It has been known in music circles for some time that pianist, composer and arranger Alan Broadbent is planning a move from Los Angeles to New York. The plan just became public in The Los Angeles Times. Broadbent told writer Kirk Silsbee, “”People are making more out of this than they need to. The bulk of my work is as a touring musician, and I can do that from anywhere.”
His touring has included work with Diana Krall, Charlie Haden’s Quartet West, Natalie Cole, his own trio and appearances at jazz festivals around the world. He says that won’t change. To read the story, click here. To see and hear Broadbent play with Haden, Ernie Watts and Larance Marable in Quartet West, click the arrow on this video from the 1999 Sao Paolo Jazz Festival.
The nonagenarian pianist presented de Barros with every biographer’s hope, unrestricted access to his subject’s personal papers and nearly unrestricted access to her private thoughts. He made the most of it, turning exhaustive research and hundreds of hours of interviews into a true story with the sweep of a novel. From the early discovery of McPartland’s musical gift through her wartime service, her ecstatic and stormy marriage to Jimmy McPartland, her growth as a pianist, her deep affair with Joe Morello, and the radio show that made her a national figure, she has had a fascinating life. It makes a splendid read.
Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band had three fewer musicians than most big jazz outfits. Its size permitted precision, flexibility and subtlety, yet the band had the power of sprung steel. In this concert from a half century ago, the CJB is as fresh as yesterday. Arrangements by Mulligan, Bob Brookmeyer, Al Cohn and Johnny Mandel set standards to which big band writers still aspire. Bassist Buddy Clark and drummer Mel Lewis inspired Mulligan, Brookmeyer, Conte Candoli, Gene Quill and Zoot Sims to some of the best soloing of their careers. This beautifully produced issue of the complete concert is a basic repertoire item.
Boy, when he isn’t running Hanon exercises, this guy swings more lyrically than anyone since Bill Evans.
Allan Broadbent is a major talent with experience up the wazoo! He studied with Lennie Tristano, but much later and much longer than I did. Tristano was the 20th century innovative pianist/composer but also a master teacher who nourished many, many talents. I have a documentary video of Woody Herman’s life that has Broadbent on piano in a performance of his monster/epic arrangement of Harold Arlen’s “Blues in the Night.” I think he was a teenager at the time. Well, needless to say, he has become an arranger/ orchestrator par excellence, and a virtuoso interpreter of the jazz repertoire who has extraordinary emotional depth.
I, eternally a New Yorker (residing in Southern New Jersey), welcome Alan with open arms. May he find happiness on the East coast and continue to create as his heart dictates.
As an aside, I have in my possession a boogie-woogie composition written by Tristano when he lived and taught at the Axel Christensen School of Music in Chicago It is titled, “Chromatic Boogie.” It’s in 12 sections covering the 12 major keys, each movement 12 measures long. My student James Kellett will premiere the work this October in South Carolina as part of his solo piano debut. It’s a pianisticly challenging work demanding total independence of hands and a virtuoso technique. My dearest friend Jack McKinney, producer for 35 years with Savoy records and announcer/interviewer for the NYC radio station WBAI during the same period, was given the score by Lennie. Jack then passed it to me; I learned it and decided I would assign it to my student, James. Anyone interested in the score contact me.