Tag Archives: charlieparker
Book Review: The Jazz Standards (A Guide To The Repertoire) by Ted Gioia
Like most good ideas, it’s a very simple one; an A-Z guide to the Great American Songbook from a jazz perspective – who wrote the tunes, why they wrote them and a roundup of the best versions. Gioia, a highly respected jazz writer and author, comes up trumps with ‘The Jazz Standards’, a well-researched, witty, […]
Interview: Bryan Ferry talks about ‘The Jazz Age’
When you think Bryan Ferry, you probably think white tuxedo, Jerry Hall, that beautifully fragile croon and pop/art gems such as ‘Love Is The Drug’ and ‘Let’s Stick Together’ – you probably don’t think jazz. But look deeper into his career and there are many hints of a latent jazzophilia, from Andy Mackay’s snaky soprano […]
Book Review: Stan Levey: Jazz Heavyweight by Frank R. Hayde
If Martin Scorsese ever gets round to making his jazz movie, he could do a lot worse than a Stan Levey biopic. Levey, who died in 2005, was one of the first great bebop drummers. Completely self-taught and an early master of fast tempos, he played with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Tatum, Miles Davis, […]
Book Review: Nica’s Dream by David Kastin
Interviewer: What is jazz? Thelonious Monk: New York, man. You can feel it. It’s around in the air… If the ‘Jazz Baroness’ Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild de Koenigswarter hadn’t existed, would the great beboppers have had to invent her? The benefactor and friend to the stars was an important figure in the jazz lexicon but […]
Sounds Of Surprise 