The New Jazz Musings

In 1940, Serge Koussevitzky, Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and a mentor to Leonard Bernstein, created the Tanglewood Music Centre in Western Massachusetts. The Tanglewood Estate had been donated to the BSO three years earlier. It became the summer home of the orchestra, and a music school was established. The first faculty included the composers Aaron Copland and Paul Hindemith. In 1950, what had remained of the estate including outbuildings, was purchased by a New York couple to create a performing space for folk musicians, including the conversion of one building into an Inn with accommodation. They also created what became known as The Music Barn, a venue that played host to many well known folk and jazz musicians.  In 1957 they also established a not-for-profit music school. Their faculty included Max Roach and Gunther Schuller. In 1959, just before his seminal album The Shape of Jazz to Come was released, Atlantic Records sent Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry ...

First of all, this is another great interview by Val Wilmer made some time after Ornette Coleman's famous August 1965 concert at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, south London. Coleman also played there in April '1966 which could tie in with this interview.  The August '65 concert was recorded and released in 1967. It included a written piece, performed by the London Virtuoso Wind Ensemble, then a performance by the Coleman trio.  Of all the jazz writers during the 1960s, especially in Europe, Wilmer shines especially bright - and her photographs rank with the best from both sides of the Atlantic. Ornette Coleman by Valerie Wilmer  Ornette Coleman talks to Valerie Wilmer ORNETTE COLEMAN leaned forward in his chair. He talked shyly, in quiet, slightly hesitant phrases, unable or unwilling to express himself eloquently, yet serious, and determined to communicate. It was hard to associate this gentle, mild-mannered man with the leading protagonist of the avant-garde jazz movene...

Martin Williams interviewed Pharoah Sanders for Down Beat magazine in late 1967 or early 1968. By then Sanders had been living in New York for five years and more recently had been closely associated with John Coltrane, and had released one solo album with Impulse Records. Before his move to New York he had been living in the Bay Area of California. What's clear is that Coltrane knew Sanders before he moved East. He and Trane became closer after the move, and he first sat in with Trane's group in January 1964 at the Half Note. Surprisingly, Sanders says in the interview he never became part of John Coltrane's group. However, it could be said that after the classic quartet, Trane never actually formalised another band. There was just too much fluidity. In a 1970 taped interview with Alice Coltrane, she talks about Sanders, 'who was in John's band.' Pharoah Sanders by Don Schlitten Pharoah's Tale by Martin Williams P haroah Sanders is 27 years old, and, surpri...

Eighteen months after Eric Dolphy's untimely death, Jazz Monthly published a comprehensive Dolphy retrospective by Jack Cooke, an excellent writer who has several other featured pieces in the Blog. His very detailed extensive retrospective has encouraged me to review some of my own thinking on the Dolphy output I own. Photo of Eric Dolphy by Bill Wagg Eric Dolphy BY JACK COOKE ONE THE CURRENT exploratory scene in jazz-the new wave, the avant-garde or what one likes to call it-is notably different from the music that immediately preceded it in that it is essentially a group music. In the early 1960's Ornette Coleman, George Russell, Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Max Roach, Don Ellis were all essentially bandleaders as much as musicians; they didn't usually turn up on other leaders' dates. There were exceptions, of course, like the George Russell-Don Ellis partnership of 1961, and these days there is a great deal of polarised activity in areas where a definite leader doesn'...

I bought this 1970 magazine when I saw the full page John Coltrane photo by Bob Thiele. What I didn't expect was the associated article by John Postgate. I hadn't seen another article by him in my British jazz magazines from (mostly) the 1960s. It was the article title that initially had me searching online. Apparently an eminent British microbiologist, Fellow of the Royal Society, amateur dixieland musician and jazz writer. He was Gramophone's main jazz critic for more than twenty years ! Firstly, I'm sure the title was a take on the Blackface 'light entertainment' TV show, The Black and White Minstrel Show that ran during the 1960s and 1970s. A show that with today's beliefs is seen as highly offensive. Not just today's beliefs - I remember it being 'well dodgy' when I was young. Postgate states that jazz in 1970 is in disarray. I've seen many examples of the old guard during the 1960s complaining about modern jazz and avant-garde. However,...