Scott Yanow

DEFINING MUSIC IS TOUGH TO PIGEONHOLE Music For Black Pigeons is a 90-minute documentary film by Jørgen Leth  and Andreas Koefoed without a specific plot. Viewers get to see a variety of jazz greats during candid scenes that often take place at recording sessions dating from the past 20 years. There are some heartwarming moments and…

It was a musical match made in heaven even if it was not entirely smooth sailing. In 1974 the innovative Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim (1927-94) who was also a guitarist, pianist, and vocalist, teamed up with Elis Regina (1945-82) who was considered the top Brazilian singer, to record the classic album Elis & Tom….

THE TIP OF THE STORY OF FREE JAZZ Bebop revolutionized  jazz in the mid-1940s, shifting the role of the soloist from improvising off of the melody to developing new spontaneous ideas over a song’s chord changes. Just 15 years later, bebop was thought of old fashioned by the new revolutionaries of  free  (or avant-garde)  jazz. Instead of using chord…

GREAT RONNIE SCOTT Ronnie Scott (1927-96) was the top British tenor-saxophonist of the late 1940s/early ‘50s before Tubby Hayes emerged on the scene, and he was one of the first British beboppers. His big tone and swinging style (influenced a little by Lester Young and Stan Getz) was featured on many fine recordings during the…

BUT WHAT ABOUT TIPTON’S LIFE AND TIMES? Billy Tipton (1914-89) had an unusual life, to say the least. Born as Dorothy Lucille Tipton, she developed into a professional pianist and occasional saxophonist. Feeling that her career could only go so far as a female, she reinvented herself as a male by the mid-1930s, using the…