Album Reviews

One of the hottest bands of the late 1920s was the Missourians. The nine-piece group, which had earlier been Andy Preer’s Cotton Club Orchestra and

As the traditional jazz revival got under way in the 1950s and beyond, the impetus to record the various groups, especially those in New Orleans,

One of the top ragtime orchestras of the past decade, the Peacherine Ragtime Society Orchestra is a 12-piece ensemble conducted and led by Andrew Greene

When a performance is recorded on location rather than in a studio, certain hazards with the sound quality loom, and they are not completely mitigated

Bob Scobey (1916-63) was a solid trad jazz player who initially gained some recognition for his playing as second trumpeter with Lu Watters’ very influential

Having recorded with various jazz bands and orchestras over the years, Sister Rosetta Tharpe was well-known to jazz fans. In addition to her appearances with

Since 2002, pianist Mike Jones, a virtuoso with a forward-looking swinging style that would easily appeal to fans of Oscar Peterson, has been the warm-up

It seems only natural that someone with the name of Eliot Reinhardt Kenin would someday grow up to be a swing guitarist. The leader of

Australian trombonist Chris Ludowyk has loved and played New Orleans style jazz since at least his debut recording (with Lachie Thompson’s New Whispering Gold Orchestra)

The Bums at Fagan’s has been reissued in tribute to the namesake of Toledo’s annual GrugelFest, Ralph Grugel, who is credited with bringing the Dixieland

Luckey Roberts (1887-1968) was one of the greatest of all stride pianists but he barely made it onto records. Other than backing singer Eddie Hunter

Tongue In Cheek is a fine trad band that is based in Baltimore and Washington D.C. The core of the group is banjoist-leader Zach Serleth,

The British trad movement (which roughly covered 1949-63) found freewheeling British bands inspired by New Orleans jazz not only gaining unexpected popularity in the United

The usual complement of the Pete Allen band is six or seven pieces, but on this disc we have subsets of the usual number, some

Sidney Bechet was not only the first significant soprano-saxophonist in jazz but the most significant one during his lifetime. Arguably one of the two top

The performances on this CD were taken from recordings made at several concerts during the band’s tours of Germany in the early seventies and from

A major performer from Australia, George Washingmachine is an actor, a comedian, and has played guitar and string bass. However it is as a swing

After Hurricane Katrina clarinetist Evan Christopher spent two years in Paris exploring the legacy of Django Reinhardt. The result was a band joining Christopher’s classic

All of the New Orleans jazz pioneers stressed that the music they played was for dancing, not just for listening. The group on this CD

Bria Skonberg, who made her recording debut back in 2002 and has led her Mighty Aphrodite Jazz Band (a fine classic jazz band) since at

Composer Frederick Loewe (1901-88) and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner (1918-86), who met in 1942, wrote the music for such Broadway hits as Brigadoon, Paint Your

At 41 reedman David Lukács has already been playing the classic jazz circuit internationally for over 20 years. In 1998 he won the Kobe Jazz