Author: Doug Hall
Given the transitory lifestyle and traveling nature of jazz musicians in the ‘40s and ‘50s particularly, as a regular circuit of cities throughout the US offered venues reached mostly by long, often overnight bus rides—the equivalent of today’s red-eye flights–sidemen of this era often led a nomadic life. These many remarkable musicians, some more in […]
Anytime a local band in the New York and New England area finds itself voted #1 out of 64 up-and-coming bands in NYS Music’s statewide March Madness competition (in 2021), it is significant. Buffalo-based band Organ Fairchild has been described as “a musical party that won’t quit.” As referenced in the biography category on AllAboutJazz.com, […]
The circle of jazz drummers that emerged in the 1950s set a new high for talent. Certain names repeat themselves as they joined seminal jazz trios, quartets, and quintets led by legendary bandleaders. Philly Joe Jones (aka Joseph Rudolph Jones) would establish his own fiery, volatile style – often referred to as “like a machine […]
In the jazz community, innumerable legendary bandleaders are familiar to jazz fans, yet often, it’s the sidemen at the core of that bandleader’s trio, quartet, or orchestra. At 83, Kenny Barron, pianist, composer, educator, and NEA jazz master, is the current statesman of piano accompaniment in jazz and a bandleader in his own right. As […]
Miles Davis stands, to many jazz scholars, jazz historians, and critics, as arguably the most influential jazz musician and composer in the post-World War II modern period. Jazz as a genre is a mélange of subcategories developed over 100-plus years of evolution, with a variety of essential musical contributors. However, some singular artists effect cataclysmic […]
By Doug Hall, WICN Contributing Writer As with standard jazz instruments, many players are responsible for popularizing them during different genre periods. For the vibraphone, there is no greater originator and virtuoso than Lionel Hampton. Hampton would become a pioneer in the use of the vibraphone as a soloist and later enjoy international fame as a […]
by Doug Hall, Contributing Writer During the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the late ‘50s and ‘60s, many Black musicians participated in the marches, demonstrations, and political activities of the times, lending their voices and stature to this seminal era in America. In particular, Black female vocalists Billie Holiday and Nina Simone were […]
By Doug Hall, WICN Contributing Writer In the music world, particularly in the R&B and Soul genres, the foundation of church gospel in the early lives of African-American vocalists is widespread. Aretha Franklin, Toni Braxton, Diana Ross, Whitney Houston, and Sam Cooke all had their musical beginnings in local neighborhood churches that served their communities, […]
By Doug Hall Often in jazz, when identifying the soaring range or virtuosity or power of a vocalist, these gifts are accepted as a skill set that is necessary to impart the depth and complication of song material. Through 1930s to her death in 1959, Billie Holiday, singing within a vocal range of barely […]
Common in the jazz world–and the wider music industry, to be sure–there are personal story arcs that are dramatically tragic, until the musician manages to rebound and reestablish their career. But if any one musician could carry a legacy that contradicted his early youthful Hollywood-handsome visage that hid a host of darker emotions, Chet Baker […]