Wattstax: The Resurrection of a Historic Musical Event Wattstax was the largest gathering of African-Americans in one place since the civil rights March on Washington in 1963...Statements of ‘blackness’ were everywhere: it was in October of 1968 that Olympic gold medallist Tommie Smith and bronze John Carlos gave a black power salute during the Olympic medal ceremonies. The politically and socially charged atmosphere was also reflected in American black popular music, which began to break down barriers of both race and genre that had been maintained, largely, by the recording industry itself. New styles that melded many elements of various black music genres began to appear, including soul and, slightly later, funk.

Miles Davis/The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 The Cellar Door Sessions, finally released after delays due to squabbles with the Miles Davis estate is nothing less than the missing link between the avant-electric Miles Davis of Bitches Brew and the scorched earth urban Afro-funk of Get Up With It and Agharta/Pangea...The Cellar Door Sessions is very different music than that played by many of Davis’ live bands of the electric period as heard on releases such as Miles at Filmore and It’s About That Time. On those recordings, there was a great deal of tension between the ‘outness’ of the rhythm section (Chick Corea & Dave Holland) and the playing of Miles and the rest of the band. Clearly Corea and Holland would like to have gone farther out than Miles wanted to go. Here, the groove is all-important.

Choro Roundup: Mike Marshall's Brazil Duets and the Modern Traditions Ensemble's New Old Music Choro is a Brazilian musical form that is typically presented as a theme and variations in rondo form, performed in 2/4 time. It's a sophisticated musical form that gave birth, in modified and more relaxed structure, to the samba and, consequently, also to bossa nova. In the wake of these two newer genres, choro came to be seen by many as an outdated, old-fashioned musical style. But it keeps coming back into style among virtuoso musicians because it is not only beautiful music, but also because it provides a challenge and allows musicians to demonstrate their technical virtuosity as well as their overall musicality. Both American Mike Marshall and Brazilian group Modern Traditions Ensemble interpret choro music with soul.

Johnny Griffin & Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis: Tough, but Cool Tenors As the 1960s came into focus, Chicago tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin and his New York counterpart, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, hooked up for a series of tenor battle albums that were easily a cut above most such recordings. For one thing, both saxophonists were rock solid bop players who were at the peak of their powers. For another, the two tenor men were very compatible in their playing styles and had a lot of mutual respect.

June Christy: Too Cool For Words "Something cool…I'd like to order something cool" says the dame in the smoky, slightly seedy bar that is something out of a Raymond Chandler story. The kind of place where maybe there could be trouble at any moment; where maybe a couple of guys in raincoats with noses as crooked as a gerrymandered voting district come in and start asking questions. And that can't be anything but trouble for you...In the meantime, though, here is June Christy, a songbird from Springfield, Illinois whose real name is Shirley Luster. She's been singing for a while, in fact she replaced Anita O'Day as Stan Kenton's singer. Some said she sounded a bit too much like O'Day, but she developed her own style and her soft, but ever-so-slightly husky voice was perfect for the Kenton band.

Jazztronica: What Is It? Where Did It Come From?
Back in 1970 Ralph J. Gleason wrote, in his liner notes for Bitches Brew that “electric music is the music of this culture and in the breaking away (not the breaking down) from previously assumed forms a new kind of music is emerging.” The music that Miles laid down on that groundbreaking album was indeed electric music, both in terms of how it was created and the effect that it had (and still has) on the listener. From there came more experiments with electricity, and as is the nature of these things, musicians pushed farther and farther to see where the limits of this new language were. Fusion took the electricity to an extreme, and it was necessary to pepper it with new ideas, new feelings, to move it forward again. We had funk, and we dug the groove. We dug the grooves of Miles, Rahsaan, Groove Holmes, Gene Ammons, and many, many more. Those soulful, funky years gave way to Acid Jazz, riding the groove and bringing in the new electric sounds, the scratching of DJs and other modern digital stuff. We’ve witnessed the convergence of jazz, poetry, and rap as well as the sped-up beats of Drum ‘N’ Bass and the slowed down, late night world of trip-hop.

Spirituality in Jazz Jazz sometimes seems to have a particularly large spiritual vocabulary and a tradition that goes back far into the music’s past. Jazz probably inherited much of its spiritual content from the blues and from gospel, which were themselves the result of the combination of Christo-European elements and a variety of religious traditions from Africa by way of the Carribean and Cuba. Arguments about the purity of jazz always seem somehow to come from off the mark considering the music’s bastardized beginnings.

