Home » Search Center » Results: ben webster
Results for "ben webster"
Results for pages tagged "ben webster"...
Ben Webster
Born:
Ben Webster was considered one of the "big three" of swing tenors along with Coleman Hawkins (his main influence) and Lester Young. He had a tough, raspy, and brutal tone on stomps (with his own distinctive growls) yet on ballads he would turn into a pussy cat and play with warmth and sentiment. After violin lessons as a child, Webster learned how to play rudimentary piano (his neighbor Pete Johnson taught him to play blues). But after Budd Johnson showed him some basics on the saxophone, Webster played sax in the Young Family Band (which at the time included Lester Young). He had stints with Jap Allen and Blanche Calloway (making his recording debut with the latter) before joining Bennie Moten's Orchestra in time to be one of the stars on a classic session in 1932. Webster spent time with quite a few orchestras in the 1930s (including Andy Kirk, Fletcher Henderson in 1934, Benny Carter, Willie Bryant, Cab Calloway, and the short-lived Teddy Wilson big band). In 1940 (after short stints in 1935 and 1936), Ben Webster became Duke Ellington's first major tenor soloist
Yusef Lateef: Alight Upon the Lake: Live at the Jazz Showcase
by Troy Dostert
One of the legendary figures of Detroit jazz, Yusef Lateef experienced a truly distinctive path of artistic development, with a trajectory which took him from swing, bebop and R&B in the 1940s and 1950s through a deep immersion in world music, funk and classical idioms during the 1960s and beyond. Somehow incorporating all of these disparate ...
Bennie Wallace: French Postcard
by Dan McClenaghan
In 2001, saxophonist Bennie Wallace released a breakout album, Moodsville (Groove Note). It was Wallace in the quartet setting, with Mulgrew Miller on piano, Peter Washington on bass, and Lewis Nash on drums--an all-star cast. What was striking about the sound was its immediacy, its authenticity. It was a bunch of time-tested Great American Songbook tunes ...
Cab Calloway & The Nicholas Brothers: Jumpin' Jive
by Ian Patterson
Born on Christmas Day 1907 in Rochester, New York, bandleader Cab Calloway enjoyed a brilliant career that spanned the 1920s to the 1990s. He made his name at the helm of the Cab Calloway Orchestra between 1930-1948, a period that included a four-residency at the Cotton Club. At various times his swing orchestra included musicians of ...
Vince Guaraldi’s Christmas Sauce: Adding Spice to Charlie Brown Vanilla
by Arthur R George
It's not simply that pianist Vince Guaraldi slipped jazz past the unsuspecting in composing A Charlie Brown Christmas, the evergreen “Peanuts" animation and soundtrack that has become inescapably part of the holiday. First broadcast in 1965, going on to six decades ago, A Charlie Brown Christmas is a tradition unto itself. It returns to television through ...
Melvin Rhyne: Tomorrow Yesterday Today
by C. Andrew Hovan
A disciple of some of the earliest jazz organ practitioners, such as Jackie Davis, Milt Buckner, and Wild Bill Davis, jazz veteran Melvin Rhyne's major claim to fame has been the five years he spent with the renowned Wes Montgomery in the early '60s. Yet this is really only a fraction of the story for the ...
David Murray: Hope Scope
by Fran Kursztejn
There should be no doubt of David Murray's position. Since the death of Eddie Harris, he is the finest tenor saxophonist in jazz, arguably one of the most prolific bandleaders in the modern age. He stands among a rare few reedmen working to redefine the sonic quality of their instrument. Looking back at any of Murray's ...
Lost and Found, part 3: Rare recordings of Ellington, Ben Webster, Art Tatum and Gil Evans
by Larry Slater
There are so many Duke Ellington recordings available. How much undiscovered music of the band can there be? In this hour, you'll hear rarely heard gems from the Ellington discography. Music that's so rare, I doubt even die-hard Ellington aficionados have heard some of these tracks. The Duke Ellington Orchestra with Django Reinhardt at ...
Sonhos, Pesadelos & An American Tune
by Katchie Cartwright
Dreams and nightmares this week on Caminhos do Jazz, with a host of superb Brazilian performers, including singers Maria Bethânia, Gal Costa, Alaide Costa, Lenine and the MPB group Nação Zumbi. The set also includes a cut by the extraordinary Norwegian world-jazz ensemble Music for a While, featuring vocalist Tora Augestad, and one from the renowned ...
George Coleman: George Coleman with Strings
by Dan McClenaghan
Tenor saxophonist George Coleman decided to leave the orbit of trumpeter Miles Davis in 1964. Or he got an elbow to the ribs and a hip check to leave the quintet, to be replaced by Wayne Shorter in the saxophone slot. Three top-notch live albums came out of the group that featured Coleman: In Europe: Live ...
