Whether you are new to the Hot Club of San Francisco or a longtime fan (or even a longtime fan who already has many of their 14 previous CDs) . . . 30 Years is a worthy addition and pretty much a must-have album. For the person just at the gateway of gypsy jazz and …
In the first half of the 20th century, something wonderful happened in America. Out of vaudeville and music hall theaters, jazz and folk, and the native songs of Stephen Foster, there arose an amazing outpouring of great songwriting. Popular songs, Broadway show tunes, jazz standards, and eventually songs from movies. Some were all four. Some …
June 20-25, five shows in six days. Let’s save the best for the first, on Tuesday, June 20th Pharrell ‘Pharoah’ Sanders, one of the last titans of jazz still with us, concluded a three-day run at Seattle’s Triple Door dinner club. At 76, he continues the journey that he began by the age of 21 …
If the Beatles of 1963 were the arrival of modern rock, 1966 was the year it moved into its second phase. I think of 1966 as a year of pregnancy. The momentum built by the British Invasion and the American Response signaled support from the record companies and sureness from the artists, as …
Dead Beatles The play of children and the play of ensemble improvisers like the Grateful Dead share numerous co-identifying qualities. Definitions of play and improvisation precede a comparison of the Dead and the Beatles. These two bands have been exhaustively described, but herein is a focus on the quality of play and the play ethos …