The Diva Jazz Orchestra: Diva + The Boys
Touring big bands are now a distant memory but the popularity of the genre is undiminished. Alex Stewart in his well-researched Making The Scene points out that in 1998...
Mary Lou Williams: high in the charts
A highly talented pianist and composer, Mary Lou Williams was also one of the very best arrangers of her generation. Yet when arrangers are written about or thought of,...
Still Clinging to the Wreckage 10/19
Blow By Blow, Part 2
There are few sounds in jazz so majestic as the quavering rattle of a typical and carefully calculated out of tune trumpet lead. To get...
Outside And Inside: Race And Identity In White Jazz Autobiography
In 2004, Reva Marin was a finalist for the Fleck Award for the best book in the category Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction. Her entry was Oscar: The Life And Music...
JJ 02/89: John Surman – Private City
Surman's fourth solo album breaks no new ground but confirms his stature as one of today's finest improvisers and arrangers, Surman overdubbing his own instrumental lines into position as...
Duke Ellington and his Orchestra: Live
In 2005 Jazz Door released a DVD (seemingly now unobtainable) containing music by Duke Ellington and (separately) Sarah Vaughan, supposedly from Berlin concerts in 1969. In fact three of...
