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Six Videos of Bud Powell
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Following my post yesterday on Bud Powell in Stockholm and Oslo in 1962, I thought I'd share videos of Powell in action for those readers who are curious and for those who need a refreshing reminder of Powell's brilliance and singularity. As you'll notice, one of the most remarkable things about Powell is how rarely he looked at his hands on the keyboard, despite what he was commanding them to do. It's as if he's his own audience. As for ...
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Bud Powell: Stockholm and Oslo, 1962
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Sixty years ago this week, during the first week of 1962, Bud Powell was in Paris stealing drinks. As author Peter Pullman writes in his biography, Wail: The Life of Bud Powell, the pianist was at the Blue Note resorting to an old bar trick. Between sets, he'd quietly approach someone else's drink, stealthily snatch the glass off a table, down its contents and return the glass to where it had stood. Then Powell would move on. Except on one ...
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Video: Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, 1971
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Yesterday, I found two outstanding YouTube clips that went up in November. Though Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt recorded extensively together in the late 1940s and '50s, these clips feature Ammons and Stitt separately in 1971. In June, Just Jazz, a TV show on WTTW, a UHF public broadcasting station in Chicago, welcomed the Gene Ammons Sextet. The show was part of a 10-part series of televised jazz performances. The sextet featured Ammons (ts,varitone), King Kolax (tp), George Freeman (g), ...
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Jimin Park Plays Giant Steps—8 Ways
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Jimin Park is a South Korean jazz pianist, composer and educator who received a full scholarship to Boston's Berklee College of Music, graduating in 2017. That year, she won second prize in the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing contest and has won several awards in classical competitions. Recently, Bill Pauluh turned me on to this clip of Park playing Giant Steps in the styles of eight different jazz legends... Here's After You've Gone... Here's Just One of Those Things... Here's ...
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Live Nancy Wilson Clips in the '60s
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Want to hear something freaky? Last night I had a sudden urge to watch newly uploaded videos of Nancy Wilson and share them with you today. When I went onto her Wikipedia page after writing my post, I realized she had died on December 13 three years ago to the date. Why I had the urge to re-visit Miss Nancy on the anniversary of her passing is beyond me. Something in the stars. Or a warm whisper from Miss Nancy ...
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YouTubers Dig Hank Mobley
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley had a fluid laid-back style that was both earthy and cosmopolitan. He recorded extensively for Blue Note as both a leader and