Jazz

Jazz Great from the Bay State Dick Johnson Dick Johnson’s 90th birthday anniversary was December 1. The Brockton, Mass native, who died in 2010 at age 84, came to prominence in the fifties, one of...

Like many of my colleagues in radio and records, I’m saddened this week by the death of one of the most esteemed and trusted figures in our business. Dick LaPalm died in California on Monday at the age...

Among the Bay State’s renowned jazz native sons are Ted and Dick Nash of Somerville, Massachusetts. Ted was born in 1922, Dick in 1928.  The boys were separated early in life after the deaths...

I knew of Dinah Washington’s multiple marriages well before I fell for her voice. I was ten when she married her 7th husband, Dick “Night Train” Lane, the All-Pro defensive back of the Detroit Lions....

I’d always heard that Dizzy Gillespie feigned having a cold when he met up with Oscar Peterson for their duo recording in London in 1974.  Peterson intimidated most everyone, even the formidable John...

The National Endowment for the Arts hadn’t been established when Dizzy Gillespie ran for President in 1964, but it would just as likely have been on his agenda as it was Lyndon Johnson’s.  Given the...

Marian McPartland and Dizzy Gillespie During his 1985 appearance on the NPR program, Piano Jazz, Dizzy Gillespie was asked by host Marian McPartland about the month he spent playing with Duke Ellington...

Over the past few years, I’ve posted several blogs about Dizzy Gillespie. Click here for a compendium that includes features on his collaboration with Chano Pozo in the creation of Afro-Cuban...

Dizzy Gillespie has gradually emerged as the musician I’ve written about most since the inception of this blog nearly two years, so when I discovered this footage of his Bebop Reunion...

Louis Armstrong said he favored trumpeter Bobby Hackett as his personal favorite because he had “more ingredients.”  But the longer I’m around, the more I’m ready to confer that honor on Dizzy Gillespie. ...