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Eddie Daniels and Roger Kellaway - "Just Friends" on Resonance Records
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.Some of us have been around the Jazz World long enough to remember when pianist extraordinaire Roger Kellaway first joined the Clark Terry -...
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Paramaribop
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.Music by Anton Goudsmit, Efraim Trujillo, Jeroen Vierdag and Martijn VinkA few years ago a friend in Holland sent me a radio broadcast of...
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Pee Wee Russell: A Singular, Scintillating & Shuddery Style
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.CHARLES ELLSWORTH "PEE WEE" RUSSELLBorn: St. Louis, Mo., March 27, 1906Died: Alexandria, Va., February 15, 1969Musician - Legend - Jazz...
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Curtis Amy - Testifyin’ Texas Tenor
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.That Texastenor sound is a phenomenon in itself. David “Fathead” Newman, Don Wilkerson, Booker Ervin, James Clay, King Curtis and WiltonFelder...
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Jack Brownlow: A Hometown Favorite
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.Every town has one.Whether its Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Reno or Seattle.Somewhere in these cities, there is an exceptional Jazz musician who is...
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Francesco Cafiso – Ciminiera Verdi [Green Chimneys]
© -Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.Some young, Jazz players use a lot of notes in their solos.This tendency seems to be a part of the joys of first expression; the thrill of...
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Dizzy Gillespie: Serious and Showy - A look back at one of the most...
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.It is impossible to fully assess the footprint that John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie left on the path forward of Modern Jazz in the second half of...
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Gerald Wilson - Then and Now - [1918-2014]
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved."The story of West Coast big bands from the 1950s, especially those featuring black leaders, was largely one of neglect. …Despite the...
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"What Is Jazz" - From Jazz Americana by Woody Woodward
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“Frenchmen call it Le Jazz Hot. If you want a hot argument, just ask twoor more jazz enthusiasts to define it for you.”“The jazz musician...
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West Coast Jazz Box
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“There was something special about the West Coast jazz scene of the Fifties and early Sixties. Those of us privileged enough to have lived...
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"Mama Jazz" - Ella Fitzgerald at 100: A Review of Leslie Gourse's "The Ella...
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“Nobody probed to find out anything definitive or accurate about the childhood struggles of the young woman. Nobody realized that Ella’s...
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Phil Woods and The European Rhythm Machine
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved."Mr. Woods was one of the leading alto saxophonists in the generation that followed Charlie Parker, who had set an imposing new bar for...
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“Fine As [Phineas] Can Be”: Phineas Newborn, Jr.
“This is the greatest thing that ever happened to Jazz – the greatest pianist playing today. In every respect, he’s tremendous. He is just beautiful. A wonderful Jazz musician,”- Jazz pianist, Gene...
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Paul Desmond: Neoclassicism in Jazz [Part 1]
OUP Material, Copyright Line, and AcknowledgementIP NumberTHE IMPERFECT ART by Giola (1988) 2800w from "IV: Neoclassicism in Art" pp.81-91 © 1998 by Ted Gioia By permission of Oxford University Press,...
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John Lewis: Neoclassicism in Jazz [Part 2]
“Jazz, in the hands of a neoclassicist, is a music of balance, of care, of restraint; with an unabashed lyricism and a subtle sense of formal structure, …. [T]he neoclassicist can often be...
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Third Stream Music - From Three Perspectives - Part 1
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.One of my Jazz buddies suggested that I develop a blog feature on Third Stream music and I thought it might be particularly appropriate to do...
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Leo Wright: Alto Sax and Flute with Verve and Vigor
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.One of the most pleasurable experiences in Jazz is finding a musician who is new to you and whose music “speaks to you.”Alto saxophonist and...
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Third Stream Music - From Three Perspectives - Part 2
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“The world of music in the 1950s was still for the most part divided among sharply defined lines of musicians who, on the jazz side, could not...
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Monica Ramey and Beegie Adair - "Some Enchanted Evening"
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.For one so “young” [a relative term as it is used here], it is amazing to hear Monica Ramey’s singing of standards from the Great American...
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Third Stream Music - From Three Perspectives - Part 3
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.“When Brandeis University held its fourth Festival of the Creative Arts in 1957 at least one of the programmes represented a most unusual...
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