Mardi Gras is here! Today my Burning River Jazz Band will be playing the Fatima Family Center between 1 and 2pm, sponsored by Roots Of American Music ...
Then, we'll be swinging hard, leading our 5th Annual Mardi Gras Party at Akron's DownBeat rated nightclub, BLU Jazz+
Hope to see you there!
Eric Seddon - clarinet & soprano sax George Foley - piano Kevin T Richards - guitar (BLU only) Gene Epstein - upright bass Bill Fuller - drums & musical conscience of the band
#32 - Paul Desmond with Dave Brubeck - Audrey - 1955
The opening number of the Dave Brubeck Quartet's first album - Brubeck Time - is immediately gripping in its understated beauty, inspired by actress Audrey Hepburn. Extra points for anyone who can catch the Mahler quote in Brubeck's intro.
[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]
I've always loved the way Peggy Lee got a band to eat out of her hand...how she holds them back till they burst...how they jump when she whispers...no whispering here, but you get the idea.
[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]
Hey, it's February 14th, so why not? This version also happens to be one of the great, final recording of Artie Shaw and his Gramercy 5
[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]
This band, people...this band...listen to how organically and easily they hit everything together, and the perfect delineations of the colors of the instruments...it's beautiful...no sacrifice of soul for balance, or balance for soul...incredible...
[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]
The Pat Metheny Group played a inordinately large role in my life as a listening musician from the time I was in High School onward. In 1996, they released an album called Quartet which still stands as a beautiful anomaly in their output, being largely unplugged. The music is intimate, relaxed, often whimsical, always highly imaginative.
"When We Were Free" is a gem: a beautiful, simple jazz waltz with a melody you somehow feel you've always known. For me, it's also one of the defining moments in Lyle Mays's career; at least it's a gift that I've mulled over since first hearing it. His chorus begins at around the 3:14 mark. His basic idea for the solo seems so simple, but so original. By the 4:25 mark the whole solo comes to fruition beautifully. Mays's whole approach here made me rethink the idea of a solo, and what one could do with patience and careful discernment.
R.I.P. Lyle Mays (1953-2020). Thank you for all the beautiful music. And thank you for what it taught those of us blessed to listen.
[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]
#27 - Pete Fountain Live in Santa Monica (1961) - 'Hindustan' - Jack Sperling on drums
An epic performance of 'Hindustan', nearly 12 minutes long, and most of it a duo between Jack Sperling's brilliant drums and Pete Fountain's clarinet. Towards the middle, the whole band joins in for awhile, but then it's back to Pete and Jack. Pete's melodic invention seems endless, as does Jack's rhythmic and tibral brilliance. Only in the very last chorus does Pete really give us anything like the full melody line to the tune. Sheer brilliance.
[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]
#26 - Benny Goodman - Bugle Call Rag - 1936
Unlikely we'll ever hear anything like this again. Bands don't use the same instruments they made back then, so the fundamental sound of a jazz band is different now, and they don't play five shows per day, six or seven days a week to packed, crazed audiences. The men who played in Goodman's band and others like it back then had the opportunity ( and the pressure) to reach a level of tightness and unity that we can only marvel at now.
[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]
[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]
#24 - Doug Richford with Bob Wallis - 'Alla Turca' - 1960
You have to suffer through the clunked-Mozart piano intro, but that's a small price to pay for admission to one of the fiercest, most intense trad-clarinet solos on record (by Doug Richford). Listen to that growling, that howling, and the snarling brass in the background!
[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]
Before the bebop crowd made it a test tune of virtuosity in 12 keys, "Cherokee" was the epic theme song for the Charlie Barnet Band. Charlie's soloing isn't flashy, nor was it intended to be, but his proclamation of the melody is unique, effective, and over the wah-wah pattern of the trombones, creates one of the truly great moments in jazz history.
I first heard this as a kid on a cassette tape that fell into my hands somehow. It was stolen, along with my first Sony Walkman on an 8th grade field trip. I wasn't too torn up about losing the Walkman, but wished the kid who took it had at least left behind the tape. It was years before I could find another copy!
[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]
[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]
There are several versions of Acker playing "In a Persian Market", all of them worth checking out. This one (from the movie It's Trad, Dad)is among my favorites, if only because we get a closeup of Acker's technique and a chance to see the stump of a finger he managed to play with on his left hand. Other than Pete Fountain, very few Trad clarinetists have had the ability to 'lift' a band the way Acker could, with a type of soaring power. While his technique wasn't as fluid as Fountain's, he had the ability to turn even novelty tunes into uplifting achievements -- a quality all but entirely lacking in modern jazz. There's a sense of fun, humor, and joy here at an unusually high level.
[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]
