Shelly Manne & His Men

Shelly Manne & His Men: Yesterdays: Live In Europe

by David Rickert
October 15, 2003

Shelly Manne’s Blackhawk recordings are the standard by which all other West Coast jazz projects are judged; they even earned the coveted coronet in the Penguin Guide. What a treat it is, then, that these live recordings from a year later have resurfaced. Norman Granz invited Manne to tour Europe with the JATP with virtually the same group (Russ Freeman substitutes for Victor Feldman in the piano chair.)

As befits a concert intended for the masses, the ...

Shelly Manne & His Men: Checkmate

by Derek Taylor
December 2, 2002

Jazz and television were an easy match in the Sixties, especially in the context of the cop, spy and detective shows that were Hollywood’s bread and butter of the era. Noirish blues and angular tempoed chase themes fit the action on these shows perfectly, as did the Cool connotations of West Coast Jazz. Among the more successful composers for the studios was John Williams, a jazz pianist who would later become one of the industry’s big names scoring soundtracks to ...