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Pops – Dave and Iola Brubeck – The Real Ambassadors
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“… in 1961, when Daveand his wife lola wrote The Real Ambassadors, which featured Louis Armstrong, Carmen McRae and Lambert, Hendricks...
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A Biography of Fats Waller by Maurice Waller and Anthony Calabrese
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved."My father [Fats Waller] had a unique system to reward inventiveness in improvisation. Pop kept two bottles of gin on a table during the...
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Sadik Hakim: A Remembrance by David Ouse
Our thanks to JazzProfiles Dave Lull for bringing this information about Sadik Hakim to our attention so that we could present it to you as another feature in our “Forgotten Man” series.Interestingly,...
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Yusef Lateef "Before Dawn" and "Live at Pep's"
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“Lateef never settles for bebop cliches, however. Like that of his boyhood friends Mitchell and Thompson, his tenor saxophone work is steeped...
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Jeff Hamilton: Always in Good Time and In Good Taste
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.If you have an interest in Jazz drumming, Jeff Hamilton spoils you.He doesn’t follow a standard of excellence for good taste and drive in...
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Jimmy Rowles - The Len Lyons Interview, 1978
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.[Jimmy’s solos are often] … a coherent montage of hammered single notes, offhanded dissonances, wandering arpeggios, abrupt bass walks, trebly...
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Ernestine Anderson: Incomparable
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.The voice —that rich, warm, sultry, infinitely sensitive voice —is the embodiment of Ernestine Anderson. To hear her sing is to know the woman...
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Jane Ira Bloom - "Wild Lines: Improvising Emily Dickinson"
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“At an age when most creative people are settling into comfortable work patterns, soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom continues finding ways for...
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Cool Concepts Cars and Cool Jazz – “Two of a Mind”
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.I’m sure that everyone from movie action heroes to deep, philosophical thinkers have used the phrase – “there are no coincidences” and whether...
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Brass Shout
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.The Mosiac Records boxed set - The Complete Argo/Mercury Art Farmer/Benny Golson Jazztet Sessions [MD7-225] - brought me back in touch with...
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Tony Williams 1945-1997: The Unpredictable in Jazz Drumming - Revised and...
The following feature on drummer, bandleader and composer, Tony Williams has been revised to include below "A Lesson from Tony" sent to us from drummer Ed Soph who teaches at the University of North...
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Art Farmer in L.A.
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.Arriving in Los Angeles in 1945 at the age of sixteen, trumpeter Art Farmer started playing professionally while attending JeffersonHigh...
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Richie Kamuca - The Gordon Jack Interview
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.In view of how little tenor saxophonist Richie Kamuca [1930-1977] recorded under his own name over the years, I was immensely fortunate to hear...
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Jean “Toots” Thielemans: A Tasteful, Talented Treat
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“Thielemans recorded ‘Bluesette’ in 1961, after working in George Shearing’s quintet [since 1952]; his first hit had him playing guitar...
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Hampton Hawes - All Night Session!
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“Comparatively little has been written on the art of jazz improvisation. How the jazzman plays notes, devises figures, invents rhythm, concocts...
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Cool Struttin' With Sonny Clark
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“Sonny Clark was an important figure in hard bop piano, but his reputation has perhaps suffered a little from the fact that his creative...
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The Shelly Manne Quintet Plays Bill Holman's Quartet
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.If anyone asked me for my list of Desert Island Recordings [these days, one hopes it has access to WiFi], chief among them would be More...
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Chico Hamilton Quintet - The Robert Gordon/Mosaic Records Notes
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.Robert “Bob” Gordon is an authority on what he prefers to label “Jazz on the West Coast.” Bob is also a friend of mine and an all-around...
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Sonny Rollins – The Prestige Years [From the Archives]
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved“Sonny Rollins first recorded for Bob Weinstock's new Prestige label in 1949, when he was not yet 19 years old and at the very beginning of his...
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The Process of Making Jazz - A Metaphor: “Seeing is Forgetting The Name of...
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.Sometimes while reading reviews or listening to others discuss Jazz, I get the impression that there is the view that Jazz comes ready-formed;...
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