Remembering Barre Phillips and Tom Johnson

Two adventurous pioneers of American music passed away just before the arrival of the new year. Born in San Francisco, Barre Phillips was a virtuoso jazz and avant-garde bassist. His 1968 album, Journal Violone, featuring a series of solo improvisations, is credited as the first solo double bass record. Active in the free jazz movement, Phillips collaborated with artists including Ornette Coleman and Archie Shepp. In the 1970s, Phillips was a member …

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Remembering Martial Solal

Martial Solal, the Algerian-born French jazz pianist and composer, passed away last Thursday, December 12 in Versailles. He was 97 years old. In the preface to Solal’s autobiography, André Hodeir wrote, Martial Solal, born in 1927, is a pianist. According to Alain Gerber, he is ‘one of the world’s greatest musicians, across all styles, genres and cultures’. Solal ‘astounded’ Sviatoslav Richter, dazzled Duke Ellington with his ‘sensitivity, freshness, creativity and extraordinary technique’, …

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Duke Ellington’s “Paris Blues”: Music from the 1961 Film Score

The 1961 film Paris Blues, starring Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier, tells the story of two expatriate American jazz musicians who are living in 1960s Paris. Dedicated to their artistry, the two are confronted with difficult choices when they meet and fall in love with two American female tourists. The film’s score, written by Duke Ellington, features performances by Ellington’s Orchestra, with Louis Armstrong appearing on two tracks. At the 34th Academy …

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Alec Wilder’s “Blackberry Winter”: Marlene VerPlanck and Keith Jarrett

American composer Alec Wilder (1907-1980) was a maverick and an eccentric whose music defied categorization. Born in Rochester, New York to a prominent family, Wilder was largely self-taught. For a few years, he studied composition and counterpoint privately at the Eastman School of Music, but he felt confined and stifled by the rules of the academy. As a young man, he moved into the Algonquin Hotel in New York City, an enclave …

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Duke Ellington’s “The Mooche”: Three Classic Recordings

The Mooche was one of Duke Ellington’s signature pieces. Composed in 1928 by Ellington and the jazz promoter Irving Mills, it is an example of the Duke’s characteristic “jungle style,” with its exotic, pseudo-African undercurrents. These are the jazz age sounds which filled Harlem’s Cotton Club in the late 1920s. According to Ellington, the title, underscored by the infectiously languid rhythm, refers to “a certain lazy gait peculiar to some of the …

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“Long as You Know You’re Living Yours”: Keith Jarrett’s European Quartet

Long as You Know You’re Living Yours is the third track on the 1974 album, Belonging, featuring the American jazz pianist, Keith Jarrett, with saxophonist Jan Garbarek, bassist Palle Danielsson, and drummer, Jon Christensen. Jarrett’s collaboration with the three Scandinavian musicians resulted in a group which became known as the “European Quartet.” Infamously, Long as You Know You’re Living Yours heavily influenced Gaucho, the title track of Steely Dan’s seventh studio album, released in …

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“Solar”: Keith Jarrett and Miles Davis

Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple. -Keith Jarrett Originally attributed to Miles Davis, the tune Solar was written by the jazz guitarist Chuck Wayne. It was first heard at an intimate 1946 jam session in Oklahoma City. Later, Davis included it on his 1954 album, Walkin’. Here is an ecstatic improvisation on Solar by the American pianist, Keith Jarrett. The athletic performance took place in Japan in …

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