Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show

Ready or not, here comes the Christmas music. At Straight No Chaser, we do our best to bring you a jazzy time of the season, so let's kick it off with a contemplative cover of the classic "Silent Night", performed by Be Still from their 2009 CD Sounds Like Snow . Be Still is the name for a collaboration between singer/songwriter Lauren Zettler (contributing Vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonium, and...

Well, if you've read the title of the post, you've had your Yiddish lesson for the day. If you want a great tool for deciphering the nearly forgotten language of Eastern European Jews before World War II, try this dictionary or better yet, consider making a donation or gift membership to the Yiddish Book Center , near me in Amherst, Massachusetts. Where else can you find the full text of nearly 11...

Duane "Skydog" Allman, for my money the greatest guitar player ever to have picked up a six string, would have been 64 years old today. His death in 1971 as a result of a motorcycle accident cut short what surely would have been a long and prestigous career. Instead, we are left with great memories, a few Allman Brothers Band recordings, and his session work, some of which was put together in the...

On Sunday, November 21, WKCR will present the annual Coleman Hawkins Birthday Broadcast.  Nicknamed "Hawk" or "Bean," Hawkins was the first true saxophone star, and he would have been 106 years old tomorrow.  His first recordings were among the most quintessential of the swing era, and his 1939 recording of “Body and Soul” was revolutionary: he only hints at the melody, instead focusing on two per...

Jazz recordings are sometimes graced with the phenomenon of the “one take”. Imagine getting a band together and running through a number, and having that first time through be so wonderful that no further attempts are made to modify or alter it. It doesn’t happen that often, and when it does its magic. Think of some of the famous one take recordings – much of John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman and K...

Autumn lingers on here in New England, with a hint of winter in early morning frost. The foliage in Western Massachusetts is well past its peak, meaning that most people are no longer oohing and ahhing, but rather cursing as the rake the leaves that have fallen.   Hence it’s time for a posting of “Autumn Leaves”.   Originally it was a 1945 French song "Les feuilles mortes" (literally "The Dead Lea...

….Featuring, a new release from Norah Jones on Blue Note due on Tuesday, allows us to take a look at Ms. Jones in her role as collaborator. Since before she emerged on the music scene with Come Away With Me in 2002, she has been in demand by musicians who seek vocalists to augment their band, or simply a good foil with whom to interpret or color some material.   The recordings go as far back as No...

When Randy Weston takes the bandstand, people look up to him. This is not just because he stands six foot eight inches tall, and often dresses flamboyantly in the bright colors of the African continent. It’s also because at 84 years old, Weston has assumed the position of an elder statesman, an NEA Jazz Master, and a father of pan-African classical music.  2010 has been a busy year for Weston. He...

Antibalas (Spanish for “bullet proof”) seems poised to leave the Brooklyn underground scene for greener pastures, riding a wave of critical acclaim from their musical involvement in the Broadway musical “Fela!”.   It seems appropriate that Ropeadope Records re-release the band’s 2004 funk album Who Is this America ? to reach out to their new audience.   One of the few studio efforts that captures...

Female jazz singers seem to be divided into two worlds these days. There are those who follow the tradition of Ella, Sassy and Anita O’Day, and record standards or popular tunes with a classic jazz background. This would include Diana Krall, Jane Monheit, and Dianne Reeves. Thankfully we have legends like Dee Dee Bridgewater and Nancy Wilson recording them as well.   Then there are those who try t...

On Saturday, October 30th, WKCR will present the Clifford Brown Birthday Broadcast, celebrating the life and career of the legendary trumpeter by broadcasting twenty-four hours of his music.   Born in 1930 in Wilmington, Delaware, Brown picked up the trumpet at age fifteen, and quickly became one of the most influential jazz voices of his generation.  Combining astonishing technical virtuosity wit...

Nu Shooz were a footnote in Eighties dance-pop music, hitting the charts with “I Can’t Wait” and “Point of No Return”, and garnering a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist in 1987 (they lost to Bruce Hornsby & the Range). More than twenty years later, the husband and wife team of John Smith and Valerie Day have remade themselves as a small scale jazz orchestra, crossing genres of light classical,...

Am I wrong to think that Taylor Eigsti’s latest CD is a tad formulaic? I don’t want to denigrate the talented pianist’s chops, nor his growing ability as a composer, as witnessed by multiple Grammy nominations. But in many ways, Daylight at Midnight seems like it was put together by some A&R person. Do we have some covers of modern rock like Bill Frisell does ? Coldplay’s “Daylight”is here; check....

