Thelonious Monk at Newport Jazz Festival Jul 3, 1959
Wolfgangs Vault (Free subscription) | 11/17/2009
Download for $9.98. Listen to Thelonious Monk performed at Newport Jazz Festival on July 3, 1959
Art Taylor
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Mr. P.C.
Damn Fine Day (Free subscription) | 11/16/2009
We at Rhino realize that jazz is not the genre of choice for many DFD regular’s, but the aim of Damn Fine Day is to expose you to music we think is great, even if that means leaving your comfort zone. This track from Coltrane’s classic 1959 Atlantic Records debut Giant Steps, produced by the [...]
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John Coltrane - Side Steps, Disc Five (Concord, 2009)
Jazz & Blues Music Reviews (Free subscription) | 10/22/2009
Disc Five of this collection of tenor saxophonist John Coltrane's recordings as a sideman for the Prestige label is the final one in this package, beginning with a very interesting album under the leadership of the tuba player Ray Draper. During the days of early jazz, tuba was a common instrument until it was displaced by the upright bass in the 1930's. Draper was far from a dusty relic, he was a...
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John Coltrane - Side Steps (Concord, 2009)
Jazz & Blues Music Reviews (Free subscription) | 10/19/2009
Disc Four of this collection of tenor saxophonist John Coltrane's recordings as a sideman for the Prestige label finds him continuing to serve under the leadership of pianist Red Garland, taking selections from several Garland LP's of the period (1957.) Joining Garland and Coltrane are Donald Byrd on trumpet, George Joyner (Jamil Nasser) on bass and Art Taylor on drums. "All Mornin' Long"...
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John Coltrane - Side Steps, Disc Three (Concord, 2009)
Jazz & Blues Music Reviews (Free subscription) | 10/18/2009
Disc three of this collection of John Coltrane’s recordings for Prestige as a sideman find him in familiar territory, recording with the pianist Red Garland, whom Coltrane would perform with on several occasions during his tenures with the Miles Davis Quintet. This was a very important period of time for Coltrane, he had recently given up narcotics after being dismissed from the Davis band and...
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John Coltrane - Side Steps, Disc Two (Concord, 2009)
Jazz & Blues Music Reviews (Free subscription) | 10/13/2009
Disc Two of this collection of tenor saxophone great John Coltrane’s appearances as a sideman for the Prestige label in the late 1950’s begins with the famous “Tenor Madness” collaboration with another great of the tenor, Sonny Rollins. While this may have been billed as a showdown, it is really a good natured conversation between friends and mutual admirers. Stretching out...
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Beyonce defends Kanye West’s VMA idiocy: he was standing up for art
Cele|bitchy (Free subscription) | 10/07/2009
I have to admit, the first time I read Beyonce’s latest quotes about the Taylor Swift-Kanye West VMA controversy, my first thought was “Big B is a beeyotch.” Now that I’ve read them several times, I still kind of think she’s being a tad bitchy, but I also think her intention was to simply [...]
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Sonny Rollins - Moving Out (Prestige 1954, 2009)
Jazz & Blues Music Reviews (Free subscription) | 09/27/2009
Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins may have been the penultimate musician (or at least soloist) of the 1950’s, reeling off classic after classic in the latter half of that decade. Rollins is a sub-genre of his own, referencing swing, bop, hard bop and free at different times, but never staying pigeon-holed in one place. Like only a few other greats in the music’s history, he transcends category...
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Not to Go Unmentioned ...
The Rap Sheet (Free subscription) | 09/26/2009
• There’s talk that the last two original stars of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Vincent D’Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe, may not be part of that series when it returns for its ninth season in March 2010. Eric Bogosian, who’s played Captain Daniel Ross, is also said to be on his way out. That would leave Jeff Goldblum, who just joined this procedural series last year, as the only...
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The Book You Have to Read: “Room to Swing,” by Ed Lacy
The Rap Sheet (Free subscription) | 09/25/2009
(Editor’s note: This is the 64th installment of our ongoing Friday blog series highlighting great but forgotten books. Today’s pick comes from Art Taylor, a fiction writer, book critic, and assistant professor of English at George Mason University. His article “Murder in Black & White: Novels of the Civil Rights Era,” which also discussed Ed Lacy’s Room to Swing, appeared...
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Crimes of Quality
The Rap Sheet (Free subscription) | 09/25/2009
With summer finally having passed into autumn (darn those falling leaves!), people are starting to think about what to read when they’re forced to hunker down and wait out the cold months. Maybe everyone can take a few suggestions from those made by contributors to Patti Abbott’s continuing Friday “forgotten books” series. In addition to Art Taylor’s recommendation on...
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The Red Garland Quintet w/ John Coltrane - Dig It (Prestige 1958, 2009)
Jazz & Blues Music Reviews (Free subscription) | 09/24/2009
The original liner notes to this archival release note that this is a blowing session, where the individual emotion of the musicians takes precedence over the material composition. Stating that the blowing session was the essence of jazz in New York in the 1950's, they make the case for the primacy of hard bop as the lingua franca of jazz. These statements are borne out by the music which is mostly...
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You’ve Got Me Under Your Spell
The Rap Sheet (Free subscription) | 09/21/2009
On Tuesday, James Ellroy’s new novel, Blood’s a Rover--the third and final installment of his Underworld USA Trilogy--will appear on American bookstore shelves. Soon afterward, the Washington Post Book World should podcast an interview between Ellroy and Art Taylor, a book critic,fiction writer, and assistant professor of English at George Mason University. Before either of those events,...
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Blanche Ely QB: `I'm ready to take control'
Miami Herald (Free subscription) | 08/18/2009
The last time Michael German played in a game, he completed 21 of 31 passes for 270 yards and four touchdowns to lead Blanche Ely to a 35-28 victory against Cardinal Gibbons.
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George Russell, pioneer theoretician of modal jazz...
Bemsha Swing (Free subscription) | 07/31/2009
George Russell, pioneer theoretician of modal jazz, has died. One thing I wondered about when I heard this news was whether Russell was the question of what race Russell was. I had never really seen a picture of him and accounts of his place in jazz history don't usually identify him by race in any explicit way. He was closely associated with musicians like Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, Bill Evans,...