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David Axelrod

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Born and raised in a mostly-African-American neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles (the Crenshaw district), David Axelrod was raised to be open-minded and socially-conscious (his father was a labor union activist). From a young age, music was in his life as it was a prominent cultural feature of both his neighborhood and his home life: his family home was always filled with music and dancing with his parents making their living room a regular hot-spot for weekend "jitterbug" parties.      With the sudden death of hi s father when David was 13 years old and then that of his older brother, Sonny  (in the World War II Battle for Iwo Jima) , within the same year, David was left with a deep hole in his life --one that he tried to fill with athletics (boxing) and neighborhood shenanigans .  The early development of a burly, athletic body, coupled with a rather aggressive, combative nature, had led to David's pursuit of both drumming (though his mother required him...
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My Favorite Jazz/Jazz-Rock Fusion Albums of the 1960s

1960 BILL EVANS TRIO  Portrait in Jazz WES MONTGOMERY The Incredible Jazz Guitar/  ART BLAKEY & THE JAZZ MESSENGERS A Night in Tunisia JOHN COLTRANE Giant Steps MILES DAVIS Sketches of Spain ERIC DOLPHY QUINTET Featuring Freddie Hubbard Outward Bound GIL EVANS Out of the Cool WES MONTGOMERY  Movin' Along RANDY WESTON Uhuru Africa JIMMY SMITH Back at the Chicken Shack GEORGE RUSSELL and His Orchestra featuring Bill Evans Jazz in the Space Age 1961 BILL EVANS   Explorations   (1961) BILL EVANS   Sunday at the Village Vanguard (1961) BILL EVANS   Waltz for Debbie (1961) JOHN COLTRANE  My Favorite Things  (1961) OLIVER NELSON The Blues and the Abstract Truth   (1961) 1962 BILL EVANS  Moonbeams   (1962) HERBIE HANCOCK  Takin' Off   (1962) - 90.28 STAN GETZ & CHARLIE BYRD Jazz Samba  (1962) VINCE GUARALDI  Cast Your Fate to the Wind: Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus   (1962) DEXTER GORDON ...
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Larry Coryell

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The Texas- born "Godfather of Fusion" emigrated across country in 1965 to attend New York's Mannes School of Music. He was coming from the state of Washington where he had attended college at the University of Washington and where his family had been living on the Columbia River since the early Fifties. In The City he quickly insinuated himself into the music scene, hanging out at The Scene to watch (and meet) the latest shakers and movers in the industry and eventually getting the gig of sitting in for Gabor Szabó in Chico Hamilton's quintet while also meeting and playing with open-minded musical adventurer Gary Burton as well as his own first band mates, Columbus "Chip" Baker, Chris Hills, Jim Pepper, and long-time collaborator, drummer Bob Moses. From his first exposure to the dynamic sounds of bands like Cream and Jimi Hendrix Experience, Larry became obsessed with trying to fuse these powerful sounds with his own training as a jazz musician. Thus was bo...
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