Latest posts
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Lee Morgan and The Sidewinder: The Comeback That Changed Hard Bop
Few musicians in jazz history arrived with as much brilliance, confidence and apparent inevitability as Lee Morgan. Before he was old enough to drink legally in much of the United States, Morgan had already performed with Dizzy Gillespie, recorded for Blue Note, appeared alongside John Coltrane and begun establishing himself as one of the most…
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Newport, Monterey and Montreux: How the Great Jazz Festivals Changed the Way the World Heard Jazz
Jazz was born in rooms. Clubs, dance halls, theaters, bars, ballrooms, rehearsal spaces and recording studios provided the environments in which the music developed its language. The intimacy of those places mattered: musicians could read one another at close range, audiences could respond immediately, and improvisation unfolded within spaces small enough for every gesture to…
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Stanley Clarke: How School Days Put the Electric Bass at the Center of Jazz Fusion
When the Bass Stepped Forward There is a moment near the beginning of “School Days” when the role of the electric bass becomes impossible to misunderstand. Stanley Clarke is not hiding underneath the music. He is not simply defining harmony while waiting for a guitarist, saxophonist, or keyboard player to take control. The bass is…
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Lee Konitz, Elvin Jones, and the Architecture of Motion: Abstract Coolism, Piano-less Geometry, and the 1961 Verve Audiophile Manifesto
The Chronicle of an Era: The Post-Bop Divergence, The Anti-Parker Vanguard, and the 1961 Trilateral Solstice By the arrival of 1961, the modern jazz landscape was caught in an intense, creative struggle between two massive stylistic forces. On one side, the explosive, high-pressure currents of hard bop and modalism were pushing ensembles toward volcanic peaks…
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Chick Webb: The Drummer Who Ruled the Savoy and Helped Shape the Swing Era
Baltimore, Harlem and the Rise of Chick Webb Long before swing became a national industry, Chick Webb understood something fundamental about a dance orchestra: rhythm was not simply the foundation beneath the music. It could be the force that organized everything around it. At Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom, where dancers responded immediately to every change in…
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Paulinho da Costa: The Brazilian Percussionist Who Changed the Rhythm of American Music
From Rio to Los Angeles There are musicians whose influence is easy to measure because their names stand at the front of the record. Paulinho da Costa belongs to a more elusive category. For decades, his percussion has been embedded inside recordings heard by millions of people who may never have known who was creating…
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Max Roach and the Architecture of Resistance: Avant-Garde Percussion, Screaming Liricism, and the 1960 Freedom Now Civil Rights Monument
The Chronicle of an Era: The Civil Rights Flashpoint, the Candid Records Underground, and the 1960 Avant-Garde Inversion By the turn of the 1960s, the American social and musical landscape was vibrating with a fierce, unstable revolutionary energy. The superficial peace of the 1950s post-war boom had completely dissolved, replaced by the explosive, unyielding demands…
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Miles Davis, Gil Evans, and the Iberian Mirage: Orchestral Impressionism, Flamenco Agony, and the 1960 Columbia Stereophonic Canvas
The Chronicle of an Era: The Third Stream Confluence, the 30th Street Studio Sanctuary, and the 1960 Aesthetic Metamorphosis By the turn of the 1960s, the American jazz avant-garde was seeking to break free from traditional American blues structures and pop-song frameworks. While small combos were exploring the open vistas of modalism, a highly sophisticated…
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Bill Evans Trio at the Village Vanguard: The Day Three Musicians Changed the Piano Trio
A Sunday in Greenwich Village On Sunday, June 25, 1961, Bill Evans sat down at the piano in the Village Vanguard with Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums. The trio had been developing its language for roughly two years, gradually moving away from the conventional hierarchy in which the pianist occupied the…