Word: saxophonists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Session with Brubeck. Brubeck bends his lanky torso over the keys, concentrating like a child on a jigsaw puzzle, but his eyes are closed. The other members of the quartet-Alto Saxophonist Paul Desmond, Drummer Joe Dodge and Bass Player Bob Bates-go to work. Desmond's tones are plaintive and pure, the rhythm of drum and bass is as rich and firm as a deep-pile carpet. Like Bach starting off to improvise a passacaglia, they lay down the tune-say, Let's Fall in Love-as a kind of groundwork. Desmond's eyes close...
...music he began playing was ruggedly individual. Even Dave's own sideman and best friend, Saxophonist Desmond, almost walked out when he first played with him. "We decided to play the blues in B flat," says Desmond, "but the first chord Dave played was G major! It almost scared me to death...
...into musical blossom. About that time, Progressive Bandleader Stan Kenton passed through Los Angeles, and some of his crew, e.g., Trumpeter Shorty Rogers, Arranger Pete Rugolo, Drummer Shelly Manne, French Hornist John Graas, settled there and became famous. A hollow-eyed trumpeter named Chet Baker and an underweight baritone saxophonist named Gerry Mulligan made themselves fast killings among the cats. By 1952, the West Coast was the U.S.'s newest, biggest stomping ground for jazz. Brubeck felt right at home, shuttled between such clubs as San Francisco's Blackhawk and Los Angeles' The Haig...
Wherever they go, Brubeck and Saxophonist Desmond seem to be enveloped in a kind of electric field in which they can communicate almost without words. Their only "arranged" passages are occasional introductions or endings. Before a recent recording session, the desultory opening dialogue went something like this...
...musician himself, Granz became a jazz fan while a philosophy major at U.C.L.A. After his junior year, he rounded up a group of little-known musicians who are now famed in their fields-Pianist Nat King Cole, Saxophonist Lester Young and Singer Billie Holliday-and held his first concert. "I felt there was something lacking," he says. "Nobody was bringing together the great musicians...