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Connie Kay

Connie Kay will forever be remembered as the legendary drummer/percussionist for the Modern Jazz Quartet.

Self-taught on the drums, Kay played in the mid-'40s with Sir Charles Thompson, Miles Davis, and Cat Anderson. He was in Lester Young's quintet off and on during 1949-55, a time in which he also worked with Beryl Booker, Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker and others. In February 1955, he joined the Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ), traveling the world with the band up until it called it "quits" in 1974.

During that era he also was a guest on small-group sets with Chet Baker, Cannonball Adderley, Jimmy Heath and Paul Desmond with Jim Hall. During 1975-81 Kay worked with Tommy Flanagan, Soprano Summit, Benny Goodman and was the house drummer at Eddie Condon's club.

Because for just two months shy of 40 years (including seven years in which the group was on "vacation"), Connie Kay was the drummer/percussionist with MJQ, he may be most remembered as so. His subtle constant contributions were an invaluable asset to everyone he came in contact with. Connie Kay died Nov 30, 1994 in New York, NY.

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435
First Time I Saw

Connie Kay Plays the Drums Impeccably

Read "Connie Kay Plays the Drums Impeccably" reviewed by Rob Mariani


The impeccable Mr. Connie Kay plays perfectly. If you say that sentence out loud in a chamber where there is just the slightest echo, and emphasize the “p" sounds and the hard “c" sounds just a little, you get a feeling of what this remarkable percussionist's drumming actually sounds like. In all music, I don't think there's ever been anything quite like Connie Kay's cymbals. You could detect the ping of his ride cymbal out of a thousand--dry ...

678
Extended Analysis

The Modern Jazz Quartet: The Music Inn

Read "The Modern Jazz Quartet: The Music Inn" reviewed by Elliott Simon


...in our desire for beauty in all things we are open, and one in our search for that little city of gold where the flute-player never wearies, and the spring never fades, and the oracle is not silent, that little city which is the house of art, and where, with all the Music of the Spheres, and the laughter of the gods, Art waits for her worshippers-Oscar Wilde In 1950, while Senator McCarthy spearheaded his anti-artistic witch hunts, ...

331
Album Review

The Modern Jazz Quartet: European Concert

Read "European Concert" reviewed by AAJ Staff


Ironically, The Modern Jazz Quartet's European Concert album finally is released on CD for the first time just before the passing of the third member of the legendary group, reducing the survivors to one: Percy Heath, who also is a member of one of the leading family triumvirates in jazz. Listed as one of the favorite MJQ albums by many of its fans, European Concert initially was released as a double-album package documenting the group's performances throughout Scandinavia in 1960. ...

156
Album Review

Paul Desmond: Take Ten

Read "Take Ten" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan


As legendary a group as the Dave Brubeck Quintet was during the '60s, the fact remains that front line alto man Paul Desmond made some of his finest recordings away from Brubeck and on his own, first for RCA and then for CTI. His RCA sides present the cream of the crop of his recorded legacy, owing much to the fact that during this period Desmond chose not to work with a pianist but instead opted for guitar legend Jim ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

MJQ: Complete...

Prestige Records
2003

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The Modern Jazz...

Atlantic Records
2003

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The Complete Last...

Atlantic Records
1974

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Born to Be Blue

Riverside
1963

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Take Ten

RCA Victor
1963

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