CiTR -- The Jazz Show

We begin our month long Jazz Feature tribute to Miles Davis who was born in Alton, Illinois on May 26,1926 and this month would be the 90th anniversary of his birth. Tonight our Jazz Feature presents "the first great quintet". Miles Davis had a difficult time in the early 50s, unemployment, depression and discouragement was dominant and Davis slid into the pit of heroin addiction. After several ye...

The was the debut recording of a very distinctive and unfortunately obscure West Coast alto saxophonist named Jimmy Woods. Jimmy only made two dates under his name and this was his first. Jimmy possessed not only a unique sound on the alto but a unique style as well and beholden to no one. His career unfortunately never took off and he dropped out of music in the mid-60s to pursue a job in social...

One of the finest and yet most underrated guitarists was Chuck Wayne (1923/1997). Chuck was on of the guitar pioneers of Modern Jazz and recorded and played with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and later with Woody Herman's great "Second Herd". He made very few albums under his own name although he was revered by all the guitarists like Barney Kessel, Wes Montgomery, George Benson etc. This fin...

This incredible album was the recording debut of one of the most unique voices on the flute, Jeremy Steig and it was also the debut of the awesome pianist Denny Zeitlin. It was done for Columbia records in 1963 and Steig and Zeitlin had never been in a recording studio before. They produced what is one of the most startling debuts in Jazz history and sadly this recording has been forgotten. Steig...

These two extremely fine players like our Jazz feature artists for the month of March and again into April seemed to operate under the radar. Many devoted Jazz people are unaware of many of these very talented and near-great players. Tenor saxophonist Bill Barron and trumpeter Ted Curson were from Philadelphia and they had been playing together since their teen years. In the early 1960s, they deci...

This is episode number 4 from this month's Jazz Features on musicians who have been forgotten or have operated under the radar. The members of the Jazz Lab are all well known except for the co-leader, alto saxophonist/composer/arranger Gigi Gryce. Gryce was a very very important figure in the 1950s but dropped out of the scene and quit music in 1961. It's a long story but he spent the next 20 year...

Trombonist Matthew Gee is our Jazz Feature artist and the third in this month's presentation of great and near-great Jazz players who operated under the radar. In Matthew's case it was because he only recorded two albums under his name and the other one was a co-leadership with tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin. Tonight's Feature is all Matthew and it's his first. It was recorded for the then new R...

Jerome Richardson was one of the most prolific and respected men of Jazz and appeared on hundreds, if not thousands of record dates....pop, r&b, funk, country and western and classical too! He played with Lionel Hampton's band for years and was a charter member of the modern Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra as well as appearing in many large groups put together by bassist/composer Charles Mingus. As...

Duke Pearson only lived until he was 47 as be died young from Multiple Sclerosis. He is the musical pride of Atlanta, Georgia and there will be soon a day dedicated to Duke. Duke Pearson Day! He was a pianist, bandleader, arranger/composer and a record producer. A man for all musical seasons. He recorded everything from piano trio dates to big band dates and appeared as a sideman on many recording...

This album is The Jazz Show's final tribute to Black History Month. Judging from the album title: "Feelin' The Spirit"; this may give you more than a clue as to the album's content. It is an instrumental interpretation of what are traditionally known as "Negro Spirituals". Most of these songs were written before the abolition of slavery in the USA and provided Black people some solace and hope for...

This album is one of bassist/pianist/composer Charles Mingus' great musical triumphs. Mr. Mingus was finally able to put out a recording of all original music and had full control of the production. The cover, the notes, the editing and post-production and of course the music. It was everything he wanted and this album is arguably one of his very best. He was able to get this band into shape via a...

Tonight's Jazz Feature pays once again tribute to Black History Month with this classic by Miles Davis and Gil Evans. This is their personal and instrumental tribute and interpretation of the Gershwin's music for the famous folk opera "Porgy and Bess". The story is essentially about the love found and lost and found again between a poor black fisherman, Porgy and the town's most beautiful and desi...

Drummer/composer and Modern Jazz pioneer Max Roach did two wonderful albums for the Impulse label and as second tribute to Black History Month we present the first of these two recordings called "Percussion: Bitter Sweet". As is common knowledge, Max Roach's music became more political in about 1959 when he stated that he would never play or record anything that didn't have political or social sig...

