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Ben Webster: At The Renaissance
by Richard J Salvucci
When tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton first came up in the 1980s, his style was so, well, unusual, that a live audience would sometimes tentatively ask “Ben Webster?" Whether Hamilton regarded that as a compliment--it was--or the musicological equivalent of “Play Melancholy Baby for me" only Hamilton could have said. But the comment also acknowledged that the saxophone had gone through a convulsive period in which honks, shrieks, fragments and semitones had become the norm. Yes, there were melodic players, like ...
Continue ReadingThe Duke Ellington Carnegie Hall Concerts: January 1943
by Chuck Lenatti
Duke Ellington was one of the most popular and successful jazz musicians of the first half of the 20th century and according to composer Gunther Schuller and musicologist and historian Barry Kernfeld, “the most significant composer of the genre." Radio broadcasts from his residency at New York's Cotton Club beginning in 1927 extended Ellington's orchestra's national exposure and a parade of hit records, from “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" in 1926 to “C Jam Blues" in 1942, among many ...
Continue ReadingTransparency: Ben Webster Meets Pinot Noir
by Kristen Lee Sergeant
Transparency: Pinot Noir Meets Ben Webster
by Kristen Lee Sergeant
Welcome back to Jazz & Juice—after last month's venture into the opulent, it's a perfect time to venture into the idea of less being more. Transparency When something is transparent, we see beyond it. In a way, transparency gives us another dimension of appreciation; we not only experience the object or the work that we are seeing through, but also what is behind it. Seeing, or hearing, through something means experiencing its causes and influences, whether that be ...
Continue ReadingBen Webster: Ben Webster's First Concert in Denmark
by Chris Mosey
This is a small piece of jazz history. In January 1965, Ben Webster, newly arrived in Europe from America, was working out where to settle down. This concert shows why he decided on Copenhagen. The album starts with Webster making a point about the playing of his former boss Duke Ellington's “In A Mellotone." Webster argues his case on piano, an instrument he played well, while brusquely growling instructions to producer Børge Roger Henrichsen. There is a ...
Continue ReadingBen Webster: In Norway
by Chris Mosey
Ben Webster refused to fly. When he visited Norway from Denmark, his adopted homeland, he went by boat and when he got there would blame his somewhat uncertain gait on his “sea legs," rather than the large amounts of alcohol he had consumed in the vessel's bar. Sometimes his “sea legs" were so bad, initial concerts had to be rescheduled. However, by 1970, when this date was recorded, Webster was 61 and slowing down just a little. ...
Continue ReadingTenor Sax Legend: Live and Intimate
by Michael Steinman
Ben Webster Tenor Sax Legend: Live and Intimate Shanachie 2009
Although he looked like a frog or a bullmastiff (hence his nicknames Frog and The Brute), saxophonist Ben Webster was splendidly photogenic, his emotions nakedly on his face. This DVD brings together three concert performances and one documentary from his last decade in Europe. He purrs, snarls and moans with a rhythm trio, a big band, a string section, in a casual ...
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