Following the riots of the prior summer, there was no Newport Jazz Festival in 1961. However, the city had not abandoned the idea of being a cultural center for jazz. Instead, promoter Sid Bernstein hosted “Music at Newport.” In some ways, it emulated the original. It was set in both the same venue and time […]
The 1957 Festival extended to four days – Thursday, July 4 to Sunday, July 7- with every minute captured by Voice of America. Most were also recorded, though much remains unreleased, by Norman Granz’s Verve Records. The first evening centered around Louis Armstrong’s purported 57th birthday* with plans to feature many artists who performed with […]
The 1956 Newport Jazz Festival’s schedule was adjusted slightly compared to the prior two outings. While still a three-day event with a focus on nighttime performances, it was moved up a day to begin on Thursday and end on Saturday while also having an earlier start time. Much of the festival took place under torrential […]
By 9:18 PM on the evening of July 17, 1954, Eddie Condon’s tribute to Dixieland finally began its delayed performance. Next was vocalist Lee Wiley, a jam session, and then a series of musicians who in hindsight left an indelible mark of music: the Modern Jazz Quartet with Horace Silver filling in for John Lewis, […]
It would be hard to find a trio better equipped to tackle an entire album of saxophonist Anthony Braxton’s compositions than Thumbscrew. Braxton is an accomplished veteran of the avant-garde, free improvisation, and everything in between. Mary Halvorson (guitar), Tomas Fujiwara (drums, vibraphone), and Michael Formanek (bass) do not approach The Anthony Braxton Project (Cuneiform […]
In September of 1950, twenty-four-year-old George Wein used his college savings to open a nightclub, Storyville, at Boston’s Copley Square Hotel. The venue boldly planned to present jazz in a new light. Taking its name from the legendary New Orleans district of debauchery, brothels, and flophouses from whence the music came, the budding entrepreneur planned […]
Pianist Gerald Clayton first came to the attention of many jazz fans by way of the late Roy Hargrove’s quintet on Earfood (Emarcy, 2008). Since then, the musician has grown to be a fine bandleader in his own right. He has released nothing but high-quality work, with a notable artistic shift between 2011’s Bond: The […]
The term “mentor” comes from a character in Homer’s Odyssey, an epic written in the 8th Century BCE. However, the concept of mentorship dates back to an even earlier era. Some historians suggest that the concept may be as old as humanity itself. Though hardly novel, there can be significant benefits to both parties. From […]
Humanity has a longstanding fascination with incorporating the latest technological developments into music. This interest is perhaps most evident in the history of sampling. In the 1940s, Pierre Schaeffer started producing sonic collages by splicing and manipulating sound recordings. His works formed the base of an experimental form known as musique concrète, an avant-garde progenitor […]
In 2015, Christian Scott Atunde Adjuah created the Stretch Music imprint with Ropeadope Records to support jazz rooted genre blind music that encompasses a wide range of other musical forms and cultures. While its releases have aptly fulfilled this goal, thus far they have been confined solely to the trumpeter’s own boundary-defying works. Before even […]
