Big Band Report

As the countdown continues toward the last Big Band Report in June, the time has come to point fingers and name names--in other words, to compile a short list of contemporary jazz musicians who have risen above the norm to help make life more pleasurable for one devoted listener. These are, mind you, personal choices, and ...

Suppose a month goes by, you have a column to publish, but nothing has happened that's worth writing about. What do you do then? Read on, as the question is about to be answered.

A while back there was a discussion at a Stan Kenton web site (Kentonia) about musicians or groups of musicians (more specifically, ...

With Betty sidelined by a bad cough, it was up to me to seek out local jazz events in February, and I managed to find a couple of pretty good ones, starting February 7 at the University of New Mexico's Keller Hall where SuperSax New Mexico performed for the third time in Albuquerque. As you may ...

One of the channels that came with my Dish Network package is Classic Arts Showcase, which is a treasure trove of film clips documenting classical, ballet, folk, pop and other forms of music that one is unlikely to see anywhere else (although some footage is presumably available on YouTube, which more and more seems to encompass ...

Dave Brubeck wasn't really a big-band kinda guy; in fact, he was seldom seen in groups larger than four or five. On the other hand, he was an extraordinary musician, one whose influence will no doubt be felt for generations to come. Brubeck, who remained active almost to the end of his life, died December 5 ...

For nearly fifteen years now, I've been writing two monthly columns here at All About Jazz: this one (Big Band Report) and Big Band Caravan. That is about to change. Starting next month, the two will be pared down to one inclusive column using as its title Big Band Report. So rather than searching the AAJ ...

I've been listening to a lot of Stan Kenton's music recently while coming to grips with the age-old question, did the Kenton orchestra really swing? The answer, to me, is a no-brainer: Yes, Kenton swung. Liberally and often. [Note: This of course depends on how “swinging" is defined; opinions may vary]. In his own way--although he'd ...

Even before Groovin' Hard, the Los Angeles Jazz Institute's latest foray into the world of contemporary jazz, kicked off its four-day run (October 11-14) at the Marriott LAX Hotel, a letter arrived from LAJI director Ken Poston announcing details of next May's extravaganza, also at the Marriott. The theme is Big Band Spectacular, and the bands ...

It's not often one has a chance to see and hear a dozen of New Mexico's premier jazz musicians together onstage (or almost so) for a single concert, but that is what took place August 11 as an overflow audience welcomed the Charlie Christian Project and SuperSax New Mexico to the Albuquerque Museum of Art and ...

Unlike college sports, there is no Title IX program for women in jazz. Those who wish to pursue that line of endeavor have to elbow their way into what remains essentially a male-dominated profession (or art) and keep climbing the ladder one rung at a time. True, women have made notable inroads in recent years and ...

June, as always, is a harbinger of exciting things to come as the jazz festival season springs forth in earnest, causing even the most ardent couch potatoes to bestir themselves and start perusing the calendar to locate interesting events in their neck of the woods. Here in New Mexico, the “outdoor" season comes to life with ...

This may be one of the shortest columns I've written in fourteen-plus years at All About Jazz. The fact is, not much has happened this month in our little corner of big band jazz, and there is almost nothing to report. About all we can do is look forward to events on the horizon: Jazz Under ...

Back in the last millennium, shortly after this column first saw the light of day, I posted a list of twenty “desert island" albums, those that would be snugly ensconced in a crash-proof, water-tight carrying case should yours truly ever be marooned on a miniature atoll with nothing to relieve the boredom save palm trees, coconuts, ...

March came in like a lion in Albuquerque with no less than four blue-chip jazz concerts in the first five days, three of which I attended, passing on the first (the Charlie Christian Project featuring guitarist Michael Anthony and trumpeter Bobby Shew at The Outpost Performance Space) because Betty and I had seen basically the same ...