CiTR -- The Jazz Show

Leonard Bernstein was one of the great institutions of American music. He was a pianist, conductor, composer and communicator. He was truly a "man for all musical seasons". Bernstein loved and respected Jazz music and the musicians that perform it. He drew no lines between Jazz and so-called "classical music".....in his eyes they were equals. He was unlike many of his contemporaries in the classic...

Today is is the 85th Birthday of Sonny Rollins, who was born in New York City on September 7,1930. Sonny of course is one of the major figures in the development of post-war Jazz music and without a doubt one of the most important saxophonists in Jazz history. His story is very evident in books and the internet and some wonderful interviews can be seen on iTunes that were conducted by Bret Primack...

Kenny Dorham was as Art Blakey once said "the uncrowned king" of Modern Jazz trumpet. This delightful album was a pet project of Kenny's as he loved the music of Jerome Kern and decided to do an album with a hand-picked all-star band of Kern's musical masterpiece "Showboat". Dorham selected his 6 favourite songs from the musical and delivers them with his beautiful sound, individual concept and to...

This was a band that recorded this wonderful album in March of 1964 and yet it was never released until 3 years after Stan Getz' death in 1994. The title track is "Nobody Else But Me", a great standard by Kern and Hammerstein. The reason why it was never issued was because Stan's popular bossa nova albums were selling like hotcakes and the powers that be didn't wish to dilute the market too much....

Modern Jazz pioneer Dizzy Gillespie thrived in front of a big band and he had several over his long career. This was what became known as "The State Department Band" and it was his second big band. It was called that because of two major tours sponsored by the US State Department, one to the Middle east and Greece and the other to South America. Dizzy toured the US too, playing clubs, concerts, fe...

Lou Donaldson is one of the true living masters of the alto saxophone and one of the last living disciples of Charlie Parker. Lou built his unique style based on Bird's concepts. This album is untypical of Lou's output as it is essentially a jam session type blowing date and it was even unusual for Blue Note to produce these types of dates but this one is exceptional! There are only four tunes her...

This is the debut album by this incredibly talented and still quite young man (he's now 51)recorded in 1988. Marcus was discovered and mentored by Wynton Marsalis and Marcus appeared on many of Wynton's best loved recordings. After his association with Wynton, Marcus went on to teaching and mentoring other musicians. He currently lives in Florida where he was born and keeps busy. The only reason t...

This underrated master of the trombone is still with us at age 80 and for this we are grateful! This date done in 1960 was Julian Priester's first under his own name. Priester is from Chicago and like so many Chicago legends, he graduated from DuSable High School in the Jazz program conducted by Captain Walter Dyett. Julian first worked with Sun Ra then Lionel Hampton and ended up in New York at t...

This is a fine straight forward set from the mid-50s that is led by one of the most original guitarists to come up in that era from the late 40s to the 50s and beyond. The set is not music that is re-inventing the wheel or pushing the envelope but it has it's own kind of basic swing, melodic invention and creativity. Guitarist Raney appears here with his musical soul-mate, valve trombonist Bob Bro...

This is one of Bill Evans' last formal recording dates and was done in 1979. Evans died in 1980. Evans recorded often with horns but either in an all-star setting or as a sideman but he rarely recorded under his own name with horns. This date was different and he chose two stellar voices to work with because of how well they played together and blended. Trumpeter Tom Harrell has in the years after...

This Jazz Feature stems from a series of dates in New York that marked the official inception of this magnificent trio of geniuses. They are not referred to as the Keith Jarrett Trio but referred to equally and musically as Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette. They came together as a working trio after their first outing in 1977 on a Peacock recording for ECM called "Tales of Another"....

This fine little band existed in from 1960 to 1963 and was an important working group of this period. It was co-led by trumpeter Art Farmer and tenor saxophonist/composer/arranger Benny Golson. They wanted a three-horn front line for more compositional flexibility and sound and chose as their first trombonist, Curtis Fuller. The pianist was Golson's choice and it was a young McCoy Tyner who makes...

Two great musicians here that were frequent musical partners on what was their last recorded appearance. It is also a fine way to celebrate the Birthday of pianist extraordinaire, Jaki Byard. Jaki would have been 93 today (June 15). Sadly he left us in 1999 the victim of a shooting. This great album also features the legendary Rahsaan Roland Kirk on a variety of horns, the tenor saxophone, the man...

