There are a number of you who haven’t received orders that date back weeks. First, you have my sincere apologies and my pledge that everyone will get everything they ordered.
Second, an explanation: Many of you are aware of my health problems and the financial hardships it’s caused.
It has recently gotten worse, in that [...]

Philadelphia has been suffering
through its worst winter in history. Right now, I’m looking out at about five
feet of snow, and given the size
of this property, I’ll likely be holed
up here for several more days.
That’s but one of the reason for
delays in orders. But remember,
we do specify two-to-four weeks’
delivery, as each item is custom
duplicated in real [...]

GREG CAPUTO: KEEPER OF THE BIG BAND FLAME
Greg Caputo is a talented, versatile and swinging drummer with credits that include everyone from Basie and James to Goodman and Shaw. His academic credentials are impeccable as well. He’s a Hartford Conservatory of Music graduate and studied privately with Alan Dawson, Joe Morello and Jim [...]

Singer/trumpeter and master entertainer Louis Prima may have died 31 years ago, but from an entertainment industry standpoint, he’s now bigger than ever.
His music graces dozens of film and television soundtracks and commercials, repackages of his recordings sell briskly, rockers cover his material, the DVD issue of Disney’s “Jungle Book,” where Prima played an animated [...]

Drummers of a certain age have their lists of undiscovered, video “holy grails,” which usually include Buddy Rich playing two bass drums at the Paramount Theater in 1949, Gene Krupa’s performance with the Benny Goodman band at Carnegie Hall in 1938, and the Buddy Rich/Gene Krupa drum battle at Jazz at the Philharmonic in [...]

Singer Al Martino, probably the last of still-working, Italian troubadours with wide, hit-making appeal, died on October 13 at his home in suburban Philadelphia. Martino’s death, at the age of 82, was a shock to his family and friends, as there was no inkling of illness. Indeed, he was still working and sounding great and [...]

David Letterman has two responsibilities: To be funny and to bring in ratings.
He’s doing both.
Since the television talk show host’s October 1st admission of a $2 million blackmail attempt against him, and, shall we say, details of workplace complications, there have been calls for his resignation, allegations of sexual harassment, sordid details involving alleged [...]

JazzLegends.com is pleased to announce the discovery of an incredibly rare and musically astounding Jazz at the Philharmonic show, recorded live in absolutely superb fidelity, in Stockholm on April 28, 1957. The principals–Roy Eldridge, Stuff Smith, Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, the one and only “Papa”Jo Jones, and Ella Fitzgerald (backed by Don [...]

The name of Mitch Miller came up the other day quite by coincidence. The conversation was about Louis Prima’s difficult, early-1950s, pre-Vegas days when decent gigs and recording deals were, for him and new wife Keely Smith, hard to come by.
The conversation turned to a song titled “Come On-A My House,” produced by Mitch Miller [...]

Maynard Ferguson, the dynamic, musically stratospheric and charismatic bandleader/trumpter who died in August of 2006, is the subject of a new book.
Not surprisingly, the work was not able to find a traditional book publisher.
Maynard! was written and assembled by Grammy Award-winning record producer Ralph Jungheim, is a collection of interviews with many of [...]

Sometimes enthusiasm gets the better of me. I’m one of the multitudes out there–and I’m presuming there are multitudes–who have wanted to view the 1987 Academy Award-winner for Best Documentary film, “TIme is All You’ve Got,” the project that focused on that enigmatic jazz genius, Artie Shaw.
A lot of material, said not to exist, [...]

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 those of [...]

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 me [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 months, [...]

The golden age of lounge entertainment in Atlantic City has been over for some years. The recent passing of saxophone giant Sam Butera, architect behind the sound of Louis Prima, just formalized the end of an area.
From the inception of casino gaming in 1978 until the early 1990s, virtually every casino/hotel had a lounge [...]

Note: I saw Sam Butera hundreds of times in the 1980s at various
casinos in Atlantic City, notably Resorts International. At that juncture,
I was writing for Atlantic City Magazine by day and playing in the lounges
by night, but I always made it my business to be in the lounge of
Resorts when Sam Butera and [...]

Bruce Kaminsky is a bassist, jazz educator, recording artist, and inventor of the popular, acoustic/electric hybrid, the KYDD bass. Since the early 1970s, when he burst on to Philadelphia’s then-bustling jazz scene as one of late bass guru Al Stauffer’s finest students, there has not been a style of music he hasn’t played. [...]

On May 30, 2009, Benny Goodman, a.k.a. “The King of Swing,” would have been 100 years old. There were and are several Goodman tributes, including a BBC Radio “Centenary” episode, concerts by Paquito D’Rivera, the Boston Symphony and a Lincoln Center “Jazz for Young People” show entitled “Who is Benny Goodman?”
There are several players [...]

It is quite probable that, to this day, Hal Blaine remains the most recorded drummer in music history. He played on 40, number one single records, 150 that made it to the top ten, and by his own estimate, played on about 35,000 recordings. Blaine virtually defined the role of the modern-day studio [...]

Books on jazz don’t get a lot of attention these days outside of some selected coverage in the jazz and drum press. But periodicals have only so much space, and with booksellers like Borders and Barnes and Noble in trouble, jazz books are rapidly losing the visibility—however limited it’s been—that they once had.
These [...]

Most jazz fans have a list–written or otherwise–of the audio and video recordings they always wanted and wished for, but could never find.
Jazz historians are still hoping that a sound recording of the elusive trumpeter Buddy Bolden, said to have influenced King Oliver, Louis, Bix and the rest, will someday surface.
Drum fans would [...]

These ultra, ultra rare clips — never before released by JazzLegends.com–feature jazz drumming legends that are not often seen on DVD. Highlights include Papa Jo Jones with Ben Webster and Buck Clayton from the late 1950s, a Louie Bellson/Philly Joe Jones/Irv Cottler/Shelly Manne turn on the mid-1960s “Hollywood Palace” tv show, a partial Joe [...]

In response to dozens of request about Goodman and Krupa stuff on YouTube, we have gone to untold time and expense to figure out a way to get this stuff on DVD.  Here it is:  “BennyTube.com” includes the newsreel footage from JATP/Helsinki/1953, “Avalon” and “I Got Rhythm” with the Goodman Trio from the Peggy Lee [...]