Jazz Profiles
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A blog about Jazz featuring CD,and book reviews and postings about the music and its makers.
Jazz Profiles
3h ago
Jazz Profiles
12h ago
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra. All rights reserved.
“The critics deny it, of course, but it's too obvious not to be true. They don't like success. They're restless, these jazz critics we have today. They want to discover an unknown talent, build him up but make sure he doesn't get too popular because that's when they start getting picayune in their criticisms. When an artist gets popular, the critics hunt for flyspecks."
- Dave Brubeck, pianist composer, bandleader
As this edition of Downbeat would indicate, it started early - the criticism of Brubeck’s approach to Jazz.
And, it really ..read more
Jazz Profiles
3d ago
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
The following interview on Bill Holman’s “Working Methods, Personal Views and Influences” is from composer-arranger Bill Dobbins’ fine book Conversations with Bill Holman: Thoughts and Recollections of a Jazz Master.
Conversations with Bill Holman: Thoughts and Recollections of a Jazz Master is available through online sellers.
This excerpt from Bill Dobbins insightful interview offers details about how, from very humble beginnings, Bill Holman acquired the techniques, learned experiences and personal revela ..read more
Jazz Profiles
4d ago
This is now available for purchase as both a paperback and an eBook exclusively on Amazon.com. Probably the best way to locate it is to enter my name in the search box on the Amazon site. 327 pages in 48 chapters as my tribute to the great man ..read more
Jazz Profiles
1w ago
Copyright ® Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
This is reposted as a tribute to the 100th anniversary of Sassy's birth.
“What I am about to do really can't be done at all, and that is to do justice to Sarah Vaughan in words. Her art is so remarkable, so unique that it, sui generis, is self-fulfilling and speaks best on its own musical artistic terms. It is—like the work of no other singer—self-justifying and needs neither my nor anyone else's defense or approval.
To say what I am about to say in her very presence seems to me even more preposterous, and I will ..read more