News & Updates — jazz

Soul-jazz organist Shirley Scott came out of the Philly scene to cut a ton of sides for Prestige, Moodsville, Impulse, Atlantic, Strata East, Muse, Cadet and more. Usually in either just an organ trio format or with an added horn (often her husband Stanley Turrentine), her records were a consistently grooving mix of bop, soul-jazz, gospel, standards, and pop & Motown covers, with the funk underneath and even some light Latin fare. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she first played trumpet and then piano before switching to organ when she filled in on a club gig, immediately loving the instrument....

Despite the unfortunate late portion of Don Drummond's unstable life, he remains a major figure in Jamaican music. A street youth who saw dire poverty early on, the trombonist came out of the Alpha Boys School (home to many great Jamaican artists) and played jazz for several years before helping found the pioneering Skatalites in 1964. He became one of the most high profile early converts to Rastafarianism, political awareness and all. A man of impressive chops (considered by many to be one of the top trombone players in the world), he was teacher to Rico Rodriguez and Vin Gordon,...

One of the best of improvised violin & viola, Leroy Jenkins was a member of Chicago's musicians collective AACM, co-formed Creative Construction Company (with Anthony Braxton) and the incredible out-jazz protest trio Revolutionary Ensemble (with Sirone and Jerome Cooper--check out Vietnam on ESP-Disk and Manhattan Cycles on India Navigation). He also worked with Alice Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Muhal Richard Abrams, Rashied Ali, the JCOA, Andrew Cyrille, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Frank Lowe, Henry Threadgill, Paul Motian and many more. A native of Chicago, he brought classical chops into a radicalized improv-jazz setting, with a percussive yet mesmerizing style. His group...

The Italian-Argentine immigrant Astor Piazzolla rose out of the NYC slums to become the world's most noted avant-tango composer, fusing the traditional with classical, jazz and (later) electronics. He was a standing-up master of the bandoneon, but could also play piano. He heard jazz while growing up in NYC, but still loved tango orchestras and studied classical. One of his heroes, the great tango bandleader Carlos Gardel, was impressed enough with Astor's chops that he asked the 13-yr old to join his orchestra for a tour but Piazzolla's father refused to allow it. Of course, it was that very tour...

Happy birthday to the harmolodic genius Ornette Coleman! His saxophone crying and unique compositional style were as groundbreaking on the avant-garde jazz front as John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor & Sunny Murray, Sun Ra and Albert Ayler were in that new freedom era that started in the late '50s and caused an avalanche of free-jazz in the '60s. In fact, it was Coleman's "double-quartet" album, Free Jazz -from '60, which gave name to a whole genre to follow. The musical revolutionary grew up poor in Fort Worth TX and learned to sight-read and started teaching himself alto sax at 14, right...