Dixieland
Chuck Jacobs played bass in Kenny Rogers’ band for more than 40 years and enjoyed every minute of it. His roots in music go back to the Dixieland group his family formed while he was too young to play. He heard the music and was inspired to begin playing instruments as a child. At the age of 10 he...
Les Deutsch is a Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientist in the aerospace industry who holds several patents for electronic musical instruments. His father, Ralph Deutsch, invited the sound generator technology for the first digital organ. That instrument, produced by Allen Organ and first shown...
Hal Smith is a drummer deeply rooted in the traditional ragtime and early jazz styles. His performances are often a history lesson not just in sound but in the techniques of creative jazz musicians he admires such as Baby Dodds and Paul Barbarin. Hal’s musical hero is the pioneering pianist,...
Donald Harrison Jr. was born in New Orleans to a deeply musical family steeped in all styles of music: brass bands, jazz, R&B, funk, and world music. His father was a Mardi Gras Indian Big Chief, an offshoot of the cultural tradition that goes all the way back to the time of Congo Square. ...
Steve Rucker is the Director of Drumset Studies at the University of Miami. His long and interesting career began in Charlotte, where his father fell in love with big band music and often played recordings of Dixieland jazz. Steve was fascinated by the sound of the drummer and his passion was...
Ellis Marsalis had a firm idea how to bring out the best music in people, even before his famous sons were born. His understanding of music theory and notation became the cornerstone of his own career as a musician and that of an unofficial music teacher. Just a few years after Hurricane Katrina...
Branford Marsalis has a deep passion for music that reflects not only in his playing but his music education as well. Branford attributes his skills as a musician through dedicated practice in real life band situations, continually reassessing where he is in his practice and development. This...
Terence Blanchard remembers with pride the special way Lionel Hampton coached and encouraged him. It was his first professional gig and Hamp took the time to share with young Terence, an act of kindness that continues to give to this day. While having a successful jazz career, Terence never...
Bobby Gordon, the jazz clarinetist who helped expand the New Orleans traditions to audiences around the world, was interviewed alongside his long time friend Bob Greene. The two men reunited for an interview and to play together at the NAMM Foundation’s Museum of Making Music in 2008. For decades,...
Floyd Levin was a promoter of traditional jazz, an author, and music historian. Beginning on radio in the 1940s and then on to writing a music column, Floyd captured some of the greatest stories and characters in the world of jazz. A close friend of many performers such as Louis Armstrong, Floyd...