Word: jazz
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Iridium, a basement jazz club across from Lincoln Center in Manhattan, Les Paul sidles up a narrow aisle between tables. He is smaller, more gnomish, but still recognizably the wizard of Waukesha, the garage mechanic's son who revolutionized the way music was played and recorded. And since he turned 86 just two days before, and is looking forward to celebrating his birthday with some famous friends, Paul has a special glow. He sits on a stool surrounded by a few admiring musicians and starts playing 'Over the Rainbow' on one of his famous guitars...
...sounds awful! Has the Wizard misplaced his magic? No, it's just a wand glitch: one guitar string, offensively flat, needs to be tightened. And now that it is, Paul can make terrific music, recalling his '50s hits with vocalist Mary Ford as well as his earlier and later jazz and country work. He plays 'Rainbow' largo, insinuating a delicate, wistful mood, then pricking it with a couple of puckish allusions to late-'50s guitar hits inspired by him: the monster chords of Link Wray's 'Rumble,' the seductive electronic weeping in Santo and Johnny's 'Sleep Walk.' Paul...
...that shouldn't prove so hard if one of the measures of adulthood is accomplishment. The 23-year-old singer's first album, last year's Never Never Land, has sold more than 60,000 copies, a number which might not seem special to Janet Jackson, but to a jazz artist has the same sweet sound that "NASDAQ up 100 points" has for a day trader. Last week her brand-new CD, Come Dream with Me (N-Coded Music), hit the No. 1 spot on the Billboard jazz chart immediately upon its release. She has a jazz drummer fiance...
...that's a cardinal sin in the bumptious, peevish world of jazz, where, as it's said about academic politics, the knives are so sharp because the stakes are so low. The grievance? Along comes a young, good-looking, white jazz singer who mostly performs familiar standards and stays pretty close to the melody--Diana Krall was the last such transgressor--and an entire generation of innovators gets ignored. Sad to say, this is absolutely accurate. It's also irrelevant--this kid can sing...
...next wave in music [INNOVATORS, May 28]. They are indeed in the vanguard of country music, which is badly in need of a shake-up. But what, I wonder, did you mean by saying "Nothing about them smells of bluegrass"? Bluegrass has evolved since Bill Monroe as much as jazz has since Louis Armstrong. It is full of innovative, nontraditional artists right now, and Nickel Creek's musicians are only the most visible among them. CRAIG HAVIGHURST Nashville, Tenn...