October 2009

You are browsing the archive for October 2009.

The Best Tracks of the Month

Five days per week, jazz.com highlights an oustanding recent track as part of its Song of the Day feature. The aim is to guide listeners through the confusing array of new CDs on the market, and direct them to superior music they …

Blossom Dearie On Piano Jazz

Host Marian McPartland calls Dearie an “incandescent singer and pianist” whose “delicate, swinging style makes every song a musical gem.” The vocalist and pianist died this past year of natural causes. Piano Jazz remembers her life and music in an archival interview and performance.

Ray Brown Trio: F.S.R.

“F.S.R.” was one of the Ray Brown Trio’s most popular songs. The story is: It was a Milt Jackson record for Pablo called A London Bridge with Monty Alexander, Ray, and Mickey Roker, and they were recording “Doxy.” Ray, of cour…

Joey DeFrancesco: Fly Me to the Moon

I can appreciate the nuances of chamber jazz or Third Stream experimentation even when the music is recorded in the sterile solitude of the studio. But the organ trio always sounds best in a live setting. Maybe a scientist will someda…

The Birth (and Death) of the Cool

This week marks the publication of my new book, The Birth (and Death) of the Cool. With the permission of the publisher, I am sharing an extract below. Also, note that I will be making an appearance in the Los Angeles area this Frid…

Ike Sturm: Kyrie

For a music so closely associated with vice, from Storyville to the speakeasies and beyond, jazz has developed a surprisingly robust tradition of sacred music. Artists as diverse as Duke Ellington and Vince Guaraldi have recorded sacre…

The Brooklyn Big Band Bonanza, or, Revenge of the Six-Way Mustache

Tim Wilkins, a regular contributor here, recently attended the Brooklyn Big Band Bonanza, a blowout event with so many large jazz ensembles on hand that the musicians almost outnumbered the audience. His report is below. T.G.

Hank Jones & Oliver Jones: What Am I Here For?

I am just pleased that the label didn’t go for a cornier joke in the title. Have You Met Mr. Jones? Me and Mr. Jones? Keeping Up with the Joneses? After all, these are serious artists and among the eldest of the elder statesmen, the…

Guitar Hero, Jazz Style

Bill Barnes concludes his three-part article on the role of guitar in jazz below. Click here for parts one and two. T.G.

The “audience factor” can no longer be ignored. We are fast approaching a period in which jazz musi…

Wardell, Anita

Wardell, Anita, vocals (b. Guildford, Surrey, England, August 23, 1961). One of the world’s finest scat singers, Anita Wardell is virtually unknown outside of Europe and Australia. Although born in England, her family moved to Australia…