Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Vocalist Andy Bey Dies at 85
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
Drummer Foreststorn “Chico” Hamilton will release Twelve Tones of Love April 14 on Joyous Shout! Adding to his 50-plus discography, Twelve Tones of Love celebrates Hamilton’s lifelong romance with music. Composed for and performed with an enlarged ensemble, the album offers a glimpse into Hamilton’s interpersonal relationships both past and present.
Hamilton will appear at a free in-store performance and album April 30 at the Columbus Circle Borders bookstore in New York to promote the new album.
Opening and closing Twelve Tones Of Love are bookend tracks “A Piece Of Music” and “The Alto Of Kelso,” featuring one of Hamilton’s oldest friends, multireedist Jack Kelso. On “Steinway,” Hamilton reminiscences about his younger days, as he wrote it for his childhood friend Gerald Wilson, with whom Hamilton fooled around on the Steinway in a local shop in their shared L.A. neighborhood.
Hamilton attempts to capture Charlie Parker’s melodic playing in “The Charlie Parker Suite.” “In my thoughts of Bird, it seemed to me that today’s sax players are aware of Bird’s rhythmic sophistication in terms of his solos, but have forgotten how beautifully Bird would play the melody, and play off of the melody in his solos,” he said. “Like Trane, they’ve missed Bird’s melodic sophistication.”
“The Charlie Parker Suite” was commissioned by and premiered at the 15th annual Charlie Parker Festival in New York in 2007.
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
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