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The violin was part of some of the earliest jazz bands in New Orleans but it was not taken seriously as a solo instrument in
Jonathan Stout has long been an important figure in the swing and swing dance community. An excellent guitarist whose style ranges from Carl Kress and
La Suite Wilson is an octet of superior swing players from France that consists of trumpeter Michel Bonnet, tenor-saxophonist Nicolas Montler, Matthieu Vernhes on alto
Veteran cornetist Ed Polcer, who is now 85, has been a talented soloist since the 1960s when he joined Benny Goodman’s small group. He managed
The COVID pandemic, while robbing musicians of the opportunity to play gigs and to even practice together, did result in some new projects being born.
Erroll Garner had such a unique style on the piano that it used to be very difficult for other pianists (which included George Shearing and
Jazz Classic of the Month: In the 1950s and ‘60s, most Dixieland bands enlisted one of their instrumentalists to also sing some numbers. Many were
Swing singer Maxine Sullivan and stride pianist Cliff Jackson may not have been the most logical matchup, but it was a marriage that worked. Both
In 1966, the Barroom Buzzards of Buffalo, New York, first came together as a Dixieland quartet comprised of banjoist Phil Santa Maria, clarinetist Paul Preston
He was one of the first jazz greats to emerge from New Orleans and become a national star, debuting on record on July 30, 1923,
Back in the 1990s, it was not uncommon for many cities to have their own neighborhood swing orchestra, playing the hits of the big band
His name may be largely forgotten today, but arranger Ralph Flanagan (1914-95) had no less than 21 hits during the 1949-53 period. Earlier he had
Andy Kirk (1898-1992), who played bass sax and tuba until the mid-1930s when he began to just wave a baton, never soloed, did not write
Arguably the top jazz trumpeter or cornetist on records prior to 1923, Phil Napoleon has somehow managed to miss being prominently included in most jazz
George Girard (1930-57) could have been a big star but his life was tragically cut short by cancer. A technically skilled Dixieland/swing trumpeter with an
Zutty Singleton (1898-1975) was long overdue for a retrospective on CD. During 1924-69, he was on nearly 200 sessions. While most listeners probably think of
504 Records (named after the area code of New Orleans) was founded by Mike Dine in 1979. Dine was a jazz fan from England who
It was a short-term musical partnership but it helped to launch several major careers in the British trad jazz movement. Trombonist Chris Barber (1930-2021) had
Boogie-woogie, which has been said to have originated in Texas in the 1870s, started out as a piano music characterized by an “eight-to-the-bar” left-hand pattern
The group that came to be known as the Secret Six (named after abolitionist John Brown’s Secret Society Of Six from 1859) originated during the
