Frank Butler

The Fox

by Richard J Salvucci
April 4, 2024

There was once a legendary trumpet player named Jack Purvis who was a disciple of Louis Armstrong. Purvis was an excellent player, but he was in and out of trouble for most of his life. So he spent some time in jail. In fact, so much time that Purvis once led (documented in the Fort-Worth Star Telegram, March 30, 1938) a broadcast from a Texas prison in Huntsville. Purvis led many lives, and was sometimes spotted in odd places like ...

Art Pepper: Smack Up

by Richard J Salvucci
February 7, 2024

There are certain players and recordings that make an indelible first impression. The circumstances usually involve a degree of ignorance: Who is that? What is he (or she) doing? How did this recording escape notice when so many others did not? A very personal reaction to Art Pepper. Urgency. Intensity. Listen to me. Before the name, there was the sound and the piercing tone that can only come out of some dark emotional depth. A listener did not ...

Curtis Counce: You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce!

by Richard J Salvucci
November 18, 2023

When bassist Curtis Counce died of a heart attack at the age of 37 in 1963, the jazz world was deprived of a major talent. Not that one would have known much, for his death, while noted, was not extensively covered. Counce, a Midwesterner, had come to California and to jny:Los Angeles to learn his craft, where he played with such incubator orchestras at the Club Alabam as Johnny Otis (trumpeter Art Farmer started there too). He gigged in the ...

Frank Butler on Curtis Counce's "Landslide"

by David A. Orthmann
November 21, 2008

“Man, I feel like cookin' this evening,"* Frank Butler proclaimed while setting up his drums in the Contemporary Records studio on October 6, 1956. Over a half-century later, his words still have the ring of absolute truth. The session, led by bassist Curtis Counce and released in 1957 as Landslide, was an incandescent beginning to Butler's recording career. The California-based trapster had previously amassed an impressive resume, including gigs with Dave Brubeck's combo and the big bands of Duke Ellington ...

Elmo Hope: Trio and Quintet

by AAJ Italy Staff
February 5, 2006

Questo è uno dei pochi dischi di Elmo Hope in circolazione oggi in Italia. Un plauso alla Blue Note che l'aveva già pubblicato in CD (con identica copertina e stessi brani) 15 anni fa ed oggi lo riedita per il beneficio di chi se l'era perso.Dopo anni di totale oblio, lo sfortunato pianista e compositore bop ha avuto nel decennio scorso una certa rivalutazione critica ma dal pubblico jazz è ancora ampiamente ignorato.Un vero peccato, perché ...

Miles Davis - Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings, 1963-1964

by Colin Fleming
September 22, 2004

Seven Steps : Review #1 | Review #2 | Review #3 | Discuss | Poll

Miles Davis Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings Of Miles Davis, 1963-1964 Columbia Legacy 2004

One of the more undervalued phases in Miles Davis' career, the years 1963-64 are typically deemed a fallow period, marked by a few mildly inventive studio creations and scattershot radio broadcasts. Davis' transformations were often stylistic, but this collection puts the bulk ...

Miles Davis - Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings, 1963-1964

by Jim Santella
September 22, 2004

Seven Steps : Review #1 | Review #2 | Review #3 | Discuss | Poll

Miles Davis Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings Of Miles Davis, 1963-1964 Columbia Legacy 2004

Seven discs paint a pretty good picture of the sound that Miles Davis gave us back then.

Some of the master's mid-'60s material has not been previously issued. As had been the case time and again, the Miles ...