Jazz

It's a testament to Jimmy Smith's volcanic creativity that the Hammond B3 organ firebrand recorded not one but two soul jazz classics-Midnight Special and Back at the Chicken Shack-in a single day when he entered Van Gelder Studio on April 25, 1960 with...

Italians have been a force in jazz almost since the music was born. The backbone of the first recorded jazz group, the Original Dixieland Jass Band, was cornetist and trumpeter Dominick (Nick) LaRocca, the New Orleans-born son of Sicilian immigrants. In...

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the Jones brothers Thad, Hank and Elvin on the world of jazz. Between the three of them, their performances can be heard on literally thousands of recordings, including some of the most legendary...

It was inevitable that Dan Berkson would make a jazz album like Dialogues: joyful, danceable, entertaining, driven by the pleasure principle, and filled with virtuosity. It represents Berkson's experiences in London, where jazz is a living, breathing,...

It was 2007 when the big band in N.Y. first covered Bjork's classic 'Hyperballad'. In 2012, the band released a live album with the talented Becca Stevens on vocals. I've been playing a dubplate of the live CD recordings for a while, and now I've been...

'It was 1974 when Magma's fourth studio album W`urdah Itah came out. Originally, the album was released under the name of Tristan Et Iseult as a solo studio film soundtrack by founding member Christian Vander. He recorded the music for Yvan Lagrange's...

It takes one to know one. Which is why jazz drummers have always been ready to join the queue when assessing Art Blakey's influence, not only in the field of percussion but in the shaping of his chosen genre. Max Roach described him as "An original - the...

It is widely accepted that the recorded musical output of Indian-born British guitarist Amancio d'Silva came to a premature closure with the landmark 1972 albums, Cosmic Eye and the unreleased masterpiece Konkan Dance. The Roundtable are here to prove...

It is tempting to play up the "Italian Connection" on Joey's newest record. With Joey's previous nod toward the Goodfellas it would easy to claim that Frank Sinatra is the natural next step. But the simple fact of the matter is that this is tribute of...

It is a pleasant experience to record an album. To turn one's own compositions into music, to invite the right artists, to arrange and act as one pleases, in short: to be in charge of the musical direction and dramaturgy. In the best case, the result...

It could only happen in Detroit. It was in the ashes of this Detroit that Tribe Records was born - a community-driven platform where artists took control of releasing their own music. Two original founding members, saxophonist Wendell Harrison and...

It contains Chet Baker with Ennio Morricone's Orchestra, with 'Il Mio Domani' (My Tomorrow) and 'So Che Ti Perdero' (I Know That I'll Loose You), two recordings of works composed and sung for the first time in Italian by one of the most important...