Horace Silver Interview: May 13th, 1993

‘This is wonderful and needed’, RAN BLAKE, Pianist, Composer, Recording Artist, Educator and Recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, former chair of the Contemporary Improvisation Department, New England Conservatory and currently faculty member at NEC. Horace Silver helped define hard bop, but was in turn defined by it. It all began with a series of trio […]

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A Unique Jazz Photo Collection of Previously Unpublished Images

This website contains a photo archive comprising over 2,500 jazz photographs taken by Stuart Nicholson  during a period that covers just over two decades — from the early 1980s to the early millennium years. They were taken in the pre-digital age of 35 millimetre films, pushed ASA ratings and hand held metering  and offer a very personal window onto  two exciting decades of jazz. The Home Page slideshow  displays over 100 shots that provide a flavour of what’s on offer. Although a few of Stuart Nicholson’s photographs have previously appeared in The ObserverThe GuardianThe Financial TimesThe Irish TimesThe Times, The Independent, jazz magazines and a handful of books, almost all have never been in the public domain before. What makes this archive unique is the eyewitness account it provides of jazz from early 1980s to the early Millennium years. Almost every genre of is covered (check out the Collections tabs that bring selected photographs together under  headings such as Blue Note, Free Jazz, Jazz-Rock, Big Band and so on) featuring literally hundreds of jazz artists. All the photographs  in this archive are available at a reasonable cost – click on the image and follow the onscreen prompts if you want to obtain a licence for commercial use or if you simply want to buy shots  to enhance your listening space, den, office or living area.

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Random Jottings (5): Reflecting on Esbjörn Svensson from 2018

The year 1962 represented the beginnings of a break-through in the career of the Swedish pianist Jan Johansson. Encouraged by the positive reception to his album 8 Bitar Johansson the year before, and in particular the response to his jazz treatment of a Swedish folk melody ‘De Sålde Sina Hemman’,  he entered the studios on […]

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