Orrin Keepnews and the Keepnews Collection
adminLegendary jazz producer Orrin Keepnews started his career in the jazz music industry as a writer. A graduate of Columbia University in NYC, he wrote for the publication The Record…
Read MoreCannonball Adderley/In San Francisco
In 1959, when In San Francisco was recorded, Cannonball Adderley was riding very high, having reformed his quintet with brother Nat following a stint with Miles Davis (performing on the…
Read MoreArt Blakey & the Jazz Messengers: Caravan
Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers was one of the longest-running, self-renewing ensembles in the history of jazz music. Beginning (sort of) in 1955 with the group Horace Silver, Kenny Dorham, Hank…
Read MoreJimmy Heath/Really Big!
Tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath’s second Riverside album, Really Big! is truly a gem, and for many it will be a previously undiscovered one. The personnel here is, as Keepnews mentions…
Read MoreJoe Henderson/Power to the People
Power to the People is a typical high-quality Joe Henderson affair. It’s a well-known truism that Joe Henderson was, for years, one of the most consistently underrated tenor saxophonists on…
Read MoreThelonious Monk/Plays Duke Ellington
Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington was designed to get people who thought of Monk and his music as ‘difficult’ and ‘weird’ (and there were already plenty of them in 1955),…
Read MoreWes Montgomery/The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery
The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery is considered by many to be the peak of Montgomery’s recorded work. Stuck firmly between his organ-driven works and his later, more popular/R&B-style…
Read MoreNat Adderley/Work Song
In his new notes to accompany the Keepnews Collection reissue of Nat Adderley’s Work Song, producer Orrin Keepnews notes that there was a compressed time frame involved in recording guitarist…
Read MoreFlora Purim/Butterfly Dreams
Flora Purim arrived on the American jazz scene in the late 1960s, around the time when Brazilian-influenced percussion and fusion were riding high. Not surprisingly, her discography is heavy on…
Read MoreMcCoy Tyner/Fly With the Wind
Strings can be a double-edged sword for jazz musicians. On the one hand, they can add texture and depth to musical arrangements, but they can also easily become overblown and…
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