Donald Byrd 101
This beginner’s guide to the music of Donald Byrd is incredibly comprehensive. It starts with the wonderful quintet he led with Pepper Adams, moves to his work with choral voices and then on to albums like “Fancy Free” that were clearly inspired by “In A Silent Way.” The ‘70s is represented by the funk/pop music that Donald made with the Mizell Brothers. Things end in the ‘90s with his work with Guru in hip hop group Jazzamatazz. An amazing and restless career.
-Michael Cuscuna
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Remembering Chet Baker, 25 Years Later
The 25th anniversary of Chet Baker’s fatal fall in Amsterdam has inspired a number of reminiscences.
This lengthy essay by Richard Williams on his thebluemoment blog is excellent. I remember Dexter Gordon telling me how impressed he was with Baker when they first met in Los Angeles in the early ‘50s. Dexter recalled, “Chet introduced himself and ask to sit in. I asked him what tune he’d like to play and he said on ‘Body And Soul’. I asked him what key he’d like, and looked at me blankly and said, ‘I don’t know. The first note is mmmmmmm.’ I realized this guy had no idea what I was talking about, but when he played, it was beautiful, so intuitive. An amazing musician.”
Here is a two-part blog that West Coast jazz expert Ted Gioia wrote five years ago, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Chet’s death. If you’ve never read Ted’s West Coast Jazz tome, it’s worth seeking out.
-Michael Cuscuna
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Read MoreWoody Shaw Live
A killer performance of drummer Victor Lewis’s brilliant “Seventh Avenue” written in 7/4 and dedicated to the Village Vanguard and complete with the sound of the car horns on Seventh Avenue. The band is Woody Shaw, Carter Jefferson, Onaje Allan Gumbs, Stafford James and Victor Lewis at the 1979 Antibes/Juan-Les-Pins Festival in Southern France.
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Freddie Hubbard at CTI – a 21st Century Appraisal
Freddie Hubbard’s career took a conspicuous, and in some quarters, suspicious turn, when he signed with Creed Taylor’s CTI Records in 1970. David Brent Johnson’s feature on Indiana Public Media surveys Hubbard’s recordings from his CTI period, and sets forth the case that Hubbard expanded his art, rather than compromised it, with recordings like Red Clay – now more visibly, in the light of 21st century day, one of his classics.
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Twenty-Two Jazz Trumpeters
I could stare at this picture all day: twenty-two jazz trumpet players, photographed by Herb Snitzer. From Ehsan Khoshbakht’s post in Take the A Train, where you can see the legend of the (trumpet) legends.
-Nick Moy
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Christian Scott on Clifford Brown
Christian Scott, a trumpeter, composer and producer very much in the foreground of today’s improvised music, reflects in All About Jazz on the influence of a record many of us grew up with: Clifford Brown — the Beginning and the End. What it meant to him, then, and means to him now, might surprise you.
-Nick Moy
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Ted Curson Remembered
Taylor Ho Bynum penned this touching recollection of trumpeter Ted Curson, who passed in November 2012. His meditation, in Jazz Times, reflects much of how many of us would like to remember Ted Curson, too.
-Nick Moy
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Terence Blanchard: Woody Shaw took the trumpet into a whole new direction.
Terence Blanchard is a stunning musician as a trumpeter, bandleader and film composer. I remember when he first came to New York in the early ‘80s working with Blakey. It was obvious that he’d been listening to and absorbing the innovation of Woody Shaw. That’s how we first met, and we remain friends and often co-workers. A wonderful tribute to Woody.
-Michael Cuscuna
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Tom Harrell Live from the Vanguard Tonight on NPR
Trumpeter and composer Tom Harrell is bringing a great quintet into the Village Vanguard tonight, and via live online video and radio broadcast, NPR is offfering you the opportunity to be there. Grab it.
-Nick Moy
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Clark Terry: Trumpet Favorite of the Greats
This JazzWax feature on the wonderful trumpeter Clark Terry focuses on Terry’s early years, but even then, good things were already happening fast. His roots in St. Louis brought him into close contact with the young Miles Davis, who readily counted Terry was an influence; and Terry touches on his post-war gigs with Count Basie and Duke Ellington.
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