Tag Archives: dizzygillespie
Miles Davis @ 100: Miles’s Mentors
Miles Davis was one of the most influential musicians and style icons of the 20th century, and a father figure to many. But who influenced him? (A shorter version of this article was published on Everything Jazz.) He was human, all too human, and some of his personal relationships were difficult, and he may not […]
Book Review: Sophisticated Giant (The Life And Legacy Of Dexter Gordon) by Maxine Gordon
Jazz books written by ‘jazz widows’ are pretty rare. Only a few come to mind: Laurie Pepper’s ‘Art: Why I Stuck With A Junkie Jazzman’, Jo Gelbart’s ‘Miles And Jo: Love Story In Blue’ and Sue Mingus’s ‘Tonight At Noon’. But, as Val Wilmer’s ‘As Serious As Your Life’ demonstrated some 50 years ago, behind […]
Ben Sidran: Talking Jazz (An Oral History)
They say that if you want to understand why an instrumentalist plays the way he or she plays, listen to them speak. That makes total sense when hearing Wayne Shorter or Ornette Coleman being interviewed. And now, courtesy of Ben Sidran, there’s never been a better chance to hear other examples of this. Sidran is […]
James Moody 1925-2010
Saxophonist, flautist and bandleader James Moody died on Thursday 9 December, 2010, in San Diego, California. The cause of death was pancreatic cancer. He was 85. One of the last living masters of the bebop era, Moody was perhaps best known for ‘Moody’s Mood For Love‘, his masterful 1949 improvisation over the chord changes of […]
Sounds Of Surprise 