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
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
