Rarely has one musician made such a difference. When Louis Armstrong moved from Chicago to New York in September 1924 to join Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra,
Turk Murphy (1915-1987) was one of the giants of jazz in the San Francisco area, beginning with his tenure in the Lu Watters Yerba Buena
When it comes to reviewing recordings by tenor-saxophonist Scott Hamilton, all one really has to say is that a particular release is “what you expect,”
Here is a group and a leader who I know nothing about and are not listed in jazz discographies. In 2012, Ted Shafer, who ran
The U.K. has always been fortunate, it seems, in the number of traditional jazz bands that have emerged over the years. One of them is
Fred Hunt was most notable for being the longtime pianist with trumpeter Alex Welsh’s Eddie Condon-influenced band in the 1950s and ’60s. An excellent stride
The story of the beginnings of Preservation Hall in New Orleans is one with a few twists and turns. While many people ascribed the founding
While trumpeter Sonny Morris gets the first billing on this collection from Upbeat (which is titled Sonny Morris & Friends In Germany with Lutz Eikelmann),
Ever since the advent of George Webb’s Dixielanders in the forties, the UK has been fortunate in its abundance of traditional jazz groups. Dozens have
Among the Jazz Oracle CDs that are now being made available by the Upbeat Company is Jack Teagarden’s 1930 Studio Sessions. In a parallel universe
It is immediately obvious why Tuba Skinny has been invited to the Newport Jazz Festival. (August 22nd. … and if not this year, we pray
Tuba Skinny has released about an album a year over their now eleven year history. They were scheduled to record number eleven this April until
While Lu Watters was the leader of the pioneering and highly influential Yerba Buena Jazz Band starting in 1941, he retired prematurely in 1950 to
The CD notes tell us that Dick Hyman made partial arrangements of these pieces, setting up a platform for improvisation. When clarinetist Ken Peplowski arrived
Jazz is powerful word, so powerful that the decade 1919/1929 was held in its grasp, known as the Jazz Age. Yet it has a strange
The mere announcement of a new Fat Babies album should inspire most readers of The Syncopated Times to run out and buy it. They are
While Dick Hyman has often concentrated in recent decades on playing classic jazz, stride and swing, he is a very rare pianist in that he
I haven’t been this excited about discovering a new band in a long time. I mean T-shirts and bumper stickers excited. Part of my interest
Clancy Hayes was a unique figure in jazz history, one of its first singer/songwriters and an underrated and versatile musician. He was part of the
I can thank drummer Hal Smith for sending this great little album my way. Without his endorsement I might have easily skipped over it in
While the classic Red Nichols and his Five Pennies sessions are in the Brunswick series, Nichols was so prolific during the 1920s that there is
The Funkrust Brass Band is a 20-piece “post-apocalyptic disco-punk brass band playing all original music with megaphone vocals, heavy tuba bass lines, thundering percussion and
Russell Welch is a name that comes up again and again as I explore the new crop of New Orleans musicians. I’m delighted to cover
In Jan. 1934, trombonist Jack Teagarden, in what he thought was a very good move that would let him ride out the Depression, signed a
