Written by Nick Morrison Originally posted on September 6, 2011 In the jazz fusion era of the 1970s, a new breed of jazz superstar was born: the electric bassist. Although electric bass wasn’t unheard-of in jazz before jazz-rock fusion, it quickly became an important component in fusion bands, and the bassists themselves became more prominent [...]
Written by Robin Lloyd. Charles Mingus was a virtuoso bass player, accomplished pianist, bandleader and composer. Influenced both by church choirs and Duke Ellington, he studied double bass and composition with classical masters. Mingus played and recorded with the leading musicians of the 1950′s– Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Art Tatum and Duke Ellington [...]
The advent of bebop added a fresh sound to American music. It also added new voices to some metropolitan radio stations: the late-night jazz DJs who specialized in presenting this new music to their fellow hipster nightflies. Appreciative musicians often wrote them tributes like these.
Written by Robin Lloyd Bassist Buster Williams is a living legend of jazz,who has worked with Miles Davis, Count Basie, Herbie Hancock, Art Blakey, Chet Baker, McCoy Tyner, Woody Shaw, Benny Golson, and Kenny Baron, Sarah Vaughan, and Nancy Wilson. Williams has been making music on stage for over 50 years. He learned acoustic bass and drums from [...]
Written by Robin Lloyd Herbie Mann was among the first jazz musicians to specialize on the flute and was jazz music’s preeminent flautist during the 1960s, an early pioneer of the fusion of jazz and world music. When Mann began playing flute in 1940s, there weren’t many jazz flautists to learn from, no pioneers of jazz flute to idolize. He [...]
By Nick Morrison During his 84 years on the planet, Yip Harburg contributed brilliant lyrics to some of the finest melodies of the American popular song canon. Most of his songs were originally written for Broadway shows or Hollywood musicals. Finian’s Rainbow is probably his most popular stage work, but he’s best known for working with composer [...]
Many jazz standards are themselves about making lists. Here are five of them, including Louis Armstrong’s take on “Let’s Do It,” Johnny Hartman’s version of “These Foolish Things” and a classic reading of Jobim’s “Waters of March.”
Written by Nick Morrison In the Western Hemisphere, January is typically the coldest month of the year. Most of us feel that if we can somehow drag ourselves through January, things will begin to turn around and we’ll be on the road to springtime. But January is also typically the month that feels as if [...]
By Robin Lloyd On the day we celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., let’s revisit his thoughts on Jazz and Blues from his address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival: “God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create—and from this [...]
Starting in the 1920s, Hawkins made an afterthought of an instrument into one of the sounds we most identify with jazz. He also straddled the era of big band swing and later developments like bebop. Here are five songs that illustrate his genius.
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