JAZZ.FM91 - Canada's Premier Jazz Station

I was doing some reading the other night and came across an essay by Ross Russell in the September 1960 issue of The Jazz Review. Russell, who had been owner of Dial Records, was reviewing a reissue of the Carnegie Hall concert of September 29, 1947 that featured Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

This image of Buddy Rich by Paul Slaughter is a personal favorite of mine. I think it's one of the most dynamic and revealing photos of the drummer. For a brief second, you get to see Rich's intensity, anxiety and aggression in one fleeting glace (or glare).

Waxing & musings. As jazz fans, we live in amazing times. Whatever period you enjoy, most of what you want is available online someplace as a download. Or it's easy to order. No matter how obscure, a quick Google search usually unearths the album or tracks.

In the spring of 1966, Timothy Leary praised the virtues of LSD, an H-bomb was lost at sea in Europe and Gemini 9's two-man crew began the first of its 47 orbits of Earth. And if these events weren't spacey enough, Buddy Rich, at age 48, decided to start a big band. Not a trendy rock or folk band but a hard-driving jazz orchestra with a swing beat and overheated soloists. One musician who was with the band from the start was Las Vegas studio trumpeter Bobby Shew.