Respect for Hank Mobley Hank Mobley always suffered from the perception in some quarters that he was neither an innovative nor particularly gifted improviser. This is hogwash, as the many Mobley reissues that are becoming available demonstrate. The main problem most listeners had with Mobley was that he was not fortunate enough to be born John Coltrane or Sonny Rollins. With these two tenor players seen as the most interesting and gifted of the time, Mobley was relegated to the back burner of mere competency, which has damned many a jazz musician to obscurity. This look at three of his Blue Note recordings, one of which was never even released until the 1980s, challenges the false perceptions of Mobley.

The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions represents a stunning crossroads where boxing, the Black Power movement, the development of rock music as an expression of vast changes in American society, the electronic amplification of jazz, and Miles Davis all came together. That the music heard on this newly-released 5 CD set was boiled down to a mere hour's worth of a soundtrack album, with snippets turning up on Live-Evil and Get Up With It, is amazing. Listening to the music here, most of which has never been released previously, is like finding out something new about someone you thought you knew well.

Don Ellis, Dave Douglas, and the 'Progression' of Jazz Don Ellis was a trumpet player who, in the late '60s, pioneered the use of microtones and electronic elements in his big band. His career was similar in many ways to that of current trumpet player Dave Douglas. Critic Stanley Crouch has written that Douglas is promoted by jazz writers over more deserving black trumpet players--where was this same critical establishment when Ellis' legacy was being forgotten?

Texas Tenors & the Big Beat The Texas tenor is a tenor sax slinger with a sound as wide open and freewheeling as the Lone Star State. Honed by blues influences, able to honk and walk the bar with the best of the R&B tenor men, sharpened by the study of jazz greats Lester Young and Ben Webster, with a sprinkling of Coleman Hawkins. Some of them weren't even born in Texas and many ended up somewhere else, but they all were stamped by a similar configuration of influences that allowed listeners to discern a unique set of voices on the jazz horizon. These musicians and their recordings have given me some of my most pleasurable listening moments, but you won't hear about them in most educational programs or read about them in many of the jazz histories at your local bookstore. That's largely because they did one thing and did it well—they could swing hard, play beautifully, and execute ideas that connect instantly with the listener without making any stylistic concessions.

Gary Bartz: Music Is His Sanctuary Gary Bartz is one top-notch jazz musician whose profile has suffered because he dared to believe that jazz and other black music genres are not separate, but rather are pieces of a great whole. Bartz was part of Davis’s anti-funk/anti-jazz band, but didn’t do much recording with Davis, though he can be heard on some live recordings such as Live-Evil and Isle of Wight. Interestingly, Bartz and his Ntu Troop (‘Ntu’ is the Bantu word for ‘Unity’) performed at the fledgling Montreux Jazz Festival on July 7, 1973, while Davis and his band performed there on July 8. Davis and company performed two typically murky and difficult sets.

Peter Cincotti Interview "I started playing piano when I was about three years old, and I started taking lessons at four and we got a real piano when I was about five. And the music that I loved at these very early ages, like around four or five, was boogie-woogie piano playing, and I used to love people like Jerry Lee Louis and that kind of style. People like Dr. John, and people like that. As I got a little older I got into people like Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie, people like that. Around eleven or twelve my taste started changing and I listened to a lot of Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner, and got more into the jazz instrumentalists."

Wiser Angel: A Conversation with Joel Dorn “It ain’t the same as walkin’ in and saying to Leonard Chess or Nesuhi Ertegun or Morris Levy or one of those guys, ‘I got a girl who can sing her ass off, I need five grand.’” Joel Dorn is one of the old-time record guys. There are only a few of them left, guys who can remember when they pitched an artist directly to record label owners and made records on a handshake. “That part of the business is dead." Joel Dorn, the man behind Label M and the new Hyena Records, talks about his latest label, Dr. John, Doc Pomus, tenor/organ jazz combos, and more.

Walking on a Cloud: Richard Twardzik with Chet Baker in Europe 1955 In September of 1955 pianist Richard Twardzik went on a European tour with trumpet player Chet Baker. A few months later he was dead in a Paris hotel room, apparently the victim of a heroin overdose. In this excerpt from a forthcoming book, Jack Chambers (author of the Miles Davis bio Milestones) takes us on that ill-fated European tour and reveals the rigors of touring for jazz musicians as well as the problems that drug addiction brought to an already difficult situation. Neither romanticized life story of the doomed musician nor cautionary tale, Walking On Clouds: Richard Twardzik with Chet Baker in Europe 1955 is an interesting and honest portrait of the life of some jazz musicians that makes one wonder how so much extraordinary music could be created in such difficult circumstances.

Mysterious Death of a Tenor Man On May 25, 1955, the body of a 34 year-old black man was found in the desert outside of Las Vegas. The man's neck had been broken, and the body had apprently been dumped from a car. Even though this scenario may sound like it would warrant an autopsy, none was performed. The local coroner and law enforcement officials ruled that the man had died of a drug overdose and the case was closed. It has never been explained how the body came to be in the desert nor how or why its neck was broken. That the body belonged to Wardell Gray, one of jazz's best West Coast bop tenor players and heir apparent to the legacy of Lester Young, was of no consequence to the authorities.