This is an important edition of The Jazz Show as it celebrates the 30th anniversary of The Vancouver International Jazz Festival. Gavin is here as usual but the music is programmed and narrated by John Orysik who is the Media Director for the producers of The Jazz festival, The Coastal Jazz And Blues Society. John is one of the founding fathers of the Jazz Festival and his presence on tonight's pr...

Tonight's Jazz Feature are two of Charlie Parker's last great studio recordings. They were done in 1953 when Bird's creative energy was burning. His last studio recordings from 1954 were not as good but there are many broadcast and concert recordings from Bird's last year that were much better than his studio recording of "Charlie Parker Plays Cole Porter" However these recordings from 1953 featur...

This was the debut of a brand new band formed by drummer/pianist/composer Jack DeJohnette and it reflected his multi-direction approach to the music. This was the first band that DeJohnette led that garnered not only recognition from the fans but by the critics as well. Many of DeJohnette's earlier attempts at bandleading seemed too scattered and had no unifying concepts. This band, although eclec...

Trumpeter Kenny Dorham had to live with the term "underrated" for most of his life but he was anything but. Now considered one of the leading lights of Modern jazz trumpet along with Miles, Dizzy, Fats and Brownie......"K.D's" place in Jazz is now assured. This date has just been discovered and it's a fine broadcast recording from the morning of January 15,1963 and it marks the first documented ev...

The music of Abdullah Ibrahim is always intriguing and impressive and this band of his called "Ekaya" (South African for "home") reflects his compositional skills over his magnificent piano playing. He takes on the role that Duke Ellington did with his band....leading and accompanying rather than featuring his piano stylings. The band consists of a whole raft of great players beginning with trombo...

This fine album marked the beginning of John Coltrane's recording career as a headliner. This was his first date under his name and it was originally recorded on May 31,1957 and issued on Prestige Records and called "Coltrane!" This marked a real beginning for 30 year old Coltrane and he picked a great band to perform here with the obscure but fine trumpeter named Johnnie Splawn and the heavy bari...

Tonight's Jazz feature is a long one but worth the listening effort as it is a very rare live performance by what this author considers to be Charles Mingus' last great band. This band recorded a wonderful double album set on Atlantic records in December 1974 called "Changes 1 and Changes 2" but this is a live performance by the very same band and it truly captures the energy and power of this ban...

Tonight's Jazz feature is a meeting of true giants. Lionel Hampton, whose Birthday it is today (April 20), Oscar Peterson on piano, Ray Brown on bass and Buddy Rich on drums. This was a very first get-together of these players and the results are classic. This was the first in a series of recordings featuring Hampton's great artistry rather than his band and showmanship. It all came together on Se...

Tonight The Jazz Show celebrates the birthday of Theodore Charles Cohen better known as Teddy Charles. Teddy began his career as a drummer but became and accomplished pianist and writer and perfected what was to become his main instrument, the vibraphone (vibes). Teddy formed this band called simply "The Teddy Charles Tentet" in mid 1955. They triumphed at the Newport Jazz Festival in that year an...

Drummer, Arthur Taylor was a ubiquitous figure on dozens of Jazz recordings in the 50s and 60s. It seemed that Mr. Taylor was on every second recording for Prestige, Blue Note and to a lesser extent, Riverside. Ironically during this productive period he only made three albums under his own name. This date is one of them and features two of his favourite tenor saxophonists: Frank Foster and Charli...

This superb album was recorded in Vancouver at Cory Weeds' Cellar Jazz Club on December 7 & 8, 2013. The club has now unfortumately closed it's doors as of February 28, 2014. This band was the last great New York based band to play the club and it was a tribute band led by the only surviving member,aside from pianist Barry Harris, of the two great organizations led by alto saxophone giant Julian "...

This is a fun jam session-type recording done in the optimum conditions of a large recording studio with an invited audience. Chairs and refreshment were set up and tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin put together a fine band to play for the assembled hipsters. The session was the brainchild of the owner of Riverside Records, the late Orrin Keepnews.....he later did the same thing with Cannonball Add...