Jazz Lives (Free subscription) | 02/02/2010
That title isn’t to be taken lightly, for several times last night when The Ear Regulars (with guests) got together to play, they hit a real groove. Not too slow, not too fast. But I thought of the Ruby Braff-George Barnes Quartet, or the Buck Clayton Jam Sessions: musicians who know deep down what it [...]
All About Jazz (Free subscription) | 02/01/2010
Jazz's first century has thrown up few examples of Chinese folk music which has found new voice in this idiom. Buck Clayton , in collaboration with Li Jinhui ,spent two years in Shanghai in the mid-1930s, adapting Chinese folk music to ballroom jazz, but nothing was recorded. Jazz's second century should see a change in this situation, and leading the way is Taiwanese group Sizhukong, whose second...
bebop spoken here (Free subscription) | 01/28/2010
The Jazz Esquires: Mick Hill, trumpet, flugel & vocal, Tony Winder tenor & clarinet, Doug Fielder, tenor, Roy Gibson, keyboards, Robin Douthwaite guitar, Stan Nicholson bass guitar, Laurie Brown drums & mike. The Jazz Esquires made history today by starting before 1 o,clock and kept up a barrage of music till after 3pm. Kicking off with "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To", they...
bebop spoken here (Free subscription) | 01/07/2010
Laurie Brown vibes, Miles Watson trumpet/vcl. Bob Stephenson drums, Stan Nicholson bass guitar, Robin Douthwaite guitar and Roy Gibson keyboard. IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER, like the Windmill of old, The Porthole never closes. At 1pm the band outnumbered the audience but they gradually arrived by taxi, ferry and on foot to make it not far short of the normal crowd. Kicking off with "I'm Beginning To...
bebop spoken here (Free subscription) | 12/30/2009
Mick Hill (tpt), Terry Dalton (tmb), Tony Winder (ten/clt), Roy Gibson (pno), Robin Douthwaite (gtr), Stan Nicholson (bs), Laurie Brown (dms). + George Laing (pno), Miles Watson (vcl), Teresa Armstrong (vcl). Going to the Porthole, is always a bit of an adventure for us 'southerners' involving, as it does, a ferry journey across the Tyne from South Shields to North Shields. Today's mini-cruise - all...
KK & R Music Blog (Free subscription) | 12/24/2009
Billie Holiday remains (four decades after her death) the most famous of all jazz singers. "Lady Day" (as she was named by Lester Young) had a small voice and did not scat but her innovative behind-the-beat phrasing made her quite influential. The emotional intensity that she put into the words she sang (particularly in later years) was very memorable and sometimes almost scary; she often...
bebop spoken here (Free subscription) | 12/07/2009
Maureen Hall (vocals), Mac Smith (piano), Barry Soulsby (clarinet & vocals), Iain MacAulay (trombone, bagpipes & vocals), Alan Smith (trumpet & flugelhorn), John Robinson (double bass) & Jim McKeown (drums) + second set Liz Bacon (clarinet), Doris Fenn (banjo). Saturday night was Christmas party night at the Piper. I arrived in Cullercoats just in time for rain clouds over the North...
Jazz & Blues Music Reviews (Free subscription) | 10/14/2009
I had been curious about this disc for a while, since I read that this was the only Hawkins disc that had been rated “core collection” by the latest edition of the Penguin Guide to Jazz. Dance was a British jazz writer and in the late 1950’s he came to the United States to make a series of jazz LP’s one of which, The High and Mighty Hawk , is the cornerstone of this disc. The...
All About Jazz (Free subscription) | 09/29/2009
You may not recognize Al Stewart's name. But back in the late 1940s and 1950s he was one of the most in-demand East Coast trumpeters in the big-band business. Over the past 55 years, Al has played trumpet along side the biggest names in post-War jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bobby Hackett, Lee Morgan, Charlie Shavers, Buck Clayton, Conrad Gozzo, Maynard...
LondonJazz (Free subscription) | 08/08/2009
The winner of Brecon's (Kind of) Blue plaque is..... the fifty-two year old Concorde Club in Eastleigh . Band On The Wall in Manchester came second, and Ronnie Scott's third. First with the news were BBC Wales, and here's the link to their story. The Concorde Club began as a one night a week venture at the Bassett Hotel in Eastleigh. . Ronnie Scott played at the club the night before he opened his...
Rhapsodyinbooks's Weblog (Free subscription) | 04/07/2009
Billie Holiday was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Clarence Holiday, a musician, and Sadie Fagan, on April 7, 1915. Her father left soon after her birth, and her mother moved her to Baltimore. Sadie worked long hours, and often left Billie with neighbors. In 1925 Billie, age ten, was ordered by [...]
All About Jazz (Free subscription) | 02/18/2009
This tribute album by baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan features his bebop-based nonet pulling inspiration from a 1956 album by pop singer Frankie Laine (1913-2007) and trumpeter Buck Clayton. As Laine's foray into jazz's '50s mainstream, Jazz Spectacular (Columbia) represented a piece of the singer's repertoire not as well-known as his pop music. It allowed him to interact with instrumentalists of...
New York Times (Free subscription) | 11/28/2008
The pop and jazz critics of The New York Times review boxed sets and other notable collections released in 2008.
motel de moka (Free subscription) | 10/04/2008
Billie Holiday & Lester Young - When You’re Smiling Billie Holiday and Lester Young Complete recordings 1937-1946 If I had to choose only one Billie Holiday song, without question it would be “When You’re Smiling.” Everyone plays like a genius on this one. Benny Morton’s gutsy and smooth trombone to kick it off, Buck Clayton’s impeccable [...]
Sisyphus (Free subscription) | 06/12/2008
This is Ben Webster (1909-1973) and Billy Taylor (born 1921) performing "Flying Home" on "The Subject is Jazz," a 1958 television series. The band consists of Ben Webster on tenor saxophone, Buck Clayton on trumpet, Benny Morton on trombone, Billy Taylor on piano, Eddie Safranski on bass, Ed Thigpen on drums, and Mundell Lowe on guitar. You can see and hear Ben Webster perform “Somewhere...
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