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JJ Murphy
Backgrounder: Spud Murphy - Gone With the Woodwinds
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Lyle “Spud" Murphy was one of the more fascinating figures in jazz and today is among the least known. Murphy was a multi-instrumentalist, bandleader and arranger. He was one of Benny Goodman's arrangers in the mid-1930s and wrote charts for many other bands. But his claim to fame was his 12-volume course in composing, arranging, and orchestration for the professional musician titled The Equal Interval System. He taught mostly in Los Angeles. His EIS was a modern system of music composition ...
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Mark Murphy, 1972-1991 (Pt. 2)
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Yesterday, on what would have been vocalist Mark Murphy's 91st birthday (he died in 2015), I posted 10 favorite clips in the early part of his career, between 1956 and 1962. Murphy then left for the U.K.,where he remained until his return in 1972. When he arrived back in the U.S., there was a new artistic maturity about Murphy. In Europe, free from the commercial clutches in America, Murphy grew comfortable in his own skin. His first album recorded in ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Mark Murphy
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Mark Murphy's birthday today!
The following is based on the book This is Hip: the Life of Mark Murphy by Peter Jones (Equinox Publishing, 2018). All rights reserved. In the opinion of many, Mark Murphy was the greatest jazz singer who ever lived. Quite a statement, but one that can be made to stand up pretty well in court. There have, of course, been more successful jazz singers; certainly more popular jazz singers. But not ...
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Mark Murphy, 1956-1962 (Pt. 1)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Jackie Paris and Mark Murphy had a lot in common. Both were hip club singers with bop flexibility and a natural sense of swing. But where Paris took Charlie Parker as his inspiration, Murphy was more enamored of Miles Davis. Murphy, of course, began his recording career nearly 10 years after Paris, and while Paris had his best years at the start of his career, Murphy didn't become a household name in jazz circles until 16 years after his his ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Mark Murphy
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Mark Murphy's birthday today!
The following is based on the book This is Hip: the Life of Mark Murphy by Peter Jones (Equinox Publishing, 2018). All rights reserved. In the opinion of many, Mark Murphy was the greatest jazz singer who ever lived. Quite a statement, but one that can be made to stand up pretty well in court. There have, of course, been more successful jazz singers; certainly more popular jazz singers. But not ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Mark Murphy
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Mark Murphy's birthday today!
The following is based on the book This is Hip: the Life of Mark Murphy by Peter Jones (Equinox Publishing, 2018). All rights reserved. In the opinion of many, Mark Murphy was the greatest jazz singer who ever lived. Quite a statement, but one that can be made to stand up pretty well in court. There have, of course, been more successful jazz singers; certainly more popular jazz singers. But not ...
read more
Journey To The Heart Of Africa: Greg Murphy’s 'Cool Water' Is A Genuine Jazz Revelation
Source:
Mixed Media Promotion
Every recording has something of a story associated with it, especially in jazz. For Greg Murphy’s victorious new album, the story is especially intriguing and uniquely spiritual. “The inspiration for the concept of the album and title track, ‘Enkare Nairobi,’ (which means ‘cool water’ in Maasai and refers to the Nairobi River which flows through the Kenyan capital) came from a dream,” Murphy recalls, “and was a direct connection to my trip to Kenya in March of 2019.” Murphy woke ...
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Tony Adamo Pays Tribute To Mark Murphy And UFOs By Chris Rizik for Soultracks
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Tony Adamo
First Listen: Tony Adamo pays tribute to Mark Murphy and UFOs (May 13, 2020) In 2015, we described singer and spoken word artist Tony Adamo as “a true anachronism: a performer who is authentically ‘cool’ in a timeless, almost reckless way that almost no popular artist today can match.” It’s five years later and the irrepressible Mr. Adamo is still doing his thing —his thing being a vocal / hipspokenword sound that is unlike anything else out there, with a ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Mark Murphy
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Mark Murphy's birthday today!
Mark Murphy is one of the world's greatest — and hippest — jazz vocalists performing today. His coterie of fans includes tap dancer Gregory Hines, who spontaneously jumped up on stage at Mark's Las Vegas engagement in 1995 to join him for an impromptu duet. Legendary composer Alec Wilder said of Mark, 'I was quite literally amazed. Mark's musicianship, range, intonation, diction, inventiveness and incredible rhythmic sense are all of a ...
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Scott Yanow Reviews Tony Adamo's Latest Single 'Did Mark Murphy Believe in UFOs?'
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Tony Adamo
Tony Adamo “Did Mark Murphy Believe in UFOS?" Ropeadope The hippest of the spoken word artists and a fine singer too, Tony Adamo has long championed jazz. His recordings, which feature him improvising lyrics over a funky jazz rhythm section, have included tributes to such greats as Joe Henderson, Eddie Gale, Sun Ra, Eddie Harris, Mike Clark, and Art Blakey plus B.B. King and James Brown. Following on the success of his Ropeadope debut Was Out ...
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