Albert Ayler Nurtured in the seminal recordings of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor in the mid to late 1950s, the jazz avant-garde came into its own in the 1960s with their continuing creations, those of John Coltrane already featured in this program and those of next generation players, Joe Harriott and Albert Ayler. Defining statements […]
John Lewis
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Jazz at 100 Hour 55: The Modern Jazz Quartet and the Third Stream (1956 – 1961)
The Modern Jazz Quartet: Percy Heath – Connie Kay – John Lewis – Milt Jackson As the Modern Jazz Quartet, members of which were once Dizzy Gillespie’s rhythm section in the 1940s, moved into the 1960s, they continued to swing in their own quiet way, even as their music director, pianist John Lewis, explored the […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 34: The Birth of the Cool (1947 – 1950)
Miles Davis – Lennie Tristano – Gerry Mulligan The torrid pace of bebop improvisations reached a point in the late 1940s that prompted a musical reconsideration and Miles Davis was there at the conception. Davis had been with the Charlie Parker Quintet since 1945, when he began to woodshed with composer/arrangers John Lewis, Gerry Mulligan […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 25: Yardbird – The Savoy and Dial Recordings of Charlie Parker (1945 – 1948)
Charlie “Yardbird” Parker – Miles Davis Emerging from the Jay McShann Orchestra from Kansas City and relentlessly curious about how to play the new music he heard in his head, Charlie Parker found sympathetic players in New York, especially Dizzy Gillespie. In November of 1945, Bird, as he was universally known, began to record with […]