Caity Gyorgy Serves Up a Neat Retort to Critics
Dave Doyle
September 27, 2023
James Reese Europe was more than a bandleader. He was more than a soldier. He was more than an activist. Once labeled the “Martin Luther King of American music” by his friend and fellow musician, Eubie Blake, James Reese Europe was indeed an embodiment of a larger American tradition, often
The unique music project known as the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, with its worldwide reputation as a wellspring of astonishing talent among its pre-teen and teenage jazz musicians, recently celebrated its landmark 10th annual Jazzing Fest (or simply, Jazzing) in Barcelona. Attendees from across Europe, the US, and elsewhere celebrated
Jeff Barnhart: Hal, we’re both very fortunate to have busy performing/traveling schedules this month so we’ve pared down the number of tunes we’ll explore. As we’ll see, there’s an inverse relationship between the low quantity and high quality of these sides. We have four tunes recorded in a single day in
Scott Joplin and Opera Known for his piano rags, Scott Joplin’s ambition to become an opera composer surprised many of his contemporaries. It still surprises music-lovers today. However, examining his life can bring some understanding to the issue. He wanted to be recognized as a serious musical artist, not simply
I encountered reedwoman Natalie Scharf after she joined the front line of the Chicago Cellar Boys. If you’re not aware of this band (and you should be), they are to Chicago what Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks are to New York. Granted, the CCBs is a smaller band than Vince’s—six versus eleven—but
They were three of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 1930s although they have been overshadowed in the jazz history books by Eddie Lang, Django Reinhardt, and Charlie Christian. Carl Kress, Dick McDonough and George Barnes each spent major parts of their careers as studio guitarists, uplifting the music of
One of the experiences in jazz that I wouldn’t trade for anything was the brief time I spent playing with Ev Farey’s Golden State Jazz Band. The opportunity came when Ev called me to ask whether I would consider relocating to the Bay Area to play full-time with the Golden
Pershore is a small city in England unknown to most people. Yet it is home of one of the most active Trad Jazz clubs in the UK, with monthly gigs featuring top talent, both British and European. Additionally, for many years it was the home of an outstanding annual three-day
This month I continue to write about the premier 1974 Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, Missouri. Last month I featured Flint Long, piano contest winner. According to Steven Hancoff, he went to the 1974 Joplin Ragtime Festival, entered the String Contest, and was totally surprised when he won. Since
In the era of Tin Pan Alley, a few recording artists tried to unite their record making with sheet music publishing. In the latter 19th century, sheet music sales still indicated what was popular, and it would take a few decades for records to catch up. While Fred Hylands and
Musicians have to be a hardy lot, and here I’m not only talking about the full-timers—those who log in hundreds of thousands of miles and 300 hotel nights annually (as Anne and I have had to do on certain years)—but the “semi-professional” soldiers who are in the game not merely
The Prescott Jazz Summit takes place the weekend before Labor Day and this year they were celebrating the 22nd year of the event. Situated about 100 miles north of Phoenix, the Summit draws many musicians from the Phoenix area and also Las Vegas which is only 250 miles to the
Just how ignorant do you have to be to get kicked out of a club you started? That’s a rhetorical question which was nonetheless answered this week when Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner found himself booted from the board of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, of which
Ethel Waters was born on October 31, 1896, in Chester, Pennsylvania. She sang in church choirs as a child, won local talent contests, and performed in Philadelphia and Baltimore starting when she was 17. Waters moved to New York in 1917 and made her recording debut in March 1921 on
Stephanie Trick has found that painting has given her a release from the “high” of performing, and the results have been most impressive. This paint-on-the-go hobby could well develop into a second career for this talented stride pianist. “My grandparents on my dad’s side were florists in Santa Maria, California,”
