The Women Who Lead the Bands
An NPR survey of great women bandleaders in the jazz world, with a wide-ranging sampling of recorded accomplishments by female leaders and key players. From Lil Armstrong through Mary Lou Williams (in photo), Carla Bley, Maria Schneider and Terri Lyne Carrington, NPR’s compilation is impressive and welcome. Take notice and, of course, listen.
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Read MoreBooker Little
Booker Little’s self-titled album on Time Records is a favorite because it’s a quartet record. There are no other horns to share the space and the listener gets a pure, concentrated dose of one of the most exceptional trumpeters in jazz. Wynton Kelly and Scott LaFaro do take wonderful solos on Bee Tee’s Minor Plea. Little, who only lived to the age of 23, had magnificent sound, technique and creative imagination
-Michael Cuscuna
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Inside New York’s Jazz Loft
The tape findings in W. Eugene Smith’s Manhattan loft — thousands of hours of conversation and jazz sessions, among a diverse community of jazz giants — have been a daunting project to catalog and identify. Get lost in these four one-hour radio shows and experience Manhattan and jazz at a creative apex.
-Michael Cuscuna
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How Cecil Taylor Met Andrew Cyrille
Cecil Taylor’s collaboration with drummer Andrew Cyrille by now approaches legend in the world of free improvisational music. This account, written for the Revivalist by Libby Peterson, traces not only how Andrew Cyrille came to meet and work with Cecil Taylor, but also how the rising turbulence of the times spurred musical development for both individuals that drew the two together.
-Nick Moy
Photo of Andrew Cyrille: Seth Rogovoy
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Benny Carter Virtual Exhibit: Eight Decades In American Music
From the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University comes this digital exhibit of Benny Carter. This is one of five exhibits co-produced by the Institute and the Dana Library Media and Digital Services and is technically an online exhibit based on an exhibit at Dana Library earlier in 1999. The library exhibit was curated by the now retired IJS Associate Director Ed Berger who, along with his father Morroe, was close friends with Benny and wrote the definitive Benny Carter discography “A Life In American Music”. Ed also served as Carter’s record producer and road manager for many years. The IJS via a donation from Benny has many of his recordings, band charts, photos and other memorabilia.
-Scott Wenzel
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Joe Henderson’s Roots
Modern jazz sprang up in hot houses all over the country: not just in the fabled towns like New Orleans, Philadelphia, Chicago, Kansas City and Detroit, but also towns that elude the notice and adulation of many jazz scholars and pundits. Joe Henderson grew up in one of those towns — in Lima, Ohio. As Tom Reney notes in this post in JazzTimes, it sure didn’t stop Joe Henderson from reaching jazz greatness. Read how he did it.
-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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Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, Etc.
Howard Kaylan was on the inside for a number of pop music’s most important movements in the ’60s and ’70s. With The Turtles, he proved you could write and perform the most sarcastic bubblegum songs and still have hits. His sense of humor served him well, primarily with Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention and Flo and Eddie, revamped, unmasked version of the Turtles. His memoir Shell Shocked is a wonderful read about a wild time in music.
-Michael Cuscuna
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Sage Advice from Benny Powell
From “Jazz Player” magazine, this 1997 interview by Bob Bernotas with Ex-Basie trombonist Benny Powell really gives a well-rounded background of his career and more importantly, critical pieces of advice to budding (and even some seasoned) jazz musicians. Along with the interesting tidbits of his career, this first-hand guidance from someone who began on the road as a teenager with various big bands before becoming a 12 year member of Basie’s New Testament band, and then onto studio and TV work, is valuable information indeed.
-Scott Wenzel
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Read MoreDizzy Gillespie and James Moody
A lovely performance of “No More Blues” by the 1965 Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, which is the subject of our Mosaic Set 234, The Verve Philips Dizzy Gillespie Small Group Sessions. Rarely has a small group been so musically precise and loose at the same time. And of course, their improvisational abilities and the clown chemistry between Dizzy and Moody are priceless.
-Michael Cuscuna
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