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Four New Videos: Sarah Vaughan
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
It's not the anniversary of Sarah Vaughan's birth or death. I just felt like listening to Sassy yesterday and figured you would, too. She's perfect for Friday. Here are four recent additions to YouTube of the Divine One performing: Here's an hour of Vaughan performing at Berliner Jazztage, a German jazz festival, in 1969... Here's Vaughan and Joe Williams at the Grammy Awards in 1980... Here's Vaughan and Sammy Davis Jr. during the Muscular Dystrophy Association TV telethon in 1983... ...
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Frank Sinatra and Ernie Freeman
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
As I recall growing up in Manhattan in the mid-1960s, the Beatles were only big in bedrooms. Kids listened to Fab Four 45s on their portable phonographs sitting on the floor next to their beds or heard the group on AM radios under their pillows. Outside the bedroom, in the world I encountered—the living rooms of friends' apartments, barber shops and distant open windows—what I heard most was Frank Sinatra. Albums were still an adult purchase, and even in the ...
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Earl Zindars and Bill Evans
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
To fully understand the music of pianist Bill Evans, it's essential to know the works of composer Earl Zindars. Evans recorded several of Zindars's songs, including Elsa, How My Heart Sings, Mother of Earl, Lullaby for Helene, Quiet Light and Sareen Jurer and the two were close friends. Today, Zindars' pieces sound like the spirit of Evans's soul. Zindars was born in Chicago and studied classical music, eventually becoming an orchestral composer. Zindars and Evans met in the service in ...
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Roy Ayers: Jazz-Soul Godfather
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
By the late 1960s and very early '70s, a growing number of young jazz musicians saw the writing on the wall. Rock was attracting massive media attention, ever-larger crowds of young listeners, and larger paydays. To compete, many jazz artists gave up their acoustic instruments for electronic counterparts and began playing a new form of jazz that was heavily influenced by hard rock and psychedelic mysticism. But not all jazz musicians determined to remain relevant rushed to embrace rock. Some ...
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Videos: Sacha Distel Duets
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
In the 1960s, one of France's biggest heartthrobs was Sacha Distel. A TV variety-show host with movie-star looks and a gentle, romantic persona, Distel seemed to melt the hearts of female singers who appeared with him. As one French singer from that era told me recently, “Sacha was impossibly handsome," which she followed with a sigh. Like Andy Williams, Distel was at ease in front of the camera and had a deep, warm voice to match. In the 1950s, Distel ...
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Bob Dorough (1923-2018)
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Bob Dorough, who began his jazz career in the early 1950s as a pianist and arranger and expanded to singing and songwriting laced with sardonic wit and puns, died on April 23. He was 94. Dorough in the late 1950s was part of an ever-expanding group of clever writers who wound up in comedy, television and advertising. Steeped in jazz, either as players or aficionados, and deft with words and dry observational humor, this generation of pithy writers included Dave ...
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StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on the John Scofield Joe Lovano Quartet
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Today, StLJN's video spotlight shines on the John Scofield Joe Lovano Quartet, who will be in St. Louis to perform starting next Wednesday, April 25 through Saturday, April 28 at Jazz at the Bistro. In terms of both popularity and musical accomplishments, both Scofield and Lovano rank in the upper echelon of current jazz players on their respective instruments, and their musical relationship dates back to the early 1990s, when they put together the first version of the quartet. However, ...
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Four Videos: Elek Bacsik
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Elek Bacsik was a Hungarian Gypsy jazz guitarist who today is virtually unknown. The cousin of Django Reinhardt, Bacsik was born in 1926 and began playing the violin at age 4. After studying at the Budapest Conservatory in the '40s, he taught himself the guitar, playing Gypsy and classical music. In the post-war 1940s, he left Hungary for Vienna and then Switzerland. In Bern, he played in light-music groups fashionable at the time in cafes, returning to Hungary to record ...
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