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Chick and Crease - An Appreciation of "Rhythm Man Chick Webb and The Beat...
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.On its own merits, as a thoroughly researched and well-written biography, Stephanie Stein Crease’s Rhythm Man Chick Webb and The...
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Phil Woods - Bird with Strings ... And More!
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“If there was anyone born to give a tribute to alto sax legend Charlie Parker, it had to have been Phil Woods, who dedicated his...
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Artie Shaw on Rehearsing a Band - Part 1
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“Artie Shaw - CLARINET born 23 May 1910; died 30 December 2004A high-profile success which he would have preferred to have had...
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Artie Shaw on Rehearsing a Band - Part 2
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.'This is the task, this is the labor."- VERGIL“Shaw's fine technique and piping sound let him effectively go toe to toe with...
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Milt Hinton: We Are Like Atlas - Part 1 [From the Archives]
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“Milt Hinton is a unique figure in jazz. As a bass player, he spans seven decades of the music's history. Starting out with Cab Calloway in...
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Milt Hinton: We Are Like Atlas - Part 2 [From the Archives]
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.Milt Hinton died on December 19, 2000, nearly six months after his 90th birthday on June 24th. Gene published the 3rd and last part of his...
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Milt Hinton: We Are Like Atlas - Part 3 [From the Archives]
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“Milt Hinton’s impressive sound and his sense of time were linked with a consummate feeling for harmony. These attributes gained him a strong...
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CerraJazz on Substack
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.After almost 15 years of posting features free of charge on jazzprofiles.blogspot, we will be transitioning to the Substack online...
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The Sound of Jazz by Whitney Balliett [From the Archives]
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.Until the publication of Whitney Balliett’s essay “The Sound of Jazz” in the New Yorker [1983], very little of the background...
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Artie Shaw - Self-Portrait
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“Overall, it's my belief that performers have a right to be judged by their best work. Roger Bannister must have run lots of miles...
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Brad Mehldau - "Formation" - An Appreciation
© Copyright ® Wall Street Journal, copyright protected; all rights reserved.‘Formation’ Review: Brad Mehldau’s Song in the DarkThe jazz pianist chronicles his early years, in which music was the...
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Victor Feldman All-Stars Plays Soviet Jazz Themes
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.Drummer, vibraphonist and pianist Victor Feldman was such a superbly talented musician and accomplished reader that he made his primary living...
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Remembering Wardell Gray [1921-1955] - Part 1 - The Ira Gitler Prestige Notes...
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.SIDEMAN BLUESHe played in Vegas. Then he died there--his body found at the edge of the desert with a broken neck and a bloodstream...
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Remembering Wardell Gray [1921-1955] - Part 2 -The Michael James Essay [From...
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“It is greatly to the credit of Michael James that he has managed, in the course of these essays, to avoid the pitfalls of facile...
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Remembering Wardell Gray [1921-1955] - Part 3 - the Herbie Butterfield Essay
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“The death of Wardell Gray has not been completely cleared up but it is not for us to attempt to solve any mysteries here. …. His...
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Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen - born May 27 1946; died April 19 2005.
“The double bass came a long way in jazz between the 1930s and the 1960s, from plodding marker of the beat and the chord change to fully-fledged countermelodic, and sometimes even frontline...
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Remembering Wardell Gray [1921-1955] - Part 4 - Alun Morgan Essay [From the...
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.The editorial staff at JazzProfiles’ initial effort to help remember and commemorate Wardell Gray on these pages began with The...
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Gerry Mulligan, 'Rebirth of the Cool' - 1991
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“When the seminal gatherings for the Miles Davis Orchestra first took place in 1947, Gil Evans was the old man at thirty-five;...
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CerraJazz on Substack - The June 1, 2023 Transition
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.After almost 15 years of posting features free of charge on jazzprofiles.blogspot, we will be transitioning to the Substack online...
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