By Don Heckman
This was first published in its original form a year ago. Everything in that post still holds true, and I thought I’d add a few more musical reasons to be thankful.
- Every note Charlie Parker ever played.
- Ditto for Louis Armstrong.
- Bebop, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Tadd Dameron, Ray Brown, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Clifford Brown and more.
- The magical spells of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.
- Ditto for Don Redman, Sy Oliver, Benny Carter, Neal Hefti, Ralph Burns, Gil Evans, George Russell, Bill Holman, Thad Jones, Oliver Nelson and Maria Schneider.
- Count Basie’s rhythm section (with Freddy Green, Jo Jones, Walter Page).
- Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit.”
- Nina Simone’s “I Loves You Porgy.”
- Ella Fitzgerald’s Song Books.
- Joe Williams‘ “Here’s To Life.”
- Frank Sinatra and Nelson Riddle.
- Coleman Hawkins playing “Body and Soul.”
- Ben Webster playing a ballad – any ballad.
- Sonny Rollins playing “St. Thomas.”
- Almost anything by Miles, Herbie, Wayne, Ron and Tony.
- Ditto for Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman,
- Ditto for Thelonious Monk.
- John Coltrane playing “A Love Supreme.”
- Ravi Coltrane playing — right now Along with Charles Lloyd, Branford Marsalis, Christian Scott, Jason Moran, Brian Blade, and more.
- Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto, Elis Regina, Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso, Ivan Lins, Eliane Elias, Heitor Villa-Lobos and all the rest of the creators of the marvelous music of Brazil.
The life, accomplishments and music of Michael Jackson.
The life and music of Eva Cassidy.
The life and music — especially “Imagine” — of John Lennon.
The life, music, and ideas of George Russell.
The life, music and teaching of Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar.
The life and music of Blossom Dearie, Louie Bellson, Maurice Jarre, Les Paul, Mary Travers and Mercedes Sosa.
The poetry of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. The songs of Joni Mitchell, Brian Wilson, Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, Bacharach and David, and Sting.
The music of Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, the Beatles, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Joan Baez, The Who, David Bowie, Nirvana, Kanye West (among others).
The composers and the lyricists whose music will live forever in the Great American Songbook.
- The madrigals of Gesualdo.
- Everything and anything by Mozart, but especially the Clarinet Concerto and the Clarinet Quintet.
- Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32.
- The songs of Schubert.
- Chopin’s Etudes, Preludes and Waltzes.
- Beethoven’s 3rd, Schubert’s 8th, Mendelssohn’s 4th, Brahms‘ 4th, Tchaikovsky’s 6th, Prokofiev’s 1st.
- Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps. His Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet.
- The String Quartets of Debussy and Ravel.
- The Bartok Concerto for Orchestra. His String Quartets No. 3 and 4.
- The Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, the Goldberg Variations, the Cello Suites and almost everything else.
- The Magic Flute, The Barber of Seville, Falstaff, Madam Butterfly, Die Fledermaus, Three Penny Opera, Porgy and Bess, Hair, Pal Joey, West Side Story and many more..







Although he graduated from law school and passed the New York state bar exams, he was urged to focus on songwriting (which he did as both a lyricist and a melodist) by his close friend and mentor Johnny Mercer. His songwriting career, which began with “Just Remember” (written with Mercer) in 1937, continued up to his death in 2000 at the age of 91.
was covering rock and pop music for the New York Times, and the Jackson 5 performance was just another stop in my busy review schedule. Remembering absolutely nothing about either the program or the review, I pulled it out of my files today, curious to read what I had written. In retrospect, there’s nothing particularly unusual about what I had to say. It was no mystery that Michael and the Jackson 5 were rapidly ascending new stars. But there was one sentence in particular that startled me. It’s the sentence that begins “Watching him move across the stage….”
old Renee Olstead bringing an afternoon crowd to its feet with a stunning version of “At Last” in 2003; Michael Brecker’s extraordinary, five minute unaccompanied solo in 2002, Al Jarreau’s several definitive displays of jazz vocalizing; a rare appearance by J.J. Johnson in 1996; Terry Gibbs’ Dream Band in 1989; Wayne Shorter; Herbie Hancock; Dizzy Gillespie; Miriam Makeba; the great Cuban bassist “Cachao.” And I could go on, and on – a montage that would never stop.
alike as Deedles. In a more than two decade career that has embraced both pop and jazz qualities, Grammy-winning Schuur has demonstrated – at her best – a sense of swing, musicality and interpretive veracity that places her in the top level of jazz vocalizing. “My father really wanted me to become a country singer, and I kind of dabbled with the rock ‘n’ roll thing,” she told me, for a Jazz Times story. “But for me it was jazz. It is Jazz. That’s what was basic”
Interestingly, Schuur performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1975 with Energy Force, the big band of Ed Shaughnessy, who shares the bill with her at Warner Center. Although he’s well known as a big band drummer – most visibly with Doc Severinson on the Tonight Show – he’ll be performing at the Center with his own small, bebop-oriented group. My own recollections of Shaughnessy, however, date back to the ‘60s, when he was augmenting his mainstream skills with many of the avant-garde ideas coursing through the New York City jazz world. Always curious, always eager to explore new territory, always brightening his surroundings with a whimsical sense of humor, he was – and still is – a pleasure to know and to hear.
of her Latin Jazz Band. And, even after years of seeing her in action – hair flying, a beatific smile on her face as she whips her bow across her electric violin – it still seems a little counter-intuitive for her to be standing in front of a dynamic band of Latin jazz musicians. Yet there she is, Scandinavian heritage and all, a girl from the mid-West, fronting one L.A.’s most rhythmically exciting Latin jazz ensembles. Expect your feet to start moving.









“The New Crystal Silence”
“Monday Night at the Village Vanguard”
Latin Jazz Orchestra: “Song for Chico”
“Ilembe: Honoring Shaka Zulu,”
Adepoju & Giovanni Hidalgo: “Global Drum Project”