Album Reviews

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

When one listens to the 27 selections on Grey Gull Rarities, it is easy to conclude that Grey Gull was one of the top jazz

At 62 Tim McInnes felt pursuing his musical ambitions had become now or never. He revisited his childhood Schaum method piano training and began to

The long awaited third album from what can only be called a swing revival supergroup is finally here. Recorded last summer at the Minneapolis Uptown

Despite the name The New Orleans Swinging Gypsies aren’t a Hot Club group, but they are more influenced by Django than most of the local

Have you noticed Hollywood counts on European actors when they need a pitch perfect American accent? Christiane Beinl, who leads Vienna’s Stompin’ Lickers hones in

The Jazz Oracle label, which was recently purchased by Upbeat, has a very valuable catalog of 1920s jazz that fortunately Upbeat is making widely available.

Martin Wheatley is a London born master of all string instruments with a specialty in the banjo styles of the ragtime and early jazz era.

Francis Joseph Spanier was better known as “Muggsy,’ a nickname he took for himself from John “Muggsy” McGraw, manager of the New York Giants baseball

Normally in this column I limit the reviews to prebop music, but trumpeter Bruce Adams and altoist-clarinetist Alan Barnes are such versatile musicians that I

The Swingsations, a quintet based in Southern California, was founded in 1995 by its leader trumpeter-singer Jim Ziegler. The group originally consisted of Ziegler, Phil

New Orleans is the only American city seemingly impervious to the natural fading in popularity of musical styles. Jazz had a thirty year reign nationally

Don Vappie has had quite a career as a banjoist, guitarist, bassist, singer, arranger-composer, educator, lecturer, record and event producer, and expert about all aspects

Eubie Blake had such a unique career that he fits into his own musical category. A near-contemporary of Scott Joplin, Blake was a ragtime composer

Throughout his career, clarinetist George Lewis was a bit of a chameleon. His sound and New Orleans jazz style were virtually unchanged from the time

Phil Napoleon was one of the important jazz pioneers. The trumpeter was among the very first musicians based in New York who knew how to

On this, their fourth, CD, the Golden Eagle Jazz Band demonstrate that they have not strayed from their founding tenet as stated on their on-line

From the 1920s into the 1950s it was not unusual for two skilled pianists to perform duets of arranged music that, while inspired by the

On my infrequent visits to the U.K., I have always tried to take in a jazz festival or two, and each time tried to hear