Dance of the Infidels: Musicians take aim at critics There have been a couple of incidents recently of jazz musicians striking back at critics who they feel have wronged them that have gained some degree of notoriety, at least in the small circle of people who are avid jazz fans or who actually read jazz criticism. While it is not new for musicians and critics to be at loggerheads, the particularly vitriolic nature of the responses in these cases seems shocking, at least at first glance.

The New Singer/Songwriters Following the incredible success of Norah Jones at the 45th Annual Grammy Awards we take a look at a new breed of jazz-influenced singer who is influenced as much by Joni Mitchell, Ricki Lee Jones, and Carole King as by Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday.

Freedom Suite Revisited In 1956 Sonny Rollins was one of the best-known tenor saxophonists in jazz, having recorded and released two wonderful and classic jazz albums, Saxophone Colossus and Tenor Madness, the latter being a tenor standoff with John Coltrane. In the following two years, freed from his Prestige Records contract, Rollins set about making some great records that were released on a variety of labels, including Riverside, Contemporary, and Period. He released Way Out West and worked with Thelonious Monk. Yet, even as his career ascended he was faced with the specter of racism when he attempted to rent an apartment in New York City. “Here I had all these reviews, newspaper articles and pictures,” Rollins later said. “At the time it struck me, what did it all mean if you were still a nigger, so to speak? This is the reason I wrote the suite.” “The suite” refers to the famous composition “Freedom Suite”, a nineteen minute piece that featured Rollins, accompanied only by bass and drums.

Strange Fruit, Jazz, and Civil Rights In her essay "Strange Fruit", Angela Y. Davis makes a convincing case for the argument that "Strange Fruit" played a catalytic role in "rejuvenating the tradition of protest and resistance in African-American and American traditions of popular music and culture." This is absolutely true. The very creation of jazz and blues music in America was a process of protest and resistance, and much of the subsequent history of these musical genres has been about reclaiming that process from the hands of those who would subvert their meaning.

Late Night Thoughts on Miles Davis Another way to look at Davis' career is to realize that he moved himself further and further from the audience as he progressed. Some feel that this demonstrates his isolation from and general disdain for the people who were listening to his music, but I really think that it demonstrates, instead, his attempts to remove himself from the equation, to have his music judged purely as sound. It seems to have had the opposite effect, however. The more Miles receded, the more the audience tried to peer through the clouds for a glimpse of him, and the less many respected or even discussed the music.

Goin' Out With Dom Minasi "Once a tune is recorded, I don’t care who it is, and they put this tune out and they play it this becomes the standard. Who's to say you can't take that standard and reinterpret it? It's out there, it belongs to everybody now. So what I do with it is one thing, what somebody else does is another…I think it should be, everything should be open to interpretation. And so that's how I feel about that. 'Cause nobody owns the music and once it's out there, it's out there."

Von Freeman: The Improvisor Like his fellow Chicagoan Fred Anderson, Freeman is the quintessential jazzman, a breed that continues to capture the imagination of fans and fellow musicians alike despite their supposed nearness to extinction.

Karrin's Got the Blues:Karrin Allyson "I think right now I can really relate to (the blues) because I'm traveling a lot and it seems like a lot of these songs have to do with traveling, and having the blues, getting tired and fed up but still keepin' on and all that kind of thing."

Professor Longhair: Genius of New Orleans Piano "These cameras are sixty-five years too late" said Art Neville, who acknowledged the influence of Byrd's playing on his own style. "Where were they all those years Byrd was playing, but couldn't cut records?"

What Makes a Jazz Singer? Jazz singer. It's a term one would think easy enough to understand and define, but unleash it on a group of jazz fans and you're likely to start quite a discussion. Among jazz devotees, critics, and to a lesser extent the singers themselves, the criteria by which a singer is judged can be incredibly restrictive.

Telarc Records: Quality Music, Quality Sound Originally a classical music label, the Telarc catalog, with over 600 releases, now includes jazz, contemporary jazz, and blues music from a roster of artists that includes Louie Bellson, Ray Brown, Dave Brubeck, Freddie Cole, Michel Camillo, Dizzy Gillespie, Jim Hall, Slide Hampton, Amhad Jamal, Marcus Miller, Gerry Mulligan, George Shearing, Janis Siegel, Mel Torme, and Joe Williams.

Shirley Eikhard: Triple Threat Rare indeed is the singer who can write their own material, material of the quality that professional songwriters can turn out. Who was the last singer who was also a consummate songwriter? Peggy Lee comes to mind, or perhaps Mel Torme. To these add the name of Shirley Eikhard.

