NICK DERISO: One of those all-star dates that bridges genres, even generations, “The Trumpet Kings” is an amalgamation of so many concurrent joys that it’s a wonder this Pablo release ever got made. We have out front one Big Joe Turner, a 6-2, 300-something pound Kansas City belter known asRead More

NICK DERISO: A weighty recording from a player who should have been long gone, on a subject that shouldn’t afford such texture. Saxophonist James Moody’s “Young at Heart,” aptly titled, is a shower of invention from out of the clear blue, this burst of romanticism from an aging bebopper thatRead More

NICK DERISO: The task here was turning sweeping orchestral themes from trumpeter Terence Blanchard’s score for Spike Lee’s epic bio into a piece that not only holds together — but also comes across like a true jazz recording. Blanchard’s effort is a triumph, something memorably better than the original film’sRead More

NICK DERISO: What an enveloping, unforgettable experience: Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and drummer Max Roach, then bop’s most visible surviving pioneers, performing as a duo in a completely improvised concert. Neither had ever recorded a more free-form album, yet still there remains a deep affection for what came before — andRead More

Editor’s note: This column ran as part of an obituary package on the national Gannett News Service wire upon Dizzy Gillespie’s passing in 1993. People told him those bullfrog cheeks would ruin his playing. The embouchure, very important. Flinty, yet funny, John Birks Gillespie was insightful enough to understand thatRead More

by Nick DeRiso The last time Miles Davis and John Coltrane played together, as best I can tell. Recorded in Holland in April 1960, the stirring song cycle was later issued stateside by the little-known Natasha Imports. One version, from the 9th, had just So What, ‘Round Midnight, On GreenRead More

Some people think ‘Straight Life’ is the gem of Freddie Hubbard’s epic early-’70s run with the CTI label. I gotta go with ‘Red Clay.’