There’ve been a host of twists and turns for the well-traveled Butler — though, in many ways, each of these side roads ultimately were necessary for the Montreal-based pianist to get to this place. You May Also Like: No related posts.

What was cool about Lester Young was that he kept evolving. All “Pres” did was: — Pave the way for bebop in the 1930s. — Presuppose, while playing clarinet with Basie back in the day, the cool California sound of Paul Desmond in Dave Brubeck’s 1960s band. — Later findRead More

by Nick DeRiso Though not the hoped-for third-act triumph, Ella and Oscar still has its enduring charms. See, Oscar Peterson, a hard-banging piano genius as bluesy as he was inventive, should have made the perfect foil for Ella Fitzgerald on this stripped-down date, set for reissue on March 15 byRead More

Oscar Peterson, one of jazz music’s most recognizable modern-day pianists, was felled on Sunday not from the lingering effects of a 1993 stroke — he kept playing after that — but from kidney failure. He passed, aged 82, in his native Canada outside Toronto. Peterson’s stroke compromised his left handRead More

Ray Brown is one of those underrated guys who kept on producing important work well past his so-called prime, because he remained such an in-the-pocket guy. You can’t go wrong with the old Jazz at the Philharmonic stuff, of course. But I also typically recommend his late-period work on Telarc,Read More