News & Updates — Twisted Cover Versions

Great Texan saxophonist Dewey Redman is best known for his work with Ornette Coleman, the great "Birth" band (as I call it, after one of their great records) with Keith Jarrett, Old & New Dreams and his own fine output on Impulse!, Freedom, Actuel, ECM, Black Saint and others. He was self-taught and didn't lead a band until he was in his 30s. He was the nephew of famed pioneering swing jazz hornsmen/arranger Don Redman (known for his work with Fletcher Henderson and others). Dewey started as a kid on clarinet, playing in a church band, before picking up the...

Canadian pianist, arranger, composer, bandleader, Gil Evans was the first call arranger time and time again with Miles Davis and later developed an obsession with Jimi Hendrix. Born in Toronto but moving around mining towns until the family settled in California, he saw Duke Ellington play in '27 and got the orchestration bug. He also took influence from Kurt Weill and Spanish & Brazilian music. He moved to NYC in the '40s with a gig arranging for Claude Thornhill.  In the late '40s his apartment hosted incubator sessions with Miles, Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan, George Russell and others to develop...

One of my favorites in recent years, the wonderful Sharon Jones captivated growing legions of audiences in the new millennium with her high-energy, charming personality and powerful voice on stages around the globe. A former security guard who made the big time, despite being told she was "too short, too fat, too old and too black", she worked hard for all of her success. Born in Augusta GA, she grew up in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn. She contributed backing vocals to recording sessions before her work on a Lee Fields studio date convinced the producers that they had a special talent in...

The great Shawnee rocker Link Wray invented the power chord and helped set off the hard rock revolution, influencing punk, thrash & heavy metal with his 1958 hit "Rumble" spawning the future headbanger generation. He made his first record in '55, before heading to Korea with the Army. He got tuberculosis and spent a year in the hospital. A lung was removed and he was told he'd never sing again (they were wrong). So he started working out instrumentals and made several records, some of which were recorded in a makeshift studio in a chicken shack (often in partnership with...

The Afro-Danish reedsman John Tchicai was one of the unique talents on the international out-jazz scene after the "October Revolution" of 1964. Born in Copenhagen (and of Congolese descent), he played violin as a child and switched to reeds as a teenager. He was pro by the late '50s traveling around Europe before setting off for NYC in '62. He hooked up with groups of major statement, such as New York Contemporary Five (with Don Cherry and Archie Shepp) and the New York Art Quartet. He participated in the behemoth free jazz recordings New York Eye & Ear Control (with...