Album Reviews

Of all the things being cancelled by you-know-what, the saddest to see knocked on the head would undoubtedly be Shirt Tail Stompers’ tenth birthday bash

Glenn Crytzer, facing all the musical hurdles that everyone is right now put on his bandleader hat and assembled an all-star team that could rise

Clarinetists Acker Bilk and Wally Fawkes both carved out important niches in the traditional jazz world of Great Britain. After a period working with Ken

There’s a very good reason that you’ve most likely never heard of violinist and bandleader Nat Brusiloff. Brusiloff, born Naucham Brusilovsky in Russia in 1904,

Throughout his life, Scott Joplin sought to have his ragtime music accepted as American art rather than have it considered mere entertainment. It was a

Jesper Thilo, who was a month shy of his 78th birthday when he recorded Swing Is The Thing in 2019, has been an important swing-based

There’s something particularly appealing about live recordings right now, when we can’t go out and enjoy bands in person. A 1961 record of Chris Barber

The Syncopation Society of Berlin is a collaboration of jazz and swing artists who even in normal times work to promote and support each other’s

One of the finest clarinetists of the past 30 years, Tim Laughlin long ago developed his own sound within the New Orleans jazz tradition, inspired

Cliff Jackson (1902-70) was one of the great stride pianists to emerge from the 1920s. Despite that, Jackson recorded exclusively during 1924-27 as an accompanist

I didn’t realize just how much I need dancing in my life, until I could no longer do it. I knew I loved it, but

Robert Bell’s Hot Swing Combo has spent the last fifteen years as regional favorites at Midwestern swing events. They are based in Minneapolis and have

I downloaded this album the moment I saw it. At the time it was only five tracks with maybe six or seven musicians on board

Veteran clarinetist and saxophonist Bob Fanelli pays tribute to Louis Armstrong on a CD with the Dixie Boys. The performances are not strict re-creations and

The recordings on this CD date from the last days of Louis Armstrong’s membership in the King Oliver Creole Jazz Band until the time when

Recently I picked up a used self-titled LP by a group called Wholly Cats since it had some potentially hot swing performances on it. Only

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