By all accounts, clarinetist and bandleader Artie Shaw was quite the difficult guy, before, during and after his days as a working musician. Still, Shaw, born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky in 1910—who passed in December of 2004 at the age of 94—is still regarded in many quarters as the greatest jazz clarinetist who ever lived. For […]
Wherever and whenever live music is played—in Naples, Florida, or otherwise—people of a certain age will often request a song made famous by the late and great Louis Prima. Last season in Naples at The Cafe’ on Fifth Avenue, when I had the privilege of playing with the great trumpter Bob Zottola, a customer approached […]
Jerry Lewis. Funniest man who ever lived, in my opinion, anyway. “The Nutty Professor?” I mean the original. Greatest film ever made. It still cracks me up. Forget about Eddie Murphy. Let’s talk about Professor Julius Kelp. Today, in terms of showbiz icons who are still standing, Lewis is it, and he is still very […]
Chris Connor, last of the triumvirate of the “cool school” of jazz singers that included Anita O’Day and June Christy, died on August 29, at the age of 81, from cancer. Born Mary Loutsenhizer in Kansas City, MO, Connor studied clarinet for eight years. She first sang publicly–the song was “Amor”– in 1945 at her […]
Maybe Benny Goodman thought the swing era would never end. For him, perhaps it didn’t, as he continued doing what we did from the 1930s onward, rather successfully, until his death in 1986. In jazz lore, such as it is, it is said there supposedly is not a day that goes by without someone telling […]
Anita O’Day. There will never be another like her in the history of jazz. Along with Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and perhaps one or two others, she influenced scores of jazz singers and virtually created a language — and set the standard– for true, modern jazz singing. And yes, she lived what used to be […]
THE PHILADELPHIA PROBLEM (S) I am becoming increasingly embarrassed these days to mention that my home town is Philadelphia. In terms of a jazz scene, we have several, wonderful colleges with top-notch jazz programs, including Temple University, University of the Arts and Rowan University. Drexel University’s music program is growing as well. But in terms […]
A bit over a year ago, I received a call from an executive of the Gibson guitar company, owners of the Slingerland name since 1994. The executive thanked me for helping keep the Slingerland name alive through the years with books, DVDs and CDs, and to my astonishment, said that Gibson wanted to sell the […]
In 1965, Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen wrote a song for Frank Sinatra entitled “Everybody Has the Right to Be Wrong.” That tune has been running through my mind a lot these days in line with some recent comments I made about DownBeat magazine in a story I wrote about the unfortunate demise of […]
Jazz Times magazine, considered, in many quarters, to be the jazz magazine “of record” for over 30 years, has temporarily suspended publication, according to a notice posted on its web site, JazzTimes.com. The owners are reportedly speaking to a potential buyer interested in taking over publishing reigns. Rumors have been rampant about this for some […]
BRUCE KLAUBER
is an editor, writer and multi-instrumentalist who has contributed to and edited dozens of area and national periodicals. His works have appeared in Jazziz, Jazz Times, Down Beat and others. As a professional jazz drummer the author has performed with Charlie Ventura, Milt Buckner, Bernard, Peiffer, Joanie Sommers, and led his own "Jazz for the People" Trios and Quartets in Philadelphia, Atlantic City and Las Vegas.
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