In 1961 pianist Horace Tapscott turned down a chance to have a high-profile career with the Lionel Hampton band and spent the next several decades in Los Angeles, leading several community-jazz bands and doing his best to extend the mentoring and teaching tradition that he had experienced growing up during the glory days of L.A.’s Central Avenue era. The underground jazz scene that he helped to create and sustain–a vibrant, multi-arts mix…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Sep 24th, 2007
A Los Angeles City Beat article sings the praises of Jefferson High, the school that gave us alto saxophonist Marshall and trumpeter Ernie Royal, drummer Chico Hamilton, saxophonist Jackie Kelso, drummer Bill Douglass, tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon, trumpeter Lamar Wright, singer Ernie Andrews, violinist Ginger Smock, alto saxophonist Sonny Criss…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Aug 25th, 2007
Alto saxophonist Frank Morgan, born in 1933, is one of the last great bop storytellers and living connections to that age of music. He’s also one of the last musicians left from the glory days of Los Angeles’ Central Avenue scene, a school-of-the-streets from which Dexter Gordon, Charles Mingus, Art Farmer, and many others graduated…
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Posted in Shows on Feb 24th, 2007
In 1961 pianist Horace Tapscott turned down a chance to have a high-profile career with the Lionel Hampton band and spent the next several decades in Los Angeles, leading several community-jazz bands and doing his best to extend the mentoring and teaching tradition that he had experienced growing up during the glory days of L.A.’s Central Avenue era. The underground jazz scene that he helped to create and sustain–a vibrant, multi-arts mix…
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Posted in Shows on Feb 17th, 2007
In this program we explore the sounds of the mid-20th-century Los Angeles jazz scene with historian Steve Isoardi (editor of the oral history book Central Avenue Sounds). Jam sessions, bebop, r & b, big bands, visits from Hollywood celebrities—as the center of African-American culture in L.A., Central Avenue had it all. We’ll hear the music of artists such as Dexter Gordon, Howard McGhee, Hadda Brooks…
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