I have never understood why Scott Joplin’s instructional (1908) is conspicuously absent from most “complete” recorded anthologies of the composer’s piano music. School of Ragtime is an apt distillation of Ragtime’s basic elements—more so than the music of Brun Campbell or Ben Harney’s Rag Time Instructor—and contains the pep and poignancy characteristic of Joplin’s
On July 27, 2023, I had the pleasure of attending a one-night-only, 90-minute show by The Duke Ellington Orchestra Quintet at the Criterion Theater in Bar Harbor, Maine. And what a show! It was everything good and great about live jazz and watching seasoned musicians at home on the stage,
Presents Lizzy & The Triggermen from Los Angeles. San Diego’s, Mad Hat Hucksters, Opens. Mira Mesa – November 12th, 2023 – Golden Island Dim Sum will be hosting its first premier show featuring rising star in jazz, Elizabeth Shapiro, of Lizzy & The Triggermen, from Los Angeles, California. San Diego’s very own 6-piece
Yellow sweaters, my friends, yellow sweaters galore! I read a quote recently comparing history to items that float by on the surface of a river and civilization as the stuff that takes place on the river’s banks. My recent experience finding a thriving ecosystem of trad jazz in my own
Over the years from the bandstand I have witnessed some rather strange scenes on the dance floor. At our weekly residency at a pizza parlor, there were some “characters” out there “dancing.” One, whose name was Henry, always gave the band wives trepidations when he approached the group’s table looking
Come to jazz class! The Potomac River Jazz Club (PRJC) of the Washington DC area has issued a call to all other clubs and societies in the global jazzsphere to partner with it in presenting the jazz education talks it airs on Zoom. Since the pandemic, PRJC has been presenting
There was a roadhouse built in the late 1940s located just on the Illinois side of the state line near the little town of Dyer, Indiana. Eventually called the Inn Place, owner Harry Glover wanted to present first-class entertainment to attract jazz fans to the restaurant, so he hired clarinetist
There have been many tributes to cornetist Bix Beiderbecke (1903-31) during the past 92 years. Besides being second only to Louis Armstrong in importance among jazz brass players of the 1920s and a major influence through the decades (cool jazz largely originated with Bix), he was also one of jazz’s
An all-star French jazz trio comprised of tenor-saxophonist Michel Pastre, pianist Louis Mazetier, and drummer Guillaume Nouaux performs a wide-ranging set of music on their recent CD, Fine Ideas. Pastre has been quite active in French swing and trad bands since the early 1990s and has often led his own
Back in 2003, pianist-singer Champian Fulton, who had recently graduated from high school, moved to New York and made her first appearance performing at Birdland. She has since become a regular at the famous club. Meet Me At Birdland celebrates the 20th anniversary of her debut, featuring her on a
Jimmy Jones (1918-82) was a sophisticated and harmonically advanced pianist who emerged out of the swing era. He made his recording debut with violinist Stuff Smith (being a regular member of his trio during 1943-45), played with Don Byas and Buck Clayton, and had a long association with Sarah Vaughan
JAZZ CLASSIC OF THE MONTH Gene Krupa (1909-73) was the first drummer to become a matinee idol and a household name. He was also the first to utilize a full drum set on records (with the McKenzie-Condon Chicagoans in 1927), becoming famous with the Benny Goodman Orchestra during 1935-38 and
Trombonist and band leader Roger Marks from the UK probably gets little name recognition in the traditional jazz community in the US. As this CD demonstrates, however, he is something of a virtuoso on that instrument and a talented musical director. The sessions from which these tracks are culled feature
This compilation of tracks by the West London Rhythm Kings gives some idea of the various personnel who played with the band or “depped” (“subbed” in the US) in it at one time or another during the period 1990-2001. The listing of the names takes up almost the entire back
While most of the musicians’ names will be familiar to UK Traditional jazz fans, such will probably not be the case here in the US. This date in 1979 was one of what comprised a weekly residence for Bill Brunskill’s Jazzmen. On this particular evening, however, the maestro himself, Brunskill,
