Album Reviews

It is possible to be a jazz expert and still have no idea who Mel B. Kaufman was. Kaufman (1879-1932), a traveling salesman who sold

From Apr. 7, 1945 through Nov. 1945 and again from Apr-Oct. 1946, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra appeared on a weekly series of 55-minute programs

Greg Murphy is a seasoned pianist and composer who has assembled a great team for this, his fourth CD as leader. It’s a mix of

I’ve heard sports fans discussing football “Dream Teams,” a hypothetical assembling of great historical players and coaches, putting together theoretical plays, and games, styles, and

Bassist Alcide “Slow Drag” Pavageau was a member of Bunk Johnson’s band during 1944-46 and was a regular fixture with clarinetist George Lewis for decades.

Henry “Red” Allen (1908-67) was one of the greatest and most advanced of the early New Orleans trumpeters. He was always a bit of a

Any self-respecting swing fan should know about the Midiri Brothers. The twins, clarinetist Joe Midiri and vibraphonist Paul Midiri, are two of the most consistently

Woody Allen has long loved early jazz, whether it is Sidney Bechet, Django Reinhardt or virtually any of the giants of the 1920s and ‘30s.

Do you enjoy hot small-group swing? Then Michael Gamble and the Rhythm Serenaders’ self-titled CD is definitely for you. Bassist Gamble utilizes an octet or

In The Tradition/April In New Orleans is a single CD containing the music of two very complementary former LPs, both of which feature the frontline

Ken Peplowski assembled his team-mates for this charming CD and chose a variety of tunes, some of which are outside the usual jazz repertoire. His

The Galvanized Jazz Band was formed in Connecticut in 1971. From the start, the core of the hot jazz group was cornetist Fred Vigorito, Noel

Wild Bill Davison (1906-89) was one of the most colorful of all jazz cornetists/trumpeters. He had a distinctive sound and filled his solos with emotions

Due to its recent revival and modernization on Broadway, the pioneering Eubie Blake/Noble Sissle Shuffle Along show has been getting a lot of publicity lately.

Here’s another Harry Allen gem from Arbors Records. Harry has assembled an all-star team with fellow tenor saxophonists Grant Stewart and Eric Alexander and baritone

Paul Asaro’s Fat Babies Jazz Band has emerged since its founding in 2010 as one of the finest classic jazz groups currently active in the

Ethan Uslan, who had recorded two previous CDs for Rivermont, is a classically-trained pianist who in college switched permanently to syncopated music. He plays both

Ted Lewis occupies a unique place in jazz history. On the one hand, he became famous for his overly sentimental singing (which looked back nostalgically

Because they followed the Original Dixieland Jazz Band by a few years and directly preceded the first recordings of King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, the

Joe Daniels may not be remembered much today but he was one of Great Britain’s top jazz drummers for decades, starting in the mid-1920s. In

This is an “outside the box” recording in that it is not the standard jazz CD. It features poetry by Langston Hughes set to music

This CD features pianist/vocalist Daniela Schachter with a small group performing eleven of composer Jimmy Van Heusen’s famous tunes. She is visiting professor of voice