Significantly, the title of Miguel Zenón’s most recent album refers to more than one America. The multiplicity of Americas summarizes the point that he wants to make through his music: There was, and still is, more than one America. Zenón’s album includes a track, “América, el Continente,” that describes the …
The outpouring of tributes, the results of surprise, disbelief, and grief, occurred soon after Frank Kimbrough’s unexpected passing at the age of 64 in December, 2020. Kimbrough’s unique combination of personal and musical characteristics endeared him not only within the New York jazz community, but also with his listeners and …
Undaunted by the COVID quarantines, legendary jazz photographer/producer/audio engineer/promoter Jimmy Katz found the pandemic’s impediments instead to be challenges that led to memorable solutions. Due to COVID’s terrors, the live jazz venues shut down, and jazz musicians encountered reduced or no performance opportunities. As the owner, along with his wife …
A thought from Brian Landrus about his new album seems to be the point of conservation, humanitarianism, and/or altruism…and possibly, of human existence: “I need to be more aware of our world and the reason to be here—leaving something more than just taking.” A politician’s more-profound-than-intended vituperative criticism of another …
About Bob Bowman… Pianist Paul Smith had graciously agreed to form a band to perform at some corporate entertainment events that I had organized. Smith’s very brief solo on “It Could Happen to You” and Bowman’s on “Robert Frost,” both of which were recorded on Karrin Allyson’s Collage album, are …
This time, the Resonance Records producers, dedicated and fastidious as is their wont, worked against a deadline to release yet another one of their always-significant albums of previously recorded, but until-now unknown to the public, masterful jazz performances. The deadline? April 22, 2022. The performer? Charles Mingus. The occasion? Mingus’s …
Ira Sullivan was inimitable in many ways. One of those ways was that he knew who he was and what was important in his life, and he made his lifelong decisions based upon his steadfast values. Without a doubt having been deserving of the National Endowment of the Arts’ Jazz …
One of the most versatile and accomplished drummers you may not have heard of is releasing his first album in 22 years. But you no doubt have heard him during his musical career. On albums or during concerts with Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklin, Bill Cunliffe, Thad Jones, and many others. …
Always unpredictable and free thinking, who else but Mostly Other People Do the Killing would produce with precisely matched tempos a note-by-note re-recording of one of jazz tradition’s most hallowed albums of all time, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue? Who else would challenge the accepted groupthink of jazz wisdom that …
Even though they constitute the bulwark of most jazz groups, grounding them in rhythm and atmosphere, bass players appear to be the most modest of musicians, rarely attaining the recognition of guitar, horn and keyboard players, not to mention drummers, except for outsized personalities like Jaco Pastorius or Charles Mingus. …
Personal responses to music assume numerous forms based on individual experiences or the spirit of the music. Celebratory music inspires dancing; spiritual music, prayer; blues, relief from pain; crooning, romance; dirges, grief; percussiveness, acoustic communication, sometimes coded; Muzak, manufactured calming relief from uncomfortable silence; rock, energy; free music, freedom; marches, …
Is that Jack McDuff playing? No, it’s Alberto Marsico. Marsico, a native of Turin, Italy, has been deeply influenced by McDuff’s sound, so much so that he attended one of McDuff’s week-long workshops in 1994. Marsico’s passion for jazz was the cause for his recent friendship with fellow musician, Jeremy …
Amid an abundance of first-rate young jazz guitarists, Graham Dechter’s third album, Major Influence, with its swinging irresistibility, provides another reason for his broader recognition. Influenced by a previous generation’s straight-ahead guitarists like Herb Ellis, Barney Kessel, Wes Montgomery and Grant Green, Dechter’s performance on Major Influence projects not only …
Such a sound engineering feat My Own Particular Life is! Rather than waiting out a pandemic, the album’s sound engineers flawlessly produced an album that sounds as if all the musicians and singer Lorraine Feather were in the same studio, even though they were in separate locations. So, first of …
At first frustrated by the COVID pandemic’s obstacles blocking musicians from recordings and concerts, drummer Gerry Gibbs decided to find a way, or ways, to overcome them. His determination evolved from the sudden frustration that stalled his planned 2020 album release to the unanticipated inspiration that led to the album …
A rare and significant find this is! Who knew that jazz legend Sheila Jordan was recording under her own name before her breakthrough Blue Note album, Portrait of Sheila? Having escaped her childhood poverty in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where she lived in a home without plumbing with seven uncles—Harry, Earl, Delbert, …
