Oliver Jackson

Harry Allen: Love Songs Live!

by Jack Bowers
August 1, 2001

Two words are about all that are needed to sum up the singular talents of swing–based tenor saxophonist Harry Allen — smooth and consistent, each of which aspect of his charismatic persona is abundantly present on this compilation of love songs recorded in concert between 1993 and ’96. I’m not fully conversant with Allen’s influences but Stan Getz had to be one of them (listen, for example, to Jobim’s “Once I Loved”). Others, he says, include Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins ...

Harry Allen: Love Songs Live!

by Dave Nathan
January 1, 2001

Nagel Heyer has put together an album of romantic love songs performed by the Coleman Hawkins influenced, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims like tenor horn of Harry Allen. All of the tracks were compiled from previously released recordings of live concerts, mostly in Hamburg where Allen was on the stage with a variety of first rate jazz musicians. Given that virtually every song is played in that slow, ballad tempo, this album could just as well have been titled Music for ...

Oliver Jackson: The Last Great Concert

by Dave Nathan
November 1, 2000

The late Oliver Jackson had one foot in each of the major jazz camps, bop and swing. Out of Detroit, he performed with some of the first rate boppers from that city like Tommy Flanagan and Paul Chambers as well as working with Eddie Locke and Yusef Lateef. But he also played with some of the great swingsters and traditional jazzers like Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson, Charlie Shavers and Buck Clayton.

This 1993 live concert was Jackson's last before his ...