Drummer Roy Brooks had a long career in Jazz music as he began playing drums as a small child in Detroit, where he was born on March 9, 1938. However he never really became well known until 1959 when he came to New York to join pianist Horace Silver's Quintet. Roy replaced another Detroiter, Louis Hayes who left Silver to join Cannonball Adderley's band. Brooks went on after Silver to play with so...

This is a Birthday celebration to one of our great living Jazz Masters. Today (January 25) marks the 87th Birthday of tenor saxophonist/composer/arranger and Jazz Master Benny Golson. Golson has been a part of Jazz history since breaking into the bands of Tadd Dameron, Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and then forming his own groups along with his important band The Jazztet with tr...

Donald Winston Thompson is one of Canada's national treasures. He is internationally recognized and has played with so many important movers and shakers in Jazz that it would take more space than this to mention everybody. Not only has he worked with every major musician in Canada but with Jazz super stars like saxophonists, John Handy, Lee Konitz, Paul Desmond, Zoot Sims, Charlie Rouse, Stan Getz...

This session is very rare and never heard before as it was unissued and forgotten in the Blue Note vaults and just recently discovered. The reason why is was lost and forgotten in the vaults wasn't because of the music but because a month later the very same band had a two week engagement at New York's leading Jazz club, Birdland. It was decided to record there and the records were released by Blu...

This fine recording is a minor classic. It was recorded for a 10"LP for Blue Note Records in June of 1953. Ironically Mr. Johnson was not even employed as a full-time musician then. He had to take a job as a draughtsman at the Sperry Gyroscope Factory to support his growing family. You would never know this when you hear this well-planned and well organized recording. Johnson selected all these pl...

This album is a fine example of a young group of New York based musicians who can be called true "keepers of the Jazz flame" They are advancing the Jazz tradition and contributing to it's evolution without moving far away from that grand tradition. They are not trying to re-create a past era and be fashionably "retro". These players are all very much in the present and play with a genuine energy a...

This famous Christmas Eve session has for years been our Christmas Jazz feature and 2015 is no different. This all-star record date by a band nominally led by trumpeter and Jazz icon Miles Davis contains Jazz that will live forever and has influenced countless players over the years. A true musical landmark. Mr. Davis is paired with three members of the Modern Jazz Quartet which included Milt Jack...

J.R. Monterose is certainly not a household name in Jazz music but he is one of the important tenor saxophonists who was in New York in the md-50s during the Jazz boom. Monterose was born in Detroit but raised in upstate New York in Utica and paid his dues in various big bands and by the mid-50s was heard on recordings by vibist Teddy Charles and bass master Charles Mingus. Monterose worked off an...

The Gramercy Five was actually a sextet as it was Artie Shaw AND his Gramercy Five. Mr. Shaw was one of the great bandleaders in the "swing era" when big bands ruled and Jazz music was very popular with the masses in the 1930s and 40s. Like many bandleaders, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Bob Crosby, Tommy Dorsey and others had small groups formed with select members of their orchestr...

That title really sums up tonight's Jazz Feature. This was Wes Montgomery's second album for Riverside's head honcho Orrin Keepnews and the one that really put Wes on the national Jazz map. The first was excellent with Wes' working organ-based group from his home town of Indianapolis but this was different. Orrin Keepnews and Wes put their heads together and came up with an all-star New York based...

Some of Monk's best live music is the subject of tonight's Jazz Feature This was all recorded at the legendary Five Spot Cafe in New York in August of 1958 and originally came out on two LPs then was re-issued on CD with more material. This band included "The Chicago Fire", tenor saxophone monster Johnny Griffin, who replaced John Coltrane as Monk's tenor saxophonist of choice. These are Monk's on...

When you hear this music, it's hard the believe that it's 53 years old. The date was done in February of 1962 by drummer Max Roach and his group plus a 16 voice choir,. The combination was innovative and very new to the world of Jazz and demonstrates the advanced thinking of Max Roach. Roach as most people are aware was a pioneer of Modern Jazz and it's major drummer. We have Charlie Parker, Dizzy...