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8 Jazz Clips for XMAS Eve
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Jazz musicians and singers always provide a little something extra to any holiday song. Perhaps it's a bit of blues. Or maybe just a keen sense of how to give a commercial melody a soulful spin. Here are eight you may not know: Here's Bill Evans singing and playing Santa Claus Is Coming to Town... Here's Anita O'Day singing The Christmas Song... Here's alto saxophonist Herb Geller and wife-pianist Lorraine Geller playing Sleigh Ride... Here's Sarah Vaughan ...
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StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Winter/spring 2015 jazz preview
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Today, it's the first part of StLJN's winter/spring 2015 jazz preview, in which we bring you music videos from jazz and creative music performers who will be visiting our city in the first part of next year. First up are The Bad Plus, who will be back in St. Louis from Wednesday, January 7 through Saturday, January 10 to play at Jazz at the Bistro. The group has been visiting the Bistro early in January for nearly a decade now, ...
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Videos: Frank Sinatra, 1943
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
On September 3, 1942, Frank Sinatra left the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra after nearly three years as its star vocalist. On his own as a solo act, Sinatra signed with Columbia. The problem was, however, that the American Federation of Musicians' ban was still on, forcing Sinatra to record a cappella with backup singers for the label. Singers weren't in the musicians' union. To keep his reputation in tact and his popularity at boil, Sinatra performed around New York and Los ...
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The Legacy of Sam Cooke
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Earlier this week, I wrote an essay for The Wall Street Journal (go here) on the life and legacy of Sam Cooke 50 years after his shooting death in Los Angeles on December 11, 1964. Though remembered mostly for his hits, Cooke has been largely forgotten for many of his other accomplishments. In a nutshell... Cooke had 43 hits on Billboard's pop chart over 10 years (1957-66), including several two years after his death. Seventeen of those hits were in ...
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Videos: Bud Powell in Europe
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Yesterday it poured in New York with a whipping wind, turning the city into the inside of a car wash. As always, I spent the day indoors writing (except for my daily pre-dawn, 1-mile swim). For some reason the weather made me want to listen to The Complete Bud Powell on Verve. No other jazz pianist had a greater influence on other pianists in the late 1940s and 1950s than Powell. While Art Tatum left a deep impression on Charlie ...
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STLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Six from Roy Hargrove
Source:
St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Today, let's get re-acquainted with the music of trumpeter Roy Hargrove, who's coming to St. Louis to perform with his quintet starting Wednesday, December 17 through Saturday, December 20 at Jazz at the Bistro. It's been 15 years since Hargrove, who's now 45, last headlined a St. Louis gig at the old, pre-Jazz St. Louis iteration of the Bistro, though he did turn up here in 2005 at the Pageant as a member of Herbie Hancock's revived Headhunters. He returns ...
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Corky Hale in Hollywood
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
If you're in Los Angeles tomorrow evening (Wednesday), you're in luck. Corky Hale will be playing piano at the Catalina Jazz Club at 6725 Sunset Blvd. She'll be accompanying singer Eloise Laws, sister of flutist Hubert Laws. Corky is best known as one of the most recorded jazz and pop harpists in Hollywood, starting in the 1950s. She's on Ella Fitzgerald's songbook sessions, Frank Sinatra's Capitol dates and behind Chet Baker, Paul Desmond, Gary McFarland, Buddy Collette and you name it. ...
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