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Joe Ascione
Joe Ascione knew music would be his love from an early age. The eastern Long Island native was first drawn to the drums at the age of four, when he saw his cousin Stephen DeLauro playing on a drum set in Brooklyn. Ascione has played professional gigs since he was 12, and spent his late teens working as a roadie for Buddy Rich. Before embarking on a professional career in music, Ascione earned a B.S. in engineering and then studied philosophy, psychology, and theology in a Catholic seminary. Since then, he has enjoyed a wide variety of musical experiences ranging from jazz club dates to Carnegie Hall appearances, from studio recordings to tours reaching as far as Armenia. He is currently celebrating the Arbors release of his new CD Post No Bills. As a leader, he has also released a CD on the Nagel-Heyer label entitled My Buddy, a tribute to Buddy Rich recorded while on tour in Germany. Ascione has toured, recorded, or performed with scores of luminaries from the worlds of jazz, rock, and pop including Cab Calloway, Donald Fagen, Della Reese, David Grisman, George Coleman, Billy Mitchell, Flip Phillips, Al Hirt, Dr. John, Phoebe Snow, Jon Hendricks, Dick Hyman, and Herb Ellis. In tandem with favorite guitarist Frank Vignola, he has recently formed a new production company, Venture Music, Inc. Ascione is also heavily involved in music education, giving workshops, clinics, and master classes as an endorsee of GMS Drums, Zildjian cymbals, and Promark sticks.
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The Bix Centennial All-Stars: Celebrating Bix!
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Cornetist Leon Bismark Bix" Beiderbecke, while certainly heavily influenced by Louis Armstrong, developed his own highly stylized way of playing and improvising jazz. One wonders what musical highlights might have been accomplished had he lived beyond his 28 years. Celebrating Bix!, originally released in 2003 as a single CD album, adds selections which, due to size constraints, did not make the original release, but they all certainly make it" here as a double CD and vinyl release. What ...
Continue ReadingThe Bix Centennial All Stars: Celebrating Bix!
by Jack Bowers
Here's a new album by the Bix Centennial All Stars honoring the legacy of the renowned cornetist Bix Beiderbecke. Sort of. Actually, most of the music on Celebrating Bix! was recorded and released in March 2003, the actual centenary of Beiderbecke's birth in Davenport, Iowa. This expanded twentieth anniversary edition includes a trio of songs not released at that time owing to limited space, and has been reissued on two CDs instead of one. Having said that, ...
Continue ReadingJoe Ascione and His Brave New World
by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
Author's Note: All About Jazz is sad to report the passing of spirited drummer Joe Ascione who battled Multiple Sclerosis for 20 years. In this encore presentation of a 2004 interview, Joe talks about the challenges of his new reality and shows his courageous determination to fight through them. Joe Ascione is a first-call, universally-respected drummer who has been on about 70 records to date. In one of their frequent bizarre choices, the All Music Guide to Jazz ...
Continue ReadingJoe Ascione Quartet: Movin' Up
by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
Movin' Up is the perfect CD for those who like their jazz straight up and swinging, as well as both traditional and imaginative at the same time. These adjectives also describe uberdrummer Joe Ascione, the versatile, first-call sideman who's been on hundreds of other people's CDs. Recorded in October of 2007, this is only his third album as leader, and it's a corker from beginning to end.
To be more specific: Movin' Up begins with the infectious title ...
Continue ReadingEddie Higgins Trio: Christmas Songs
by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
Tis the season (again? already?), and along with the usual relentless merchandising we get the new flock of Christmas jazz. So, striking an ecumenical note, here's the question: why is this Christmas CD different from all other Christmas CDs? After all, it contains a dozen of the most popular holiday songs, done in standard trio format. The answer goes beyond the cover, Meredith d'Ambrosio's fascinating egg-shell mosaic of a snowy Charles River, although it's a huge departure from Venus Records' ...
Continue ReadingThe Bix Beiderbecke Centennial All-Stars: Celebrating Bix!
by Jack Bowers
Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, who considered himself a failure and died (primarily from alcohol abuse) in 1931 at age twenty-eight, would no doubt have been astonished to learn that a group of world- class musicians was assembling to record an album celebrating the hundredth anniversary of his birth. But if Bix was unable to recognize his own genius, others were--and now, seventy-two years onward, he rests comfortably in the pantheon raised to honor such legendary jazz pioneers as Louis Armstrong, King ...
Continue ReadingVarious: The International Allstars Play Benny Goodman, Volume Two
by Dave Nathan
This is the other shoe dropping on the International Allstars tribute to Benny Goodman and the various small groups he headed. This album comes from the same live concert in Hamburg that produced Volume 1 released in 2000. Obviously there was enough for two CDs and why they weren't packaged as a 2 CD set is puzzling. But no one can point the finger at Nagel Heyer claiming that they were trying to get 2 CDs where one would suffice. ...
Continue ReadingFeb. 26 Houston Person, Wycliffe Gordon, Joe Ascione, John Cocuzzi in Sacramento, CA
Source:
All About Jazz
Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008 at 7 pm in Sacramento, CA NEW ORLEANS JAZZ with EAST COAST CLASS at a concert fundraiser for the annual Trad. Jazz Youth Band Festival (TJYBF). The Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society and Nelmar Construction present Ed Polcer's East Coast All-Stars at a fundraiser for the annual Trad. Jazz Youth Band Festival. The Long Live JAZZ" concert features nationally-known musicians Wycliffe Gordon (of the Lincoln Center Orch.) and saxophonist Houston Person as part of a sextet performing ...
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Frank Vignola and Joe Ascione Release New CD Submarine Bus
Source:
All About Jazz
The Frank & Joe Show
Ever seeking the ever changing, jazz guitarist extraordinaire Frank Vignola and his pal drum legend Joe Ascione celebrate 20 years of musical partnership by launching their electric gypsy jam vessel into uncharted musical waters with the release of Submarine Bus on Venture Music Inc/ Barn Burner Music.
Submarine Bus is a hilarious and refreshing romp in the hayfields of free-form electric gypsy jazz, intricately doused with explosive homages to Hendrix, exploratory Zappa lyricism and trademark ...
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The Frank & Joe Show (featuring Frank Vignola & Joe Ascione) To Release "66 2/3"
Source:
All About Jazz
New York, NY - The Frank & Joe Show (featuring virtuoso guitarist Frank Vignola and world class percussionist Joe Ascione) return on May 10, 2005 with their brand new album entitled, 66 2/3, on HYENA Records. The group, which is currently a sextet, also includes rhythm guitarist Ken Smith, bassist Gary Mazzaroppi and percussionists Chuck Ferruggia and Rich Zukor. A 13-track collection, 66 2/3 is The Frank & Joe Show's second album to date and features defining performances of songs ...
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The Frank & Joe Show (featuring Frank Vignola & Joe Ascione)
Source:
All About Jazz
THE FRANK & JOE SHOW To Release Debut Album 33 1/3" May 11th On HYENA
Featuring guitarist Frank Vignola and percussionist Joe Ascione, with special guests Dr. John, Jane Monheit and Janis Siegel
On May 11th, 2004 HYENA Records will release, 33 1/3," the debut recording from The Frank & Joe Show, featuring virtuoso guitarist Frank Vignola and master percussionist Joe Ascione. The record is an irresistible melting pot of musical dialects so seamlessly integrated as to create its own ...
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