Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
Pianist Jay McShann died on Dec. 7 in Kansas City, Mo. He was 90.
If the 1930s Kansas City sound is associated with rollicking boogie-woogie and full-throttle swing, then McShann was one of its greatest proponents. He was also an early employer of Charlie Parker
McShann was born in Muskogee, Okla., on Jan. 12, 1916. When he was 15 he began working for Don Byas and attended the Tuskegee Institute. He started performing in Kansas City in 1936 and formed his own sextet the following year. In 1939 his big band performed at such famous Kansas City clubs as the Century Room and Fairyland Park and had a hit with “Confessin The Blues.” The band started recording for Decca in 1941 with Parker in the alto section and was on its “Hootie Blues” recording. Tenor players who joined in the next few years included Jimmy Forrest and Paul Quinichette. McShann’s band toured regularly, although it was on hiatus while he served in the army in 1943 and 1944. After World War II, McShann’s band played often at the Savoy and other clubs on 52nd Street in New York. He led a small group with Jimmy Witherspoon in California toward the end of the decade. McShann continued to record and play in clubs, concert halls and festivals worldwide in the decades that followed. The pianist also became a living resource for jazz history and appeared in the documentaries, Last Of The Blue Devils , Hootie Blues and the Ken Burns miniseries, Jazz .
Usually leading small groups toward the end of his life, McShann’s piano style was infused with a percussive take on the blues and jazz. In his later years, his singing also developed a warm nasal tone.
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
“She said, ‘A lot of people are going to try and stop you,’” Sheryl Bailey recalls of the advice she received from jazz guitarist Emily Remler (1957–’90). “‘They’re going to say you slept with somebody, you’re a dyke, you’re this and that and the other. Don’t listen to them, and just keep playing.’”
Feb 3, 2025 10:49 PM
In the April 1982 issue of People magazine, under the heading “Lookout: A Guide To The Up and Coming,” jazz…
The Old Country: More From The Deer Head Inn arrives 30 years after ECM issued the Keith Jarret Trio live album At The Deer Head Inn.
Jan 21, 2025 7:38 PM
Last November, Keith Jarrett, who has not played publicly since suffering two strokes in 2018, greenlighted ECM to drop…
As Ted Nash, left, departs the alto saxophone chair for LCJO, Alexa Tarantino steps in as the band’s first female full-time member.
Mar 4, 2025 1:29 PM
If only because openings for JLCO’s 15 permanent positions appear about as frequently as sub-freezing days on the…
“The first recording I owned with Brazilian music on it was Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer,” says Renee Rosnes. “And then I just started to go down the rabbit hole.”
Jan 16, 2025 2:02 PM
In her four-decade career, Renee Rosnes has been recognized as a singular voice, both as a jazz composer and a…
