News & Updates — jazz

The Cuban-born, West Coast-based hard-hitting percussionist Armando Peraza is best known for his work with the Santana band, George Shearing and Cal Tjader. He played congas, bongos and timbales, was a songwriter and dancer and made a killer album under his own name for Skye Records. Born in Havana, he was orphaned and took to boxing and baseball. After some time as a boxing coach he became a musician at 17, joining the band of Albert Ruiz and other Cuban groups. It may have been just another hustle at first, but it set him off onto a globe-trotting career! He...

Best known as the older brother of saxophonist Wayne, Alan Shorter was a fiercely unique free jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player in the '60s and early '70s. From Newark NJ, he was playing in a bebop group as a youngster with Wayne, Grachan Moncur III and Walter Davis Jr. He spent some time in the Army and joined the fire music scene, cutting sessions with Archie Shepp, Alan Silva, Marion Brown, Francois Tusques, the Full Moon Ensemble and his brother's 1965 album The All-Seeing Eye. (In fact, he was composer of "Mephistopheles" on said album). He made two underground classics...

Another underappreciated jazz artist, Hilton Ruiz seems to have been lumped into the "Latin jazz" ghetto, but make no mistake, his music (and that of many other Latino jazz artists) is worthy of a place in the landscape of JAZZ. It has always irked me how many (usually white) fans of jazz have no problem with including the music of the European avant-garde improvisers in their listening but it's just too much of a stretch to include artists with names like Ruiz, Ray Barretto, Mongo Santamaría, Sabu Martinez, Eddie Palmieri and the like to be considered SERIOUS jazz artists? Fuck,...

Happy birthday to weirdo filmmaker, bohemian, anthropologist and folk song archivist Harry Everett Smith! Where would we be without his awesome Anthology of American Folk Music, taken from his personal 78s collection and allowing the world to hear long-forgotten and buried blues, gospel, hillbilly and various folk musics. Folkways released and marketed this set of records in 1952, well ahead of the Folk & Blues Revival, and many would-be stars cherished these recordings and many of them covering the songs contained. Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and many others counted this glorious set as a major influence.

Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker was one of the men who brought the electric guitar to the forefront. He played guitar with his teeth during his act and inspired so many (Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, the 3 Kings --BB, Freddy, Albert, Gatemouth Brown, the Allman Bros). He was one of the original "modern blues" artists, electrifying the rural blues and making it more sophisticated with jazz, jump and swing. He also is considered one of the founders of rock & roll. The Afro-Cherokee blues guitarist got his career going in the '20s around Dallas working for Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charlie Christian...