Renee Rosnes: Musician of the World A look at the career, to date, of one of jazz music's best new pianists and composers. Influenced by Herbie Hancock, Renee's music is impressionistic, swinging, and sharp. Plus a review of her Life on Earth album.

What is Brazilian Jazz? Brazilian music and culture writer Daniella Thompson takes a look at the latest developments in Brazilian jazz. Hint: It's a lot more than the samba and the bossa nova!

Diana Krall's Look of Love A brief overview of the career of jazz music's most beautiful singer/pianist as well as a review of her Tommy LiPuma-produced album The Look of Loveand her latest, a live effort entitled Live In Paris.

Repertory Jazz, Fusion, Wynton Marsalis, and Stanley Crouch Why fusion wasn't the dead end some revisionists would have you believe and the argument against revivialism and repertory jazz. By Jazzitude's Marshall Bowden

Drums, Strings, and a Lot of Soul David Axelrod has had about as interesting a career as any producer/arranger could have. He started out producing tenor saxophonist Harold Land's classic The Fox, then went on to fame and fortune at Capitol Records, where he produced signature sounds for Lou Rawls and Canonball Adderley.

Creed's Hacienda Creed Taylor's CTI label boasted some of jazz music's biggest legends as well as newcomers who would influence the music for years to come. Visit Creed's Hacienda for reviews of CTI reissues, information on the label's history and on Creed Taylor himself. Currently featured are reviews of the reissues of George Benson/Bodytalk, Hubert Laws/Rite of Spring, Joe Farrell/Moongerms, CTI: The Master Collection, and more.

David Benoit: One Dream at a Time David Benoit is one of the architects of the sound now known as smooth jazz. Unlike many of his contemporaries, though, Benoit has real chops and is also known as a composer and arranger. His work on film and television scores and recent classical compositions demonstrate that there is much more to this musician than sometimes meets the eye (or ear).


Louis Hits Chicago After being sent for by Joe "King" Oliver, Louis heads north to Chicago, where he quickly becomes one of the city's top trumpet slingers. Soon he lands a job with Fletcher Henderson and spends some time in New York before returning to Chicago to make recorded jazz history with his Hot Fives and Hot Sevens.

Louis Armstrong's New Orleans Days A brief account of jazz legend Louis Armstrong's youth spent in the streets, clubs, and homes of the Big Easy.

The Doctor Is In: The Life, Times, and Music of Dr. John the Night Tripper Dr. John has long had a reputation as one of the finest purveyors of the music and culture of New Orleans. Recently he's put more emphasis on his piano playing and experimented with a jazzier sound. Read about his amazing life and career, his new CD Creole Moon, and get a look at our list of his Top 10 Albums.

Joyce Cooling: Cool & Smooth, but with Chops Though she is often described as a "smooth jazz" artist, she is a guitarist with some real chops and an excellent sound. Still, mainstream jazz purists probably won't be converted by her newest release Third Wish. Jazzitude offers up a brief profile of Cooling by Marshall Bowden and a review of Third Wish by Diz Mercer.

Tommy Dorsey: Bandleader who cared Dorsey led a hot band that featured great musicians and vocalists such as Buddy Rich, Ziggy Elman, Buddy DeFranco, Frank Sinatra, and Jo Stafford. He was completely dedicated to leading a great swing band and playing for the audiences that came to dance. So why doesn't Dorsey get his due, with many key recordings unavailable? Swing expert John Cooper offers some thoughts.

Marian McPartland Swings! Marian McPartland is one of jazz's most beloved artists, her career already having spanned some 60 years. She's led one of the most famous trios of all time, owned her own record label, and continues to host Piano Jazz, her National Public Radio program on which she has interviewed and duetted with most of the jazz greats. Jazzitude got a chance to talk to her about these topics and more.

Take the Coltrane John Coltrane has long been considered one of jazz's great artists, but there is also an undeniable cult of personality that surrounds him. Jazzitude takes an in-depth look at Coltrane's life and musical career in an attempt to show the forces that drove him and the reasons he is considered one of jazz's greatest artists.

The New Tenors The work of Eric Alexander and Chris Potter, not to mention their most current CDs, suggest that there are younger musicians out there who are listening carefully to their predecessors, who play and relate to the older group of jazz artists still out there, and who are developing their own voices slowly and painstakingly, the same way previous generations of artists did.

Dr. Jazz: The Life and Career of Jelly Roll Morton How did a man of Morton's considerable talents, a man who recognized the ways that popular music evolved and changed, a well-dressed dandy with all the canny instinct of a carny, come to end his days destitute and in ill health? Did he really invent jazz, as the now-infamous business cards he carried claimed? What exactly is the truth behind this enigmatic and fascinating figure?