News & Updates — out-jazz

Has anybody ever said a bad thing about Eric Dolphy? One of the most respected jazz artists, even if he is not exactly a household name to casual jazz fans, any serious jazz head loves him, as well as every single musician that ever came into contact with him. He was known to give his last dollar to struggling musicians in gestures of kindness and compassion. He even gave so much to the groups he worked in that his own career as a leader was woefully brief. He was an amazing composer, improviser, alto saxophonist, flautist and pioneered the use...

Best known as the older brother of saxophonist Wayne, Alan Shorter was a fiercely unique free jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player in the '60s and early '70s. From Newark NJ, he was playing in a bebop group as a youngster with Wayne, Grachan Moncur III and Walter Davis Jr. He spent some time in the Army and joined the fire music scene, cutting sessions with Archie Shepp, Alan Silva, Marion Brown, Francois Tusques, the Full Moon Ensemble and his brother's 1965 album The All-Seeing Eye. (In fact, he was composer of "Mephistopheles" on said album). He made two underground classics...

Give the bassist some! I always loved NHØP's bass playing on so many great jazz records that I felt the need to point out his birthday today and show some respect. From Denmark, he started playing bass at 13 and went pro pretty quickly. At 17 he was offered the bass role in the Count Basie band but was too young to legally travel to the US for work. He supported many visiting jazz artists at the Jazzhus Montmarte in Copenhagen, including playing with Sonny Rollins, Roland Kirk, Dexter Gordon, Bud Powell, Stan Getz, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp and others....

Happy birthday to that bitter bastard genius, the incomparable Miles Davis!! From bebop to cool jazz to modal to out-funk/fusion to pop, Miles played it all and never cared what the critics thought of him! My personal favorite era was his '70s hard-avant-funk, some of which sounds so brutal that it borders on proto-death metal!

"The Viking of 6th Avenue", Lewis Hardin was better known as "Moondog", composer, instrument-builder, philosopher and mystical NYC street character. He was from a Kansas farm and was blinded at 16 by dynamite. He attended music school for the blind and lived briefly in the South during the late '30s/early '40s before moving to NYC in '43. There he quickly befriended Charlie Parker, Toscanini, Benny Goodman, Leonard Bernstein and other musical luminaries. He was a busking musician and earned money selling his poems. He spent 25 years on the streets of NY, often along 6th ave, between 52nd & 55th...