember the most is his quiet intelligent personality ...
