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Stan Kenton: Germany, 1953
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Between 1949 and 1951, Stan Kenton led a 39-piece band known as the Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra. The band's dreamy, Wagner-esque jazz arrangements were hip for a brief period but soon took on the characteristics of a wobbly truck transporting too much fine furniture. The orchestrations didn't click with young audiences and Kenton's musicians grew weary performing the syrupy modern-classical material. So in January 1952, Kenton abruptly retooled and began commissioning swinging charts by Johnny Richards, Shorty Rogers, Gerry ...
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STLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Winter/Spring 2014 Jazz Preview, Part 4
Source:
St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
This week, we continue with part four of StLJN's winter/spring 2014 jazz preview, featuring bands and musicians who will be coming to our town in the first few months of this year. (Here are part one, part two and part three.) Today's first clip features guitarist Pat Metheny and his Unity Band, with saxophonist Chris Potter, bassist Ben Williams and drummer Antonio Sanchez, performing “Breakdealer" at a show in July 2012 in Rome, Italy. Metheny and the ensemble, now known ...
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LH&R: 'Playboy's Penthouse,' '59
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
In October 1959, Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross appeared on Hugh Hefner's new TV variety show, Playboy's Penthouse. The show, hosted by Hefner, actually was taped in the Chicago studios of WBKB-TV, with the set designed to appear as though the viewer were attending a hip, late-night adult party at Hefner's rooftop apartment with the brightest lights in music, comedy and song. Here's Annie Ross singing Twisted alone and then—joined by Lambert, Hendricks and Joe Williams—singing Everyday I ...
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STLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Winter/Spring 2014 Jazz Preview, Part 3
Source:
St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
This week, it's an extra-large part three of StLJN's video preview of jazz musicians and bands coming to St. Louis in the first part of 2014. (In case you missed them, here's part one and part two.) Today's first clip features singer Marissa Mulder, who will make her St. Louis debut as one of the headliners of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival, performing “The Songs of Tom Waits" from Thursday, February 27 through Saturday, March 1 at the Gaslight Theater. In ...
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A Bill Evans Rehearsal
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Rifftides reader Mike Harris (more about him later) alerts us to a little-known piece of video catching Bill Evans in rehearsal for a 1966 Danish television broadcast. The 21-minute sequence lets us see and hear Evans and his trio preparing pieces he frequently included in his playlists: “Very Early,” “Who Can I Turn To,” “If You Could See Me Now” and, toward the end, “Five,” his rhythmically demanding original based on the “I Got Rhythm” chord progression. The trio includes ...
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Young Coleman Hawkins Speaks and Plays
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
After Coleman Hawkins left Fletcher Henderson in 1934, he spent nearly five years touring in Europe. Having established the saxophone as a serious jazz instrument, he provided significant inspiration among European musicians as jazz took a solid foothold on the continent and in the British Isles. Hawkins appeared with bands in England, Switzerland, France and Holland, recording often. Records he made in Paris with Benny Carter, Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli are among the finest of the 1930s. He recorded ...
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