The French Preservation New Orleans Jazz Band has issued numerous recordings—in his liner notes JP Alessi speaks of this latest one being the 36th—and like those that came before and as the band’s name* suggests, this one again treats us to New Orleans style jazz, the emphasis being on collective
The UK, that relatively small country, has produced many fine traditional jazz musicians and bandleaders during the last century whose names will be familiar to most Americans interested in traditional jazz: Ken Colyer, Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Max Collie, to name just a few. Missing from that list
At just 26 years old, Hannah Gill could hardly be better established as a performer. She’s toured the world twice with Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox (PMJ), having become a regular collaborator since their “Somebody That I Used to Know” cover shot her into the spotlight back in 2017. (That video
In the end, it comes down to your Moldy Fig quotient. If, like me, you rooted yourself in a jazz era that barely stretched into the Second World War, making friends with bebop has been too much of a challenge to pursue. Sure, I’ve been tempted by Bird and Diz,
Danny Jonokuchi features on both of the records I’ve reviewed this month—yes, it’s a Doyle’s Discs double-Danny discourse. He isn’t someone I was too familiar with before, but I’m very pleased to have finally become acquainted. The bandleader’s website describes him as “a multi-talented jazz artist based in New York
The late New Orleans bassist Walter Payton (died 2010) had a busy musical career that found him playing with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, the French Market Jazz Band, as well as his own Snap Bean and Gumbo Fil’e bands. This latter group, heard here in 2001, fit the bill
Morgan Powell, a composer and jazz trombonist, died on August 20th, he was 85. A graduate of the famous University of North Texas Music Program he taught at The Stan Kenton Clinics from 1960-1964, at North Texas University from 1961-1963, at Berklee from 1963-1964, and finally at the University of
William Shepherd, Jr. died on August 29th, he was 89. He toured with the Tommy Dorsey/Warren Covington Orchestra in the late 50s before turning to a career of teaching. He was a band director for various Ohio High Schools in the 60s and 70s. He was Ohio State Chairman of
Frans Sjöström, a Swedish saxophonist who modeled his style on Adrian Rollini, died on August 19th, he was 78 years old. He was one of few bass saxophonists in Sweden and one of the best anywhere. In addition to reeds, he could sometimes be heard on banjo. He had a
British born drummer Barry “Kid” Martyn died on July 17th, he was 82. He first heard New Orleans jazz on Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America radio program when he was twelve years old. By 15, in 1956, he had started his first band, Kid Martyn’s Ragtime Band, recording with the
Vol.8, No.10 October 2023
Caity Gyorgy Serves Up a Neat Retort to Critics, by Dave Doyle
James Reese Europe: “The MLK of American Music”, by Jack Seufert
The Sant Andreu Jazz Band Celebrates Ten Years of Jazzing, by Garry Berman
Golden Memories from the Golden State Jazz Band, by Hal Smith
Jazz Jottings: Stephanie Trick – Keys and Brushes, by Lew Shaw
Jazz Birthday of the Month: Ethel Waters, illustration by Joe Busam
Static from my Attic, by Andy Senior
Final Chorus, compiled by Joe Bebco
Jazz Travels: Chicago Reedwoman Natalie Scharf, by Bill Hoffman
My Inspirations: Digital Challenges, by Jeff Barnhart
Ragtime Vignettes: School of Ragtime, by Brandon Byrne
Quarter Notes: Jazz in Arizona’s Mile High City, by Shelly Gallichio
Ruby Brooks: Champion of the Banjo, by R.S. Baker
Maine Jazz Musings: The Rain in Maine Can’t Stop the Jazz, by Terri Bruce
Festival Roundup, compiled by Joe Bebco
Profiles in Jazz: Carl Kress, Dick McDonough, & George Barnes, by Scott Yanow
Blowing off the Dust: Guitarist Steven Hancoff, by Larry Melton
The View from the Bandstand, by Bert Thompson
Ain’t Cha Got Music: Cookie’s Gingersnaps, by Jeff Barnhart & Hal Smith
Calling All Jazz Clubs: Time for PRJC Jazz Class!, by Joel Albert
Illiana Jazz Club Celebrates Fifty Years, by Debbie Heer
Tremonisha Transformed! The Volcano/Luminato Production, by Ed Berlin
Ellington Orch. 5tet Heats Up Criterion Theater in Bar Harbor, by Terri Bruce
Pershore Jazz on a Summer’s Day – August 12, 2023, by Frank Farbenbloom
Doyle’s Discs, CD reviews by Dave Doyle
Nights at the Turntable, CD reviews by Scott Yanow
Sonny Clark: “Swinging the Bop” in New Mosaic Set, by B.A. Nilsson
Bert’s Bits and Beats, CD reviews by Bert Thompson
Live “In Store” at the Louisiana Music Factory, CD Review by Ted des Plantes
