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Count Basie: July '61 and '68
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
On July 20, 1961, the Count Basie Orchestra was in the south of France at the Antibes International Jazz Festival. There, the band played Splanky, Blee Blop Blues (the first two songs were incorrectly labeled on the film), Shiny Stockings, I Need to Bee'd With, Every Day I Have the Blues (with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross and O.C. Smith), A Little Tempo Please and Old Man River, with an extended solo by drummer Sonny Payne. On July 23, 1968, Basie ...
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Video: Evans and Bennett
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
You probably know that at the end of September 1976, Bill Evans and Tony Bennett completed recording their second duet album, Together Again, for Tony's Improv label. What you don't know is that soon after they finished, Evans and Tony were taped in a studio performing The Bad and the Beautiful (solo by Evans) Lucky to be Me, My Foolish Heart, When in Rome, Some Other Time, A Child is Born, Make Someone Happy, We'll Be Together Again and a ...
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Bill Evans And Camera Three
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Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Last month’s Rifftides post titled “Evans After LaFaro” included video of the Bill Evans Trio in a 1962 performance that I credited to Italian television because of its imprint RAIDUE, the name of an Italian broadcast company. Reader Peter Levin’s detective work turned up the true source of the clip. He wrote: “Here is my two cents worth on the origin of the video. I think it’s from Robert Herridge’s half-hour Sunday morning CBS-TV show Camera Three, filmed in 1962 ...
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StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The world fusion of Danilo Pérez' Panama 500
Source:
St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Today, our video spotlight shines on pianist Danilo Pérez, who will be in St.. Louis to perform on Saturday, February 27 at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Pérez, 50, first came to the US from his native Panama in the mid-1980s to study at Berklee College of Music. He initially gained wide attention in this country for his work with the late trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and since 2000 has been a member of Wayne Shorter's long-running quartet, recording four ...
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Half-Dozen Rosemary Clooneys
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Rosemary Clooney was a bandleader's singer. On record, she could swing, she had intonation and she sounded extraordinarily relaxed and comfortable with herself, which is partly why Bing Crosby loved her so much. The other part is she seemed fun to be around. But it was on television where the rest of the nation fell in love with her. Clooney was jolie laide, or unconventionally beautiful (leave it to the French to find a phrase for it). She was the ...
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StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Branford Marsalis, in the tradition
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Although he's known as a thoroughly modern musician, saxophonist Branford Marsalis also is the second-eldest son of one of New Orleans' most famous musical families. So it's no surprise that he's demonstrated an affinity for classic jazz tunes throughout his career, mixing interpretations of well-known standards with his own original compositions both on stage and on record. Marsalis will be returning to St. Louis to perform here for the first time since 2011 starting next Monday, February 8 through Wednesday, ...
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How Wee Became Allen's Alley
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Several years before drummer Denzil Best wrote Move, he came up with a catchy bebop line known as Wee. Where Wee was conceived and how it was named is not known to me. But shortly after it made the rounds among musicians playing at New York's clubs on 52nd St., Leonard Feather held a recording session for RCA Victor. Feather had asked tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins to assemble top musicians playing at clubs along the street. In February 1946, Hawkins ...
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Dick Twardzik: Piano Enigma
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Before Bill Evans, there was Dick Twardzik. Not that they played anything alike. Twardzik was a much more percussive pianist who mixed stormy dynamics with cat-like sensitivity, while Evans was a smoldering, graceful swinger. Both musicians were romantics, both were influenced by Bud Powell, both went into a trance when they played piano and both were perilously hooked on narcotics. Twardzik died at age 24 of a heroin overdose in 1955 just as Evans was emerging. Evans, of course, would ...
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