In the last six or seven months, I've been trolling thru You Tube looking for jazz artists unfamiliar to me. In the process of doing so, I of course came across many who were already familiar to me. One tends to think of jazz being an American art form, however, it is played/sung in most parts of the world in many other unique ways.
We seem to be in a generation of 'ohs' and 'ahs', of the sensational. Back in the 60s and before there was one artist who was truly a genius. He was a pianist named Errol Garner. He not only created a whole new way of playing jazz piano, he was recognized all over the world because he was a genius. To back that statement, he could not read music! I hope anyone reading this will check out his playing.
Many of the European countries have great bands playing swinging big band sounds. To name a few, The Bohuslan Big Band (Sweden), The Oulu All Star Big Band (Finland), and the WDR Big Band (Germany).
There is a relatively new non-profit organization named Resonance Records out of Los Angeles. They have such stars as pianist Gene Harris, guitarist Andreas Oberg, and a piano wizard named Marian Petrescu. Then there are the vocalists like Viktoria Tolstoy (Sweden), Johanna Liveneinen (Finland) and Salena Jones (U.S.A.). She has a great rendition on You Tube backed up by the Hank Jones Trio playing in Japan. Also on Resonancce we have Cathy Rocco, one of the top jazz singers around today.
As I look down my list I can see some people I missed, and as I continue in the coming months I'm sure there will be many more new discoveries.
When Oscar Peterson passed away we all thought there would never be anyone to follow him...how naive that was.
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