Jazz

Percussionist Jonathan Haas is a solo timpani player who has garnered international praise. He plays all styles of music, from classical to jazz and rock. Haas is the principal timpanist for the New York Chamber Symphony, the Aspen Chamber Orchestra and the EOS Ensemble. He regularly performs with numerous other orchestras worldwide. Haas also teaches percussion at the Aspen Music School and has been the director of the Peabody Conservatory Percussion Studio for 17 years. He's also the head of Sunset Records, Kettles and Company, and Gemini Music Productions.

Rudd is known for his work with groundbreaking groups and musicians like Herbie Nichols, the New York Art Quartet, Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, and Carla Bley. He has been playing traditional and avant-garde jazz for some 60 years. His latest CD is a live recording with Archie Shepp called Live in New York.

Jazz trumpeter Steven Bernstein. With his quartet, Sex Mob, hes just released a new CD which pays homage to the music of James Bond films. Its called Sex Mob Does Bond (ropeadope records) and is the sextets third album. Bernstein also heads two other groups: Diaspora Soul which specializes in performing versions of ancient Jewish melodies, and Millennial Territory Orchestra with which he explores jazz from the 1920s and 1930s.

August 4th is the 100th anniversary of Armstrong's birth. The archive contains 5000 photographs, 350 pages of autobiographical manuscripts, 270 sets of band part manuscripts, 650 home-made tape recordings and more. Hear excerpts from the tapes. Director of the Louis Armstrong House & Archives Michael Cogswell is in the process of converting the Louis Armstrong House in Queens, where Louis and his wife Lucille lived for almost thirty years, into a museum and educational center. The House is expected to open in 2002.

The grandson of singer and songwriter Jimmy McHugh, McHugh and his family manage the estate of the legendary artist. Songwriter Jimmy McHugh was famous in the forties and fifties for songs like “The Sunny Side of the Street.” Today, McHugh talks about the resurgence of interest in his grandfather’s jazz standards. Several remakes of McHugh’s songs presently hold top spots in the jazz charts.

Laurie Pepper is the wife of the late alto saxophonist Art Pepper, who died in 1982 and was considered to be the greatest alto saxophonist of the post-Charlie Parker generation. Laurie Pepper has just produced a box-set compilation of Art Pepper's music, called Art Pepper: The Hollywood All-Star Sessions. Terry talked with Pepper on the occasion of the updated version of her husband's autobiography, Straight Life which he wrote with the help of Laurie.

In 2000, saxophonist Joe Lovano was voted Down Beat Readers and Critics Poll Winner Tenor Player of the Year. Early in his career, Lovano played with Woody Herman and the Mel Lewis Orchestra. He's also worked with Elvin Jones, Carla Bley, Lee Konitz and Charlie Haden. And he played with the Paul Motian Trio which featured his Berklee School of music classmate, Bill Frisell. In 1991 he began work as a leader, and has recorded a number of albums. His latest is Flights of Fancy: Trio Fascination, Edition Two.

Guitarist and singer Howard Fishman of the Howard Fishman Quartet. The group's material draws on a wide variety of American music: jazz, blues, country, folk and Texas swing, but their experimental and improvisational style sets them apart. The Quartet includes trumpeter Erik Jekabson, bassist Jonathan Flaugher, and violinist Russell Farhang. The group debuted in the Oak Room of the Algonquin two years ago. They wrap up a engagement at Joe's Pub in New York City July 29th. The Quartet is currently working on a jazz opera We Are Destroyed in conjunction with The Public Theatre.

Friedwald, the author of books like –Jazz Singing: Americas Greatest Voices from Bessie Smith to Bebop to Beyond—, –Sinatra! The Song is You: A Singers Art— and a contributor to Tony Bennetts autobiography –The Good Life.— Most recently, he wrote the liner notes for Mosaic Records release of –The Complete Columbia Mildred Bailey Sessions,— a comprehensive 10 disc set of the legendary singers recordings. He talks today about Baileys influence in American music.

J.J. Johnson, a pioneer of the modern jazz trombone died Sunday at his home in Indianapolis. He was 77. It was an apparent suicide. Johnson was considered the definitive trombonist of the bebop generation. He played with the Count Basie Orchestra, Benny Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, Wood Herman, and Miles Davis, often balancing that with leading his own band. Later in life, Johnson moved to Hollywood to work as a composer and arranger for television.