Question: How many vertically-challenged Afro-American jazz tenor saxophone masters have travelled the highway between Chicago’s South Side of Chicago and the rural Poitou region in France to become master of a château? Answer: a number that lies precisely midway between [...]
During the swing era’s golden days, singers and big bands developed a symbiotic and beneficial relationship. These days, however, placing a jazz singer in front of massed musicians is an act that requires considerable dollops of finance, explaining why most [...]
It was once generally accepted among jazz aficionados that a talented life cut short (Bix Beiderbecke, Charlie Christian, Jimmy Blanton, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan…) was a certain route to immortality. Unfortunately, not for Conrad Yeatis Clark, destroyed by [...]
Shortly after the name changed from the Milt Jackson Quartet to the Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ), critics started honing their knives. Most hostile comments came from those who preferred less formality and polish: “effete”, “too restrained”, “over-subtle”, “too Baroque” and [...]
In a far-off time when giants strode the earth, tenor saxophonists had to choose which gods to follow: Coleman Hawkins (rich, solid and confident) versus Lester Young (airy, floating and lyrical) until Charlie ‘Yardbird’ Parker, an alto player, synthesised their [...]
Around the time Brits were crowding the dance floor, jiving to the revival of New Orleans’ jazz, young Afro-American musicians in the U.S., led by trailblazers Art Blakey and Horace Silver, were forging an uncompromising new sound marked by urgency [...]
Even though the sound on this CD is detailed and crisp, I have a problem with the atmos. I fail to detect the clash of ice cubes expertly agitated in a cocktail shaker, the crystalline clink of high-grade stemware, the [...]
Interested in time travel? While dancers in Chicago were digging this music, people in Britain were digging air raid shelters. Interested in eavesdropping? Listening to this album is like overhearing to a private conversation. And that’s because the majority of [...]
Evanescent, but indelible… If you were attempting a list of really rare events, hearing two jazz pianists simultaneously on the same platform must be close to the top. But even rarer is hearing two stellar talents playing on two magnificent [...]
There’s a reason why New Orleans born alto saxophonist Jesse Davis’s name doesn’t trip off the tongue. Blame geography. Although these tracks were recorded at Small Jazz Club in New York, Davis is a stranger to the city where U.S. [...]
