George Varga

George’s Contributions

May 2005 Features

Charles McPherson: Ornithology With Strings

He’s best known as a veteran of Charles Mingus’ band and the man who supplied Charlie Parker’s solos in Clint Eastwood’s Bird. But Charles McPherson had a solid solo career as well. George Varga reports on McPherson’s latest CD, where the altoist revisits...

November 2001 News

Radiohead’s Jazz Frequencies

Music fans around the world have tuned into Radiohead, the most daring and successful cutting-edge band in modern rock. But few are aware that this Grammy Award-winning English quintet draws much of its creative inspiration from jazz in general, and the...

October 2001 Features

Quincy Jones: Quintessence

You can see almost all of Los Angeles from Quincy Jones’ home atop the highest hill in the ultraexclusive Beverly Hills enclave of Bel Air. And you can see signposts of his remarkable career, which began in 1951 when he joined Lionel Hampton’s big band as...

March 2000 Features

Praise from the Rock: Rockers on Jazz

Ask an average rock ’n’ roll fan about jazz—mainstream, progressive or otherwise—and you may receive a blank stare or a mumbled reference to Kenny G or David Sanborn. But ask the same question of many performers those same rock fans idolize, and you will...

May 1999 Features

Kenny G: Changes His Tune

It may not be the end of the musical world as we know it, but it could come close. After a 13-year run as pop's top-selling instrumentalist, Smooth Jazz king Kenny G admits that even he has grown tired and frustrated with the increasingly rigid idiom that...