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Video / DVD

Backgrounder: Charles Earland

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
July 1, 2022

Maybe you're cooking today for the holiday weekend. Or perhaps you're driving a long distance to attend a family gathering or visit the house of a friend. Or you may just be going for a long bike ride or working over the long weekend. How does three hours of uninterrupted Charles Earland sound to you? I thought so. Known as the Mighty Burner, the Philadelphia soul-jazz organist began playing the Hammond in 1968 and went on to form some of ...

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Video / DVD

Rhoda Scott: Live in Hungary

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 30, 2022

Video / DVD

Backgrounder: 'Ella Swings Lightly'

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 29, 2022

One of my favorite Ella Fitzgerald albums is Ella Swings Lightly. Recorded for Verve in November 1958, the album was arranged by Marty Paich and features his Dek-tette backing Ella on a bright batch of songs outside the realm of her tiresome American songbook fare. The all-star Hollywood 10 included Don Fagerquist and Al Porcino (tp), Bob Enevoldsen (vtb, ts), Vincent DeRosa (frh), Bud Shank (as), Bill Holman (ts), Med Flory (bar), Lou Levy (p), Joe Mondragon (b) and Mel ...

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Video / DVD

Recreating a Famed Bossa Rehearsal

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 24, 2022

As a Brazilian teenager and guitarist in the late 1950s, Nara Leão befriended many of the singer-songwriters pioneering the bossa nova in Rio de Janeiro. These musicians included Roberto Menescal, Carlos Lyra, Ronaldo Bôscoli, João Gilberto, Vinicius de Moraes and Antônio Carlos Jobim. Employed at hotels as musicians along the Copacabana beachfront, these musicians were often invited over to the nearby home of Leão's parents in 1958 to rehearse bossa songs and refine their sound. Leão soon became known as ...

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Video / DVD

One of the Best Sassy Videos Ever

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 23, 2022

Last week, Nelson Porto in Brazil sent along a link to a Sarah Vaughan video that I hadn't seen before. To me, it's by far one of the finest live videos of Sassy on stage in the second half of her career. It's a duet with Wilson Simonal, who is little known outside of Brazil but who was one of that country's leading singing sensations in the 1960s and '70s. [Photo above of Sarah Vaughan] Vaughan didn't speak a word ...

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Video / DVD

Horace Silver on 'Soul!'

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 22, 2022

Video / DVD

Horace Silver: 'Blowin' the Blues Away'

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 16, 2022

I'm hard-pressed to think of a post-war jazz pianist-composer who was as electrifying and addictive as Horace Silver. Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans are certainly in the pantheon of exceptional player-songwriters. But Silver was really in a class by himself. In addition to being a gorgeous balladeer and a lyrical hard-bop pioneer, he was a penetrating keyboardist who favored intriguing sweet-and-sour chord voicings, and many of his catchy songs are now standards. Most of all, Silver was first to develop ...

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Video / DVD

Free View: Tony Bennett's Crew

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 16, 2022

Singer Tony Bennett may be retired from the stage, but his backup group is still swinging. On Friday night, they'll be playing together in Brighton, Mass,, near Boston, and you can stream the event for free from the comfort of your home, from anywhere in the world. Or, if you're in the Boston area and want to go, I'll tell you how. But first, let me introduce the gang—pianist Tim Ray, guitarist Gray Sargent, bassist Marshall Wood and singer Donna ...

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