One of the greatest
by Steve Voce

A Story for Wilbur
by Deborah L. Gillaspie

Wilbur Campbell and the Jazz Express
by Irving Zucker

Former Beneke sax man Cecil Hill still “swings his thing ”
An interview with Bob Knack

Mel Tormé
By Steve Voce

This article first appeared in The Independent of London.

Mel Tormé was the most gifted and creative musician amongst all of the jazz singers, be they Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Cleo Laine or Frank Sinatra. Apart from the impeccable lustre of his singing, he was an inspired composer, an outstanding drummer, an accomplished actor, a gifted author and a dedicated jazz fan who knew as much about the music as most of its historians. He began his jazz record collection when he was twelve.

Michel Petruciani
A Farewell and a Last Review
by Thierry Pérémarti

New York correspondent for Jazzman

Intense! He was intense, that's it! Fragile, naïve, and impressionable—stubborn, demanding, but incredibly generous. Yes, he gave it all. Because there was no room for things half done, half lived or half loved. Today I still don't understand how he did what he did. That piano was so big ("all those teeth" he said at four years old), and he tamed all of them.

Most Valued Player: Herbie Nichols
by Nic Jones

There is a tradition of dissent in the realm of jazz piano playing, and it stretches from Count Basie to Andrew Hill. The players within it all forsook or have forsaken what might be called correct virtuosity in favour of idiosyncratic approaches of their own devising. Within this stream there is a small enclave occupied by a trio of pianist-composers, namely Hill, Thelonious Monk, and Herbie Nichols, who even now enjoys comparatively little coverage.

My audition for Satchmo
by Joe Levinson

And one thing led
to another, and...
by Harriet Choice

I suppose the Jazz Institute of Chicago began during a phone conversation with Art Hodes last spring. I had just returned from New Orleans where Art's band was among the groups that had performed at the first New Orleans Jazz Festival. There had been so many places to hear traditional Jazz there and so few here in Chicago. We talked about the possibility of getting an old store and turning it into a kitty hall similar to those in New Orleans.

The Chicago Daily Blues
by Bob Koester

Several years ago the editors of Blues Unlimited in England got wind of a 45-rpm record on the Bluestown label. Wanting to learn more about the firm, they asked friends going to the United States for summer vacations to try to locate the manufacturer in Chicago. They were surprised to find that the firm was located in the Boston area. Their first assumption was natural--because blues fans the world over do think of Chicago as Bluestown. It's been the major center for contemporary blues activity for decades.