2010 is looking like the year of Dr. Eddie Henderson. The great trumpet player, who turns 70 years old today, has already made a striking guest appearance as a sideman on Azar Lawrence’s Mystic Journey , and been an integral part of The Cookers, a “super group” of players including Billy Harper, George Cables, David Weiss, Cecil McBee and Billy Hart, which released the exceptional Warriors CD.   N...

Highly underrated as a musical constructionist, Alec Wilder was a drinking buddy of singers like Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and Tony Bennett, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they adored his songs. A fan of crossword puzzles, he allowed that passion to spill over as he wrote his material, always looking for a link or connection for the melody and bridge. He's too often overlooked when we talk...

You can put it on the list right now - Danilo Perez’s’ Providencia is one of the ten best jazz CD’s of 2010. The Panamanian pianist has made his reputation with a tremendous ability to turn the staid and expected into something special, whether as a bandleader or the sideman of choice for Wayne Shorter, Roy Haynes and the late Steve Lacey. I was fortunate to see Perez and Lacey in a small club in...

Gary Burton is back in New York next week, bringing his New Quartet into the Blue Note for a week long run. I spoke to the noted Vibes player while he was preparing material for the North American debut of the band, which includes his latest guitar wunderkind Julian Lage, bassist Scott Calley, and drummer Antonio Sanchez, with whom Burton toured the world in his recent Quartet Revisited foray. The...

Nancy and I are taking a long awaited trip to Egypt and Israel this week, so there will be a brief lull in the postings for the next two weeks. However, never one to leave my friends without something to remember me by, I've wipepd up a Podcast that incorporates jazz either by Egyptian artists or with Egyptian themes, and strung them together with some native music and sounds to create a seemless...

Canadian bassist Brandi Disterheft's second CD shows her emerging as a performer and writer to be reckoned with. Second Side has a number of moments that make the listener want to hear more, particularly when she plays the kind of witty jazz heard on tunes like "My Only Friends Are Pigeons". Drummer Sly Jubas and Ms. Disterheft blend together seamlessly, as sax players Chris Gale and Shawn Nyquist...

Although promoted as something like the bastard musical child of Sun Ra and Charlie Hunter, bassist Glen Ackerman’s “The Glenious Inner Planet” is more earth bound funk than space junk. Whether the band is re-visiting a classic with an electric twist (“Blue Rondo a la Raad”) or merging the upper register sounds of guitar and sax and heading for parts unknown (“Inner Planet”), this is always witty,...

“Warriors” is a most apt title for a CD from The Cookers, a “super group” of jazz stars who cut their teeth on late Sixties hard bop. Taking their group name from a 1965 Blue Note album by the late, great trumpeter Freddie Hubbard (“ The Night of the Cookers: Live at Club La Marchal” ), the septet work through seven numbers written by members of the group, and one cover, all performed at the highe...

Getting twenty fingers to work together is no easy task. However, the husband and wife team of Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes does a darn good job of making it work. Double Portrait is an album of piano duets, and when they take on Brazilian classics (a groove-less version of Jobim’s “Double Rainbow”) and standards (a tepid “Dancing in the Dark”), the result is enjoyable without being memorable.  ...

Given that my late father was a bass player, I confess a certain soft spot in my heart – and blog – for bands led by bassists. Thanks to Harvie S., I have a new CD to return to anytime I want an understated, yet powerful, bass fix.   These days, the pyrotechnics of a Stanley Clarke or Victor Wooten are what comes to mind when thinking of what a bass player brings to the bandstand as a leader. That...

More free jazz in Connecticut! For the next two Saturdays – August 14 and August 21 – the historic Downtown Green in New Haven, in the shadows of Yale University, will play host to some outstanding music and musicians. It’s two wonderful days at what they are calling “ Jazz Haven ”.   On Saturday August 14, jazz fans will be able to put down a blanket and enjoy the Neighborhood Music School Jazz Y...

One of my favorite chantueses will be in my neck of the woods this week, and she comes with a new CD ready for release. Jane Monheit will be leading her group into the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton this Friday evening, and you can bet I'll be in line early for a great table. Ms. Monheit has been one of our best interpreters of vocal jazz standards since she burst on the scene in the Theloni...