“Freddy Cole? He’s the tops, mate! The very tops!” When I first learned of the passing of vocalist/pianist Freddy Cole on Sunday at the age of 88, this quote immediately popped into my head, as it did over the past nearly three decades whenever I saw Freddy’s name or heard him sing. With Cole’s passing, […]
The 2019 documentary about the life of the iconic Ella Fitzgerald has made its way to the United States and to the WNY region. Ella: Just One of Those Things is available virtually through an arrangement with The Screening Room and its virtual cinema. The film is directed by Leslie Woodhead and produced by Reggie […]
Jazz pianist and vocalist Freddy Cole has died at the age of 88. Born in 1931 in Chicago, he called Atlanta home for the last 48 years. Cole passed on the evening of June 27, 2020. Freddy Cole was the younger brother of his famous sibling, Nat King Cole. He was the youngest of five children, 12 […]
Imagine with me if you will, an all- time, all- star jazz group made up of internationally known musicians who were either born in Buffalo or spent a great deal of their lives as residents of the Queen City. Now who gets the piano chair? Most casual jazz fans would gravitate towards Al Tinney who […]
Spyro Gyra has had an amazing 40 plus years run at producing and performing their unique jazz fusion sound. Originating from Congress Street in the West Side of Buffalo in 1977, the band became a worldwide sensation. Their first album, self-entitled, was released in 1977 under the Crosseyed Bear Records label and then picked up […]
In 1966 a landmark suite of orchestral jazz was written for Miles Davis and set to be recorded by The Miles Davis Quintet. That moment would never happen. The quintet broke up and the compositions were lost for 50 years…until they were finally recovered by Miles’ only protégé, Wallace Roney–the one man Miles would trust […]
“Every time you lose a legend, you lose a library.” The jazz world has been hit especially hard by the global coronavirus pandemic. We have lost jazz heroes and jazz legends. Such as Wallace Roney and Lee Konitz amongst the dozen of losses. Sean Jones, the Grammy award-winning trumpeter and composer, in this moving 5-minute […]
(Photo Credit: Christopher Anderson / Magnum) “The main thing is do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” the saxophonist Sonny Rollins says. “Sure, everybody knows it, but nobody lives by it.” At the age of eighty-nine, the legendary Sonny Rollins still packs a punch with insightful commentary. Rollins has lived through […]
The NPR program, Jazz Night in America, recently produced an excellent 9-minute video, narrated by jazz artist Christian McBride, that provides an exposé on the infamous use of the cabaret card. The cabaret card was issued by the New York City Police Department from 1940 to 1967. The cabaret law was a requirement that all […]
Bruce Eaton Shares What Social Distancing Was Like Before The Pandemic While for most folks the guidelines for dealing with the current pandemic might take a bit of getting used to (or even seem draconian), for me they’re all old hat. In 2014 I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma (bone marrow cancer) and what followed […]
