Nick DeRiso / December 28, 2010 4:05 pm
by Nick DeRiso Miles Ahead was initially billed by Columbia Records, in the flatly obvious tone of the day, as “Miles Davis plus 19, with Gil Evans.” Right. Still, it was that last guy, the 20th man, who was the important one. After a burst of creativity in the late 1940s — the clearest result being the very cool but [...]
Nick DeRiso / August 1, 2010 3:30 am
by Nick DeRiso “The Magic Hour” by Louisiana-born trumpeter Wynton Marsalis was that sweetest of swinging homecomings – like time spent laughing with old friends on a front porch. We have Marsalis returning finally to small-band work – where he once sparked the kind of mainstream interest in a jazz trumpeter enjoyed long ago by the likes of Louis Armstrong [...]
Nick DeRiso / October 28, 2009 2:39 pm
by Nick DeRiso Billie Holiday’s voice, fragile and thin at the end, belied the strong-willed fighter she always was. This record, dotted with tunes she’d once owned two decades before as a bubbly bird in front of big bands, makes the argument for her. By the mid-1950s, the hard-living Holiday had lost some dexterity, but none of her gumption. Few [...]
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