DownBeat
DownBeat is an American monthly magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond".
49 articles
List of articles in the library
Interview by Val Wilmer, DownBeat, 3 June 1965
NOW IT'S Monk's time. Times have been bad for the eccentric genius and the work all but nonexistent. But he's famous now. He appears in ...
Clifford Brown, Benny Golson: Peripatetic Benny Golson
Interview by Val Wilmer, DownBeat, 24 February 1966
ONE OF the most successful of this country's regular across-the-pond commuters is a man with several strings to his metaphorical bow, the talented composer, arranger, ...
Don Cherry: Complete Communion (Blue Note 4226)
Review by William Russo, DownBeat, 28 July 1966
Personnel: Cherry, cornet; Leandro (Gato) Barbieri, tenor saxophone; Henry Grimes, bass; Edward Blackwell, drums. ...
Review by William Russo, DownBeat, 6 October 1966
Rating for all: ★★½ ...
John Coltrane: Meditations (Impulse 9110) *
Review by William Russo, DownBeat, 1 December 1966
Personnel: Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, tenor saxophones; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, Rashied All, drums. ...
Interview by Val Wilmer, DownBeat, 4 April 1968
THERE'S NO experience that compares to the first time the blues get to you. The hairs on your neck stand up and an uncanny churning ...
Obituary by uncredited writer, DownBeat, 4 April 1968
SINGER-HARMONICA player Marion Walter Jacobs, 37, professionally known as Little Waller, under which name he made a large number of important late 1940s and '50s ...
Interview by Val Wilmer, DownBeat, 8 August 1968
"WHAT'LL YOU tell me 'bout that?" demanded a jubilant Aretha Franklin as she bounced offstage following a thunderous reception at the end of her first ...
Earth, Wind & Fire, Ramsey Lewis: Earth, Wind & Fire: Sonic Elements
Report and Interview by Vernon Gibbs, DownBeat, 19 June 1975
PHILADELPHIA IS a violent town. In the hotel where Earth, Wind and Fire are staying, an enraged woman (who has been given a passkey by ...
The Brecker Brothers: Brecker Brothers: The Studio And Its Discontents
Interview by Steve Bloom, DownBeat, 21 June 1979
It would be nice if we're going to do this to say some shit. I don't know what, but I'd really like for once to ...
Melissa Manchester, Tower of Power: Tower Of Power: Pro Blowing Section
Interview by Michael Goldberg, DownBeat, February 1980
THE BASIC tracks were cut in Atlanta, Georgia. The strings were arranged and overdubbed by Gene Page, and Melissa Manchester put down the lead vocal ...
Earl Klugh: P... Lucking Out In The Material World
Interview by Steve Bloom, DownBeat, March 1980
THE TERM "Second Generation Fusion," recently coined by this publication as a handle for certain younger, so-called "jazz" musicians, is nebulous at best. Some included ...
The Specials: Warfield Theater, San Francisco CA
Live Review by Michael Goldberg, DownBeat, June 1980
IT WAS AN incredible scene. As England's Specials — a racially-mixed rock band that is doing for ska (pre-reggae Jamaican music) what the Rolling Stones ...
Defunkt, James White and The Blacks: Defunkt: Jazz-Punk-Funk
Interview by Steve Bloom, DownBeat, June 1981
THE PURPLE tights and checkered t-shirt crowd knows for sure. They meet to the beat every night in sundry rock clubs, discharging a generationful of ...
Earth, Wind & Fire: Facing The Facts With Earth, Wind & Fire
Interview by Steve Bloom, DownBeat, September 1981
NINETEEN SEVENTY-nine was a glorious year for Earth, Wind & Fire. With the music industry priming disco as its next messiah, previously popular bands — ...
Interview by Steve Bloom, DownBeat, February 1982
The sound is metallic and airy and generally reminiscent of a flute, but there is no flute. The next sound thumps and bomps like a ...
Profile and Interview by Michael Goldberg, DownBeat, December 1982
IT'S AN ugly voice. Gruff, guttural, uncouth, barbaric at times. Joe Strummer can't sing, not like an Al Jarreau or a Joni Mitchell, anyway. Lyrics ...
Robert Fripp, The Police, Andy Summers: Andy Summers Unmasked
Interview by Michael Goldberg, DownBeat, July 1983
HIS IMAGE is pure pop. Shaggy blond hair (dyed) in a modified Beatles cut. Mod clothes that might have come from England's trendy King's Road: ...
Interview by Bill Bentley, DownBeat, June 1984
They've got the Louisiana boogie and the Delta blues, country swing and rockabilly too, jazz, country western and Chicago blues, it's the greatest music that ...
Interview by Carol Cooper, DownBeat, September 1984
For over a decade one of the most popular post-bossa Brazilian singer/composers, Nascimento finally arrives in the U.S. to demonstrate his particular brand of politically ...
Richard Thompson: Rockin' Guitar In The Celt Tradition
Interview by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, February 1985
IT'S NOT that he's unknown, exactly. Time magazine featured him and then-wife Linda in its August 30, 1982 issue, saying that his music "has the ...
Interview by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, April 1985
FROM THE beginning, the real "news" about rock & roll has been the way it's ransacked, revitalized, and rearranged the musical styles that gave birth ...
Linda Ronstadt: An Intimate Conversation with Linda Ronstadt
Interview by Steve Bloom, DownBeat, July 1985
LINDA RONSTADT is into French poodles these days. Basking in the glow of two consecutive platinum albums — filled with orchestrated arrangements of what she ...
David Bowie, Chic, Madonna, Nile Rodgers: Nile Rodgers: Sophisticated Funk
Interview by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, September 1985
IN FUNKLAND there are many traditions, only two of which need concern us right now. The first comprises guitarists who could be described as Rhythm ...
