Bill Summers’ place in the jazz firmament was set the moment he tooted on a beer bottle tuned to C in the introduction to Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” in 1973. The strange and haunting melody imitated the music of the Ba-Benzélé African pygmies, a long way from Detroit, where he grew up. Then again, that [...]
Bryan Lee might have come into this world a cheesehead up in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, but as soon as he heard those great, long-distance blues radio shows as a little boy in the 1950s, the chitlin circuit called. Lee played gigs in cold Wisconsin for years, and moved to New Orleans in 1982. He spent [...]
Although France may have only produced two jazz musicians of real genius, those two musicians alone give France pretty respectable bragging rights: Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt. Their quintet recordings for the Hot Club de France in the 1930s led the way for jazz becoming as popular in Europe as it was in the States. [...]
