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Harold McNair
Harold McNair: Harold McNair / Flute & Nut
by Duncan Heining
Harold McNair Harold McNair / Flute & Nut Dutton Vocalion 2012 (1968/1969)The story of Jamaican saxophonist/flautist Harold McNair is one of the great what-might've-beens" of British jazz. He was, by all accounts, a charming, well-mannered guy with a beautiful sound on tenor, alto and, in particular, on flute, and the music just flowed through him. McNair did a lot of session work, toured with Donovan-that's him on the troubadour's In Concert (Pye) album from ...
read moreJazz Goes Mod, 1961
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Many Americans born in the 1950s like to think of London in 1961 as a set from My Fair Lady. Lots of rosy- cheeked Julie Andrews types, coal fireplaces, and men rushing about in forest-green tweed. Also in these same imaginations, teenage guys look like the brooding Beatles during their Hamburg, Germany, period while teenage girls are bubbly and confident, and look like Helen Shapiro or Shirley Bassey. In truth, there was a thriving jazz scene at the clubs and ...
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Harold McNair: Flute & Nut
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Harold McNair is barely known today. Yet he was one of the prettiest and most exciting modern flutists of the late 1960s and very early '70s. He was a beautiful saxophonist as well. McNair got off to a slow start in the jazz world and when he did, jazz was fading away for newcomers. Born in Jamaica, McNair spent the first 10 years of his musical career playing Caribbean music in the Bahamas. A self-taught musician, McNair soon found himself ...
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