Francesco Cafiso: Monk's "Green Chimneys"

with Andrea Pozza on piano, Aldo Zunino on bass and Nicola Angelucci on drums.

Monty Alexander - "Love You Madly Live At Bubba's" - Arthur's Theme

“The thing about Monty's playing is that he has this kind of sparkle. It's definitely music to make you feel good. It's geared towards that. It's happy; happy and snappy. And I mean, those are corny adjectives, I know, but that's the feeling I get from Monty. I get the same feeling from listening to Wynton Kelly play. Joyful. Maybe that's a better word. His music is always very, very joyful. And I could hear Oscar Peterson's influence and also the influence of his roots, Jamaica. It's all there.”

Kenny Barron, Jazz pianist 

Charlie Porter's new recording CIPHER coming September 26, 2025.

 I am preoccupied with some other projects right now, but I didn't want to pass up an opportunity to bring Charlie Porter's new and unique recording to your attention per the details below.

Dance Hits of the '20s In Stereo: Jean Goldkette and His Orchestra - Notes by Dom Cerulli

© Introduction. Copyright ® Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected, all rights reserved.

There are a number of things that please me about this recording - it’s very existence, for one.

I mean, who would have thought to revisit the music of a Roaring Twenties big band thirty years after it ceased to exist?

Another is the fact that it contains actual quotations from an interview with Jean Goldkette conducted by one of my all-time favorite writers about Jazz - Dom Cerulli.

I’m also gratified by the fact that Dom’s notes reveal considerable information about the background of Jean and the orchestra and this along with its music in the form of new arrangements by the accomplished Sy Oliver creates and LP that served to introduce a new generation to the music of the Goldkette Orchestra, a ground breaking outfit in the history of big band Jazz. 

Jean Goldkette died in March, 1962.

Here are Dom Cerulli’s liner notes to the LP Dance Hits of the '20s In Stereo: Jean Goldkette and His Orchestra Featuring Lou Hurst with Debbie and The Diplomats with Arrangements by Sy Oliver was released in 1959 on RCA Camden [CAS 548]. 

“By way of introduction to a new generation of listeners and dancers, here is Jean Goldkette - one of the old time great names in the field of American public music.

With this album, the pianist-bandleader revisits some landmarks of an illustrious career that spans nearly 45 years. It began in Valenciennes, France where he was born in 1899, and started to bear fruit shortly after Jean came to the United States in 1911.

Goldkette, whose band would one day include such legendary jazzmen as Bix Biederbecke, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang, Jimmy McPartland, Frankie Trumbauer and Hoagy Carmichael, is a bit of a legend himself. He became a professional musician at the age of 16, two years before the union’s minimum age requirement.

“When they turned me down because I was too young,” he recalls, “a friend told me to go back and tell them I was 18. I returned to a different union man, and that night I was on the job.”

In those days, Paul Whiteman had the magic name. And Jean recalls a time when Whiteman and some of his band members came into a restaurant in Chicago where he was playing piano. As Whiteman and his crew enjoyed supper, Goldkette vainly tried to muster up enough courage to introduce himself to the maestro. Years later, Whiteman featured many of the Jazz artists who got their start with Goldkette’s fabulous band.

And what a band! Variety termed it the “greatest band of all time.” Metronome called it “The band that rocked the nation.”

It came into being because of a debt. In 1923, Goldkette was given the key to the Graystone Ballroom in Detroit because the management couldn’t meet the band’s payroll. “I would rather have had the money,” Jean grins, “but I took a chance and opened it myself .. with my own band on the stand. I thought the five cents a dance policy was bad and changed to straight admission. Bands had been playing in cafes, but I figured it would be better for them if they played ballrooms [capacities ranged from 3,000 to 5,000] where they could maintain their overhead and play their music for dancers.”

“Well, I will revolutionize things by changing this dance hall into a ballroom. In a short time the Graystone Ballrooms all over the country changed their name to Graystone, and ballroom owners came to study my methods. Actually, I had no methods … just common sense.

“For the first time I could have my band play as I liked and I started experimenting. I was looking for something and I didn’t know what. I traveled and listened to bands, and whenever I heard a good musician, I’d offer him a chair in my band. Being the bandleader and the ballroom manager made this kind of experiment possible. Our theme song was There’ll Be Some Changes Made, so many men came in and out of the band. I kept this up for almost three years.”

During the era of popular music, Goldkette recalls, every ballroom and cafe manager had his own ideas about how a band should play. One might insist that everything be done by an ensemble, loudly, and with no solos. He was paying for a full band, and a full band he would get. Another might have liked staccato music with every arrangement being played staccato.

“When I became my own boss,” Goldkette smiles, "I was responsible to nobody. I felt the thing to do was to leave the band alone. After all, I had hired the best musicians I know. I had hired them because of their talents. It would have been an insult for me to make them play in any way other than their own. These men were left alone express to themselves… and that was the guiding genius behind my band.”

Goldkette’s orchestra, in addition to being musically exciting, astounded its audience by playing without a leader. Jean, who made the band a profit-sharing outfit,  felt that the band members were good enough musicians to play without “ a smiling gigolo-type standing in front, beating time.”

And that’s the way the band went into New York’s famous Roseland. It was sensational. Goldkette actually lost money on transportation and expenses to secure the booking. Later, of course, he gained it back through the overwhelming response to the new music.  There was very little dancing on opening night, as patrons jammed the floor along with virtually every musician of importance in the city. Everyone, but everyone, wanted to get a load of this band from Detroit which had made those wonderful Victor recordings.

The band eventually became top heavy in the salary department, and broke up. Its stars scattered throughout other bands. , and many went on to become leaders themselves. In addition to the Jazz players, other fine musicians such as Fred Farrar, Charles Margolin, Don Murray, Fud Livingston, Chauncey Morehouse, Steve Brown (who recorded the first bass solo on Dinah), Danny Polo, Glen Gray, Pee Wee Hunt, Russ Morgan, Don Redman, Victor Young, Johnny Green, Charlie Woolcott, Bill Challis, George Crozier and Carroll Hurley played an important part in the band. Other notable Goldkette sidemen were trombonists Bill Rank, Spiegle Wilcox and Loyd Turner; cornetists Sterling Bose, Ray Lodwig; pianists Bill Krentz, Itzy Riskin, Paul Mertz, Sammy Prager; saxists “Doc” Ryker, Owen Bartlett; banjoist Howdy Quicksell.

After the stock market crash in 1929, Jean came to New York and rehearsed a band which included Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw and Charley Spivak, but he couldn’t get a radio network to audition the group and that dream collapsed.

In fact, Goldkette always has some sort of band going for him until the late ‘30s. He was the guiding force behind the organization of McKiinney’s Cotton Pickers and organized his own management agency. In 1946, he organized a band for a year or so, but dropped it to concentrate on his own career as a concert pianist.

He first appeared with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra when Geroge Gershwin was unable to make an engagement. Since that icebreaker, he has been a steady concert circuit feature as a pianist and guest artist with symphony orchestras. In addition to playing on the concert stage, Jean’s days have lately been spent in the establishment of the National Artists Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging young talent in all the arts and helping them to mature oas accomplished artists.

For this album’s look at those wonderful 1920’s, Jean assembled a band with such present day greats as: Jimmy Maxwell, Yank Lawson, Doc Severinsen and Mel Davis, trumpeter; Will Bradley, Jack Satterfield and Urbie Green, trombones; Toots Mondello, Dean Kincaide, Hank D’Amico, Milt Yaner and Al Klink, reeds; Chauncey Morehouse, drums; Ward Lair, string bass; Irving Brodsky, piano; George Barnes, banjo and guitar; Joe Venuti violin solos as interpreted by Felix Orlewitz.

The arrangements of Dinah and My Pretty Girl were transcribed note for note from charts played by the original band in the 1920s. The other tunes, although never recorded by Goldkette, belong to his era and are here revived in authentic style by the remarkably skilled Sy Oliver.

In all, this is a nice introduction to an old familiar face, and one not too much changed over the years. Jean is as enthusiastic about his music as he ever was. And also by way of introduction, he’s still swinging.”

Recorded at Webster Hall, NYC

Recording Engineer: Ray Hall

Viva Tirado - Remembering Gerald Wilson on the Anniversary of His Birthday

Viva Tirado featuring Carmel Jones on trumpet, Harold Land on tenor sax Joe Passalacqua on guitar and Mel Lewis in The Engine Room.

Blues For Yna Yna - Remembering Gerald Wilson on the Anniversary of His Birthday

Carmel Jones on trumpet, Harold Land on tenor sax, Groove Holmes on Hammond B-3 organ and Mel Lewis in The Engine Room.

The Life and Music of Charlie Parker by Chuck Haddix

 © Introduction Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

The Jazz World is blessed with a number of fine biographies on Charlie Parker, some more accurately researched and well-written than others. Among them are:

• Ross Russell, Bird Lives! The High Life and the Hard Times of Charlie “Yardbird” Parker

• Robert Reisner, ed. Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker

• Charles Haddix, Bird:The Life and Music of Charlie Parker

• Carl Woideck, Charlie Parker: His Music and His Life

• Gary Giddins, Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker

• Stanley Crouch, White Lightening: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker

• Brian Priestley, Chasin' the Bird: The Life and Legacy of Charlie Parker

I have previously posed excerpts from the Russell bio as well as a full-length review of the Giddins. 

In order to help acquaint you with the Haddix treatment of Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker here’s the Introductory statement to that work.

“A clap of thunder heralded the passing of Charlie "Bird" Parker. Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, who gave Charlie refuge and comfort during his final days in her suite at the Hotel Stanhope on Fifth Avenue, recalled, "At the moment of his going, there was a tremendous clap of thunder. I didn't think about it at the time, but I've thought about it often since; how strange it was." One musician speculated that Charlie disintegrated into "pure sound." 

Charlie Parker had lived life to its fullest. Robert Reisner, a friend of Charlie's and author of Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker, observed, "Charlie Parker, in the brief span of his life, crowded more living into it than any other human being. He was a man of tremendous physical appetites. He ate like a horse, drank like a fish, was as sexy as a rabbit. He was complete in the world, was interested in everything. He composed, painted; he loved machines, cars; he was a loving father. He liked to joke and laugh. He never slept, subsisting on little catnaps. Everyone was his friend—delivery boys, taxicab drivers.... No one had such a love of life, and no one tried harder to kill himself" Dr. Richard Freymann, the attendant physician during Charlie's final days at the Stanhope Hotel, judged him to be fifty-three years old. He was thirty-four at the time of his death.

Charlie's early death came as no surprise to those who knew him well. After becoming hooked on heroin at age sixteen, Charlie struggled with drug addiction and alcohol abuse for the rest of his life. Over the years, his massive consumption of alcohol and drugs ravaged his already fragile physical and mental health. Bandleader Jay McShann observed, "I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. The way he was goin' with that dope and all. He could only last so long."

Nevertheless, during his short life, Charlie changed the course of music. Like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane, he was a transitional composer and improviser who ushered in a new era of jazz and influenced subsequent generations of musicians.

Originally from Kansas City, Charlie moved to New York where he pioneered bebop—a revolution in jazz. Bursting with fresh ideas and virtuosity, his solos and compositions have inspired musicians and composers across a broad spectrum of music, ranging from Moondog, a contemporary composer and street musician, to the rock group the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Jazz historian Martin Williams judged that Charlie influenced "everyone." In 1965, jazz pianist Lennie Tristano observed, "If Charlie Parker wanted to invoke plagiarism laws, he could sue almost everybody who's made a record in the last ten years."

Charlie's brilliance and charisma also inspired dancers, poets, writers, filmmakers, and visual artists. Jack Kerouac emulated Charlie's improvisational style in his poem "Mexico City Blues," writing, "I want to be considered a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jazz jam session on Sunday. I take 242 choruses; my ideas vary and sometimes roll from chorus to chorus or from halfway through a chorus to halfway into the next." Kerouac's novel The Subterraneans features a cameo appearance by Charlie. Waring Cuney, Robert Pinsky, Robert Creely, and numerous other poets have also sung Charlie's praises in verse. Clint Eastwood paid homage to Charlie's tortured genius with his film Bird. In 1984, the Alvin Ailey Dance Company celebrated Charlie with For "Bird" With Love. Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat honored Charlie with many artworks, including Charles the First.

Surprisingly, considering Charlie's broad influence on music and arts, details of his personal life have remained largely enigmatic. Because of his erratic lifestyle and addictions, few documents or artifacts from his life survived. His saxophones usually ended up in pawnshops, and the music he hastily scribbled on the back of envelopes on the way to recording sessions disappeared afterward. He rarely committed his thoughts to paper and was not forthcoming about his personal life during interviews.

His chameleon-like ability to empathize with those he met socially and professionally left vivid but vastly differing impressions. Frances Davis in Bebop and Nothingness explained that "among fellow musicians, Charlie was in the eye of the beholder: what he was like as a person depends on whom you ask." This is evident in the remembrances of Charlie published in Robert Reisner's book Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker. It is almost as if those interviewed recall eighty-two different Charlie Parkers.

These differing accounts are understandable, considering Charlie's numerous self-contradictions. He was alternately generous to a fault and then miserly. A loving husband and father at home, he was an obsessive philanderer while on the road. An addict, he lectured younger musicians about the dangers of drugs, advising them to "do as I say, not as I do." He rarely showed up on time for engagements, if at all, but once on stage he took charge. A high school dropout, he was well read and well spoken. The ultimate hipster, he used his considerable charm to con friends and strangers alike. He was known for his many acts of kindness and cruelty. A musical genius who struggled with mental health problems, he yearned for normalcy. A man of few words, he let his horn do the talking.

While biographical details of Charlie's life have remained sketchy, his music has been well documented. Charlie recorded prolifically for a number of record labels, and fans obsessively recorded him on the bandstand and at jam sessions. As a result, most biographies have focused on his music and recordings rather than how his addictions, his relationships, and the events in his personal life influenced his career and music. What has been written about his life has focused on his infamous public exploits like the time he rode a horse into a Manhattan tavern or when he showed up naked in the lobby of the Civic Hotel in Los Angeles looking for change to make a phone call. Charlie's legend has been embellished with each retelling until it reached mythic proportions. Separating the man from the myth has proved to be an elusive effort for those who have written about Charlie — until now. This is the story of the life and music of Charlie "Bird" Parker.”

Hugo Hurwhey (1997 Remaster) Russ Freeman - Chet Baker Quartet

In the first year of the quartet with Freeman, Chet was still performing well. His playing sometimes reached an amazing level. Russ Freeman: "He had a touch of genius. When he was in form, he played as well as the best musicians I've met—on the same level as Bird, Diz . . . whoever. I played with Charlie Parker once, in Howard McGhee's band. I was just a beginner, but by luck I got the chance to play with him. So I know what it's like to work alongside a genius. And Chet was on the same level. He could have the same emotional impact. He had an original approach. He was a thinking artist. His improvisations were not simply a bunch of licks, they were small compositions. Sometimes he was in such dazzling form that it embarrassed me. He blew a solo, and if I was to go next, I would think to myself, What is the point of playing another piano solo? He's already said everything there is to say I could only do a pale repetition.

"In a theoretical sense, Chet was a total illiterate. He never knew what key he played in. He also had nothing to rely on if he happened to be having a bad day. I must admit that Chet was not in form on occasion, especially after he started with the drugs. He could already read a little music in the studio. The parts of course could not be too hard. I cannot remember that he ever wrote anything down in musical notation. That's probably also the reason he never composed anything, so far as I know." …