Born in Dundee, Scotland, Bert Thompson came to the U.S. in 1956. After a two-year stint playing drums with the 101 st Airborne Division Band and making a number of parachute drops, he returned to civilian life in San Francisco, matriculating at San Francisco State University where he earned a B.A. and an M.A. He went on to matriculate at University of Oregon, where he earned a D.A. and a Ph.D., all of his degrees in English. Now retired, he is a professor emeritus of English at City College of San Francisco. He is also a retired traditional jazz drummer, having played with a number of San Francisco Bay Area bands, including And That’s Jazz, Professor Plum’s Jazz, the Jelly Roll Jazz Band, Mission Gold Jazz Band, and the Zenith New Orleans Parade band; he also played with some further afield, including Gremoli (Long Beach, CA) and the Phoenix Jazzers (Vancouver, B.C.) Today he reviews traditional jazz CDs and writes occasional articles for several publications.
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
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
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
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,
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
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
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
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
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
The names of Peter Bocage and Emilé Barnes are not as well known as those of others who figured more prominently in the New Orleans
Tom Stagg informs us in the CD booklet, “This session was recorded during the annual Ken Colyer Trust visit to New Orleans and was listed
Formed in 2003 in Grenada, Spain, the Potato Head Jazz Band has stayed somewhat under the radar—my radar, at least—until now, and that is unfortunate
For several decades, now, Ted Shafer has been something of an institution in traditional jazz in the San Francisco Bay Area. The message on his