Britt Woodman

Born: June 4, 1920

Fontainebleau & Magic Touch Revisited

By Tadd Dameron

Label: Ezz-thetics
Released: 2024
Track listing:
Fontainebleau:
Fontainebleau; Delirium; The Scene Is Clean; Flossie Lou; Bula-Beige.
The Magic Touch:
On A Misty Night; Fontainebleau; Just Plain Talkin��; If You Could See Me Now; Our Delight; Dial B for Beauty; Look Stop and Listen; Bevan��s Birthday; You��re a Joy; Swift as the Wind.

Copenhagen 1958

By Duke Ellington

Label: Storyville Records
Released: 2024
Track listing: Take the A Train (Theme); Newport Up; My Funny Valentine; Perdido; Sophisticated Lady; Sonnet to Hank Cinq; What Else Can You Do With a Drum; Rockin' in Rhythm; Prelude to a Kiss; Things Ain't What They Used to Be; El Gato; Hi Fi Fo Fum; Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue; I Can't Get Started; Body and Soul; A Little Blues; Sophisticated Lady; Mood Indigo.

Duke Ellington: Copenhagen 1958

by Ken Dryden
September 9, 2024

Duke Ellington left a formidable discography at his death at the age of 75 in 1974, and it has expanded greatly with the number of concerts that have been uncovered and issued since then. This CD is drawn from two 1958 concerts at KB Hallen in Copenhagen, though they are not sourced from the original, long ...

Duke Ellington: Copenhagen 1958

by Jack Kenny
May 23, 2024

Duke Ellington hated flying so, in 1958, Ellington and Co sailed into Southampton UK to prepare for a tour of Europe. Before going on to Copenhagen, Ellington completed a tour of the UK, taking in Leeds where he met Queen Elizabeth, an event which eventually resulted in the “Queen's Suite." Earlier in the year, his strange ...

The Era I Almost Missed

by Ron Aprea
March 20, 2022

The following is an excerpt from “Section 9: Les Elgart" of The Era I Almost Missed--An Autobiography by Ron Aprea (Self Published, 2021). The Embers West / Richie Barz Still rehearsing my band and looking for a room in Manhattan, my drummer Jimmie Young hooked me up with pianist Mike Longo. Mike just finished ...

2020: The Year in Jazz

by Ken Franckling
January 2, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic put the jazz world in a tailspin, just like the world at large, in 2020. And there is plenty of uncertainty going into the new year about what “new normal: might emerge from the darkness. International Jazz Day, like so many other things, became an online virtual event this time around. Pianist Keith ...

Charles Mingus and Miles Davis: Changing Moods

by Mark Werlin
March 11, 2017

The recordings of Charles Mingus in the mid-1950s document a musical voice so distinctive that they are immediately recognizable today. But Mingus' obsessive commitment to the primacy of the composition was not always shared by his peers, nor understood by his critics. A public feud between Mingus, who was struggling unsuccessfully to win critical ...

Remembering William Marcel "Buddy" Collette

September 24, 2010

By Ed Hamilton Saxophonist and flautist Buddy Collette brought color to white TV game show orchestras, before Martin Luther King fought for civil rights in the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott. He paved the way for the hiring of musicians of color into all-white TV and film orchestras: Clark Terry, J.J. Johnson, Count Basie, Quincy Jones, Benny ...

Toshiko Akiyoshi - Lew Tabackin Big Band: Mosaic Select

by Samuel Chell
July 6, 2009

Jazz was never more schizophrenic than in the 1970s. On the one hand, musicians equally savvy about mixing genres and running mixing boards were selling out arenas and producing lucrative, widely played albums, with bass-heavy danceable beats or soothing instrumental sounds tailor-made for air play on FM radio. At the other extreme, many of the jazz ...