The great jazz musicians understand that sweetness is an essential part of the music: not always easy to perform but making possible a deep emotional connection between artist, song, and audience. And Joe Boughton wanted to hear sweet ballads just as much as he wanted to hear fifteen musicians roar through ROSE OF THE RIO…

Jazz Lives

20.05.2025

MAKE ROOM ON THE BOOKSHELF FOR JAMES P.! | JAZZ LIVES

The marketing people would call a post like this "time-sensitive," so I will be quick -- as quick as James P. Johnson playing CAPRICE RAG or IF DREAMS COME TRUE. The superb scholar and writer Scott E. Brown, THE authority on James P., has been working for years on the second edition of his biography…

Jazz Lives

20.05.2025

WHATEVER “THAT WAY” IS, PLEASE DON’T BE IT: DAN BARRETT, JOE WILDER, HARRY ALLEN, DAVE McKENNA, JAMES CHIRILLO, BOB HAGGART, BOB COUSINS (Conneaut Lake Jazz Festival, Friday, August 26, 1994) | JAZZ LIVES

I wish someone had interviewed saxophonist-composer-arranger Edgar Sampson to ask him precisely what he meant by the suggestion or entreaty, DON'T BE THAT WAY, which had that title in 1934 when Sampson was part of Chick Webb's reed section. That was before Mitchell Parish added lyrics and before Benny Goodman took credit for part of…

Jazz Lives

22.05.2025

McKENNA THE BOLD: A DAVE McKENNA ADVENTURE (Jazz at Chautauqua, September 12, 1997) | JAZZ LIVES

I think that DEEP PURPLE (music by Peter DeRose, lyrics by Mitchell Parish) is one of the great underrated masterpieces of melancholy nostalgia, right alongside STARDUST, which gets far more attention. When I think of that 1938 song, one version that comes to mind is Bing's: https://youtu.be/NFYnGXv05Tg?si=CDapjyYSjaiPSx5r and then Don Byas' (with Buck Clayton and…

home›Jazz Lives

Jazz Lives

Music

LOVE-NOTES: KEITH INGHAM, JOE WILDER, DAN BARRETT, CHUCK WILSON, BOB REITMEIER, FRANK TATE (Jazz at Chautauqua, Saturday brunch, September 29, 2006) | JAZZ LIVES

MAKE ROOM ON THE BOOKSHELF FOR JAMES P.! | JAZZ LIVES

WHATEVER “THAT WAY” IS, PLEASE DON’T BE IT: DAN BARRETT, JOE WILDER, HARRY ALLEN, DAVE McKENNA, JAMES CHIRILLO, BOB HAGGART, BOB COUSINS (Conneaut Lake Jazz Festival, Friday, August 26, 1994) | JAZZ LIVES

McKENNA THE BOLD: A DAVE McKENNA ADVENTURE (Jazz at Chautauqua, September 12, 1997) | JAZZ LIVES

home
›
Jazz Lives