Chicago area native Dan Cray is perhaps best known as leader of the Dan Cray Trio. In an era when jazz gigs are hard to come by and musicians gravitate toward whatever opportunities come their way, the trio was a part of the Chicago jazz scene for a remarkable 10 years. Cray has spent the […]
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From the archive; Tom Service writes: The simple facts of Franz Schubert’s life shed little light on the enormous emotional range of his music, and the seismic effect his work has had. Living almost entirely in his home town of Vienna, he was a loyal but occasionally cantankerous and drunk friend to a tight-knit groups of […]
Mott The Hoople frontman Ian Hunter tells Andrew Perry about Bowie, band breakups, and playing bigger gigs than in their Seventies heydey Mott the Hoople, one of the great bands of the glam-rock era, are about to play the biggest gig of their career. The band, whose landmark hit All the Young Dudes was written […]
Paul Naser writes: The rare balance of passionate ambition and mature dedication that are the hallmark of young professionals puts them in a category all their own. More often than not they began honing their skills at an early age and it seems as if life conspired to help them succeed. Justin Faulkner, the young […]
“Coming through storms: that’s how the singer Judy Collins describes the basic narrative of her original songs. “Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude: isn’t it a wonderful world? she laughingly explained over tea at her spacious, homey apartment with a river view on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. “That’s really how they go. I […]
Art Garfunkel, one half of the most successful pop music duo in history, tells Neil McCormick about his two-year struggle to repair his voice. MORE
Martin Chilton writes ….. “Van Morrison, not a man given to hyperbole, said: “Muddy Waters is a prime influence for anybody who’s ever done anything rock ‘n’ roll.” Just ask Eric Clapton or surviving members of the Rolling Stones — named after one of his songs, of course — why we should toast the memory […]
In his own words…Art Hoyle: “Art Hoyle received his first trumpet on his eighth birthday in rural Oklahoma. He began playing in clubs and ballrooms at the age of fifteen in Gary, Indiana. After a four-year stint in bands in the U.S. Air Force, Hoyle joined the Sun Ra Arkestra in 1956. From 1957 to […]
It’s been a ‘wasted life’, he says, but The Animals’ frontman, Eric Burdon, has conjured up his best album for 25 years, writes Neil McCormick. MORE
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Seen in the hallways at California State University in Northridge, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, where he teaches big band arranging, jazz history and other music courses, John Daversa might be seen with his goatee, and dense, dark and curly hair, parted in the middle, and correctly sense he might be involved in one of […]
A native of Bolivar, New York, Joélle Harvey was the First Prize winner of the Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition in 2011. In October 2012, she sang the role of Susanna in the Glyndebourne Festival Tour’s production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro; San Franciscans may well remember her as Zerlina with the Merola Opera […]
Martin Chilton (The Telegraph) writes as follows: Danny Thompson is celebrating his 75th birthday with a series of concerts with musical collaborators such as Richard Thompson and Donovan. Here the acoustic bass maestro talks about his varied career playing with folk and jazz greats and pop stars such as Kate Bush and Cliff Richard Continue […]
Originally posted April 2011 Robert Baird writes ….. Whistling ductwork, whirring fans, murmuring pipes—along with being jazz’s most storied location, a living shrine to the memories of Bill Evans, John Coltrane, and so many others, Manhattan’s Village Vanguard, on Seventh Avenue South, was, on this winter’s night, the Das Boot of jazz. In every corner, […]
allaboutjazz Albert “Tootie” Heath is among the drummers who lived—and thrived—during what many call the golden age of jazz, the ’40s, ’50, early ’60s. He’s enjoyed the fruits of a varied and historic career, but never stayed put. Just kept working. He admires the musicians of today and the direction of jazz. The Philadelphia native […]
Singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein remember how the band overcame the disco haters – including their own drummer – to transform one of their earliest songs into a worldwide hit MORE
“Glenn Gould called it ‘the greatest song cycle ever written’, entitling his notes on the two versions of Paul Hindemith’s masterpiece ‘A Tale of Two Marienlebens’. Stravinsky had already insinuated ‘Last Year at Marienleben’. And my pupils recently produced a better wordplay: asked what the name meant, they shyly volunteered ‘Married Life…?’ Copies of […]
Ian Patterson (all about jazz) writes ….. In times when independent musicians have to function as one-person business enterprises most musicians show more than one face. David Lyttle, drummer par excellence from Waringstown, Northern Ireland, wears more faces than most. Musician, songwriter, record label owner, producer, interviewer and talent scout—Lyttle has built a solid reputation […]
Richard Thompson, who was interviewed by the Telegraph ahead of his UK tour which starts tonight, also did a Q&A around his new album Electric. • How do you actually work on songs? I write out my songs long hand and notate the music rather than trust electronic devices, which I tend to lose. If […]
Saxophonist and horn arranger Freddy Vigdor has been a member of the Average White Band for the last decade. He has performed with the band around the globe at festivals, clubs, on television and radio programs while, as a prolific composer, his work has been recorded by the likes of Grover Washington, Jr., Bob Baldwin, […]
Nike Wagner’s family tree includes both Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. The author and festival director talked with DW about the intriguing and at times paradoxical legacy of Franz Liszt. MORE
From MattAndJojang’s Blog I was going through a really difficult time around the autumn of 1968. It was late in the Beatles’ career and we had begun making a new album, a follow-up to the “White Album.” As a group we were starting to have problems. I think I was sensing the Beatles were breaking […]
Dodgy sound, dodgy bass players, hostile crowds, no crowds, flying bottles – every band has had bad gigs. Paul Lester asks musicians about the worst gigs they ever played MORE