JazzTimes April 2021

Exclusive Content Our beloved JazzTimes 10 lists are back, and first on the docket is Lee Mergner’s selection of the most notable ghost performances by jazz musicians in well-known films. When Frank Sinatra “played” drums in The Man with the Golden Arm, for example, who was really doing the playing? Find out here. Plus album and book reviews, obituaries, and much more. JT Blog Just as this issue of JazzTimes was about to go to press, we received word that one of jazz’s true modern masters, Chick Corea, passed away on Feb. 9 at the age of 79 after a short battle with a rare form of cancer. Go to our website to read Michael J. West’s full obituary, along with personal tributes from musicians who knew and worked with Corea over his…

My original plans for this issue hadn’t called for Buster Williams and Eddie Henderson to be sharing feature space. But since fate dictated otherwise, it would be remiss of me not to mention an important anniversary for both musicians. It was 50 years ago—early March 1971—that the first album Williams and Henderson recorded together reached the ears of the world. That disc was Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi, also featuring trombonist Julian Priester, bass clarinetist/flutist Bennie Maupin, and drummer Billy Hart. The so-called “Mwandishi sextet” would make two more albums together—Crossings (1972) and Sextant (1973)—and be largely responsible as well for Henderson’s first three albums: Realization (1973), Inside Out (1974), and Sunburst (1975). The prevailing mood of this music is spacy yet murky, celebratory yet ominous, both funky and free, seeming to take…

When Atlantic Records released the first—and, for over a half-century, only—album featuring Philadelphia pianist Hasaan Ibn Ali in 1965, the label did everything it could to hedge its bets. The album’s title, The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan, not only gave marquee status to the far better-known drummer who had championed Hasaan’s arcane talents; it also framed the pianist in a way that at the time was pure hyperbole, but would prove prophetic in decades to come. Hasaan Ibn Ali’s legend has grown in a vacuum. Born William Henry Lankford, Jr. in 1931, he was praised for his genius by various collaborators, chief among them the saxophonist Odean Pope. His influence apparently ripples through jazz history via a generation of notable Philadelphians including John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, and Reggie…

I tend to flow with what feels right in the moment,” Jorge Roeder notes. It’s a comment about some pivotal moves in his life, but it could just as easily serve as an overarching philosophy for his work. With an unerring ear, quick reflexes, an exacting sense of rhythm, and a virtuosic streak veiled by its conversational nature, Roeder is nothing if not purely present. Leveraging that high level of focus, he’s become one of the premier bassists on the scene while bolstering bands led by guitarist Julian Lage, pianist Shai Maestro, trombonist Ryan Keberle, saxophonist John Zorn, and numerous others. Each person who calls on Roeder is, no doubt, attracted to something slightly different in his musical makeup, but the broad appeal, as boiled down by Lage, surrounds one…

With 25 albums to his credit as a leader since his mid-’80s debut, Brian Bromberg is nothing if not prolific. The veteran of countless sessions has applied his virtuoso-level skills on a huge variety of upright basses and bass guitars to a rangy mix of soundscapes. There’s last fall’s high-energy Bromberg Plays Hendrix – 2020 Remix and radio-ready smooth-jazz productions like his new A Little Driving Music, as well as tributes to fusion giant Jaco Pastorius and bossa-nova heavyweight Antonio Carlos Jobim, and a bruising rock release called Metal. “I’ve been blessed with the curse of diversity. I could play five different things that I’ve recorded, and you would have no idea who the artist is,” Bromberg says from his home about an hour and a half outside of Los Angeles.…

Bobby Few, a pianist whose intensity and originality were often overlooked in the larger jazz community, died Jan. 6 in Paris, France. He was 85. Probably best known for his collaborations with saxophonists Avram Fefer, Steve Lacy, and Albert Ayler, he was among the first pianists to clearly show the influence of Cecil Taylor in his hammering, dense playing style. However, Few’s range extended far beyond Taylor’s free jazz, and held much closer to the dictates of traditional swing rhythms and lyricism. Establishing himself in his native Cleveland in the 1960s, Few moved later in the decade to New York, but spent only a few years there before settling in Paris. He remained there for the next 50-plus years, making occasional U.S. trips for festival or recording dates, but otherwise…