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Gil Evans, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley and "The St. Louis Blues"
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“Cannonball runs away with the album [New Bottle, Old Wine: The Great Jazz Composers Interpreted by Gil Evans ]; his voice predominates. The...
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The Miles Davis 1948/49 Group - from "Modern Jazz" by Morgan and Horricks
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.For the longest time, I was under the impression that the primary treatments on the subject of West Coast Jazz or, if you prefer, Jazz on the...
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The West Coast School Of White Musicians And Its Soloists - from "Modern...
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.As I prepared this chapter for the blog as part of our continuing feature on their book Modern Jazz, I was amazed at how knowledgeable both...
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The Composers of the West Coast School - from "Modern Jazz" by Morgan and...
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.In a passing conversation with Gordon Jack, author of Fifties Jazz Talk: An Oral Retrospective and numerous essays for JazzJournal, I mentioned...
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Joe Caro and The Met Band - "Every Dog Has It's Day"
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.The music and members of Joe Caro’s Met Band remind me a lot of a New York version of the Los Angeles based group of musicians called The...
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"Willie Dennis" by Gordon Jack
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.For all the harmful ways the Internet can be used, one of its many salubrious contributions to mankind is the manner in which it facilitates...
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Paperback Edition of "How To Listen to Jazz" by Ted Gioia
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.With the arrival of the paperbound version of Ted Gioia’s How To Listen To Jazz - just in time for Christmas - [sorry, I couldn’t resist] - I...
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Art Tatum - "Too Marvelous for Words" - James Lester
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“By all the criteria of the nineteenth-century piano tradition, Art Tatum made himself into a piano virtuoso worthy to be compared to the best...
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Gil Evans: The Arranger as Re-Composer, Parts 1 & 2 [From The Archives]
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“He was a mysterious man, as elusive and evanescent as his art. He could be maddeningly absent-minded; yet he could be closely attentive and...
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Abe Most: A Profile by Gary Foster
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“No matter what artistic credentials might be previously acquired, when a jazz musician takes a position of security or one of financial...
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Stan Getz - East of the Sun: The West Coast Sessions - The Ted Gioia Notes
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“Flawless technique, perfect time, strong melodic sense and more than enough harmonic expertise, fabulous memory, and great ears. Add a superb...
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Elisabetta Serio and Enzo Pietropaoli: "Sedici" and "The Princess"
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.For whatever reason, you don’t hear much instrumental Jazz today that’s played quietly, reflectively and introspectively.It takes a certain...
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Gary Foster: Revelations
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.In an earlier life, when the World was young, I wrote woodwind and reed player extraordinaire Gary Foster a “fan letter.”It was occasioned by...
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Steve Davis: Moment to Moment
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“Davis is an adept, declarative player, always indebted to his work with Jackie McLean and Art Blakey, a hard-bop grounding which gives his...
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Uan Rasey: Hollywood Studio Artist - The Leonard Maltin Interview
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.Every film buff knows the names of the great movie composers, but hardly anyone knows who actually performed their scores. Musicians received...
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Brothers And Other Mothers
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.Mark Gardner has been a fine writer about Jazz for many years. He is based in England and has authored numerous essays, articles and liner...
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"Magna-Tism:" Pete Christlieb and Warne Marsh in "Conversation"
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“By far the most loyal and literal of the Tristano disciples, Warne Marsh sedulously avoided the 'jazz life', cleaving to an improvisatory...
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Ahmad Jamal on Mosaic Records
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.Kenny Washington: “How did you come up with your concept of less-is-more?”Ahmad Jamal: “… I think it has to do with philosophy and how I...
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Paul and His Pals - Waiting for the Next Trane
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.The editorial staff at JazzProfiles received a message from Jocelyn B. informing us of the passing of tenor saxophonist George Allgaier on...
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Charlie Parker - A Remembrance by Orrin Keepnews
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved."He was an artist who paid a great price to be able to get out of himself some of the things that most disturbed him. He might have cheated a...
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