Interview by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, January 1986
PICK UP a record with James Burton's guitar on it — any record from Ricky Nelson to Emmylou Harris — and drop it onto your ...
Interview by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, August 1986
LATELY A lot of folks have been going back to school again studying the roots of the music they're making so they can grow their ...
Spyro Gyra: The Spyro Gyra Interview
Interview by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, September 1986
ALMOST A dozen years ago, a small sign appeared outside a Buffalo club announcing, "Tuesday Night — Jazz Jam." In effect, it was also announcing ...
Interview by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, December 1986
IN THE decade since he first burst into the big-time music world, guitarist Adrian Belew has persistently challenged and reshaped the boundaries of his instrument. ...
Interview by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, April 1987
BILL FRISELL'S eerily haunting voice on guitar has combined with his acute sensitivity and thorough training to make him one of the most in-demand of ...
Los Lobos: By The Light Of The Moon (Warner Bros 1-25523)
Review by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, April 1987
BY NOW it should be pretty damn clear to anybody with ears that these guys are no novelty act ready to fade back into the ...
Prince: Sign 'O' The Times (Paisley Park 25577-1)
Review by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, July 1987
DESPITE ALL the hyped-up mystery and intrigue that the media machine swirls around him, like smoke around a Gene Kelly dance routine, the fact is ...
U2: The Joshua Tree (Island 90581-1)
Review by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, August 1987
YOU CAN'T say they don't tell you what they feel. And in fact, what they've been feeling over the last couple of years has become ...
Carlos Alomar, David Bowie: Carlos Alomar
Interview by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, November 1987
WE'RE SITTING in Bogie's, a neighborhood bar in Chelsea not far from Carlos Alomar's loft. The bartender is putting together a Long Island iced tea ...
Living Colour: Blindfold Test: Vernon Reid
Interview by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, December 1987
VERNON REID first hit the scene in Ronald Shannon Jackson's swaggering harmolodic adventure, the Decoding Society, where his role rapidly expanded as he evolved different ...
John Zorn: Quick-Change Artist Makes Good
Interview by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, April 1988
"WHAT'S COMING out of this scene down here is definitely hybrid music: it's the result of people growing up through the '60s and '70s, listening ...
Keith Richards: Talk Is Cheap (Virgin 1-90973)
Review by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, January 1989
IN A WEIRD but fulfilling way this is just about the record everyone — every diehard Stones freak, that is — hoped Keith Richards would ...
Danny Gatton: Of Cars, Bars and Vintage Guitars
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, DownBeat, April 1991
IMAGINE THAT you're an English roots-rock guitarist — say, Dave Edmunds or Billy Bremner — and you've spent your whole life trying to look and ...
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, DownBeat, October 1991
WHEN A 20-year-old Freddie Hubbard moved from Indianapolis to New York in 1958, every young trumpeter was being compared to Miles Davis, who was then ...
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown: But Don't Fence Me In
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, DownBeat, April 1992
WHEN CLARENCE "Gatemouth" Brown visited Washington, D.C., recently, the 67-year-old Texan presided over his eight-piece band like a professor leading a survey course in American ...
Interview by Fred Shuster, DownBeat, June 1992
IT'S A BRIGHT, sunny Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles and Joe Zawinul is motioning towards the Pacific Ocean far below the patio of his hillside ...
Freddie Hubbard: When Your Chops Are Shot
Interview by Fred Shuster, DownBeat, October 1995
TRUMPET GREAT Freddie Hubbard greets a visitor to his cozy split-level Hollywood Hills home with a friendly handshake that belies the worry in his eyes. ...
Love: Caught in the Act: Love Reprises Forever Changes
Live Review by Kirk Silsbee, DownBeat, September 2003
Love: Royce Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles ...
James Brown: Caught in The Act: James Brown's Soul on Top
Live Review by Kirk Silsbee, DownBeat, December 2006
WHEN SOUL shouter James Brown released his big band album – Soul on Top – in 1970, it was received as neither fish nor fowl ...
The Bad Plus: Artfully drawn characters
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, DownBeat, January 2013
The Bad Plus is often described as a jazz-rock trio, but their recent studio album, Made Possible (eOne), is the first to use electric instruments. ...
Book Review by Kirk Silsbee, DownBeat, July 2014
AMERICAN POP MUSIC from the no-man's-land after The Day The Music Died (Buddy Holly's fatal 1959 plane crash) and before the arrival of the Beatles ...
David Sanborn: Sanborn Reimagines Night Music for the 21st Century
Report and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, DownBeat, 9 November 2018
WHEN DAVID SANBORN talks to people during tours, they often bring up Night Music (aka Sunday Night), the late-night TV show the alto saxophonist hosted from 1988 to ...
John Medeski: Mad Skillet (Indirecto)
Review by J.D. Considine, DownBeat, March 2019
For John Medeski's Mad Skillet, it's all about the bass — or in this case, the sousaphone. Because in Medeski's New Orleans funk band, it's ...
Charlie Parker: The Sound and Myth of Charlie Parker at 100
Report and Interview by J.D. Considine, DownBeat, 10 January 2020
TO SAY THAT Charlie "Yardbird" Parker was one of the greatest jazz musicians who ever lived is a bit like saying the Mona Lisa is ...
Christian McBride & Inside Straight: Live At The Village Vanguard (Mack Avenue)
Review by J.D. Considine, DownBeat, January 2022
AT THE END of a brightly swinging run through 'Fair Hope Theme,' bassist and bandleader Christian McBride tells the Village Vanguard audience, "This band was ...
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