George Kanzler

Jazz flute and Brazilian music go all the way back to Herbie Mann’s pioneering work, recordings that predated even tenor saxophonist Stan Getz’s crossover hits. Both Getz and Mann embraced bossa nova and collaborated with Brazilian musicians, but Bell, a flute player whose Web site’s motto is “From Bach to Bebop,” here delves into the … Read More “Lori Bell: The Music of Djavan”

Stan Getz is tenor saxophonist Mark Colby’s stylistic model, and on previous recordings his debt to Getz has been obvious. It’s not a bad model-everyone doesn’t have to sound like Coltrane-especially when you, like Colby, have a strong lyrical bent and can inhabit a ballad like Johnny Mandel’s “Close Enough for Love” or Cole Porter’s … Read More “Mark Colby: Reflections”

Despite the name, there are no prophecies here, nor is the “other” in the title a reference to futuristic or outside music. The inspiration for trumpeter Derrick Gardner’s band name is Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and like that once-stalwart ensemble, the Jazz Prophets are down and in the pocket. Like the Messengers, Gardner’s Prophets hew … Read More “Derrick Gardner and The Jazz Prophets: A Ride to the Other Side…”

Tenor saxophonist Harry Allen may have been born in the mid-1960s, but his atavistic jazz heart is in the 1950s. Stretch that decade a little on both sides to have what some critics and many older fans nostalgically recall as jazz’s golden age. It was the era that saw the emergence of both Jazz at … Read More “Harry Allen/Joe Temperley: Cocktails for Two”

In 1967 and 1968, before his big pop hits of the early 1970s like “MacArthur Park,” Maynard Ferguson led a mostly British big band in England. Ernie Garside, who played trumpet in and managed the group at points during its existence, also owned a club in Manchester where the band played. These tapes come from … Read More “Maynard Ferguson: The Lost Tapes, Vol. 1”

Jeff Healey broke out on the pop charts back in 1988, barely out of his teens, with the Top 5 “Angel Eyes” (John Hiatt’s, not Matt Dennis’) to become Canada’s leading blues-rocker. But the blind guitarist-singer had grown up listening to, and collecting, early jazz records from the 1920s and 1930; even DJ-hosting a show … Read More “Jeff Healey: Among Friends”

They may have started as members of the Lennie Tristano school of jazz, but the members of this highly evolved and polished quartet, as much a collective as the band of pianist Crothers, has ventured far beyond the tenets of Tristano. They take liberties with time, tone, tempo, dynamics and attack that would horrify more … Read More “Connie Crothers Quartet: Music is a Place”

It’s not surprising that Wynton Marsalis recently chose Sean Jones as lead trumpet for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Jones is a consummate musician with a rich tone and brilliant articulation. But it’s also hard to imagine there being a Sean Jones-a twentysomething jazz trumpeter with impressive credentials and artistry-today without the influence of Marsalis. … Read More “Sean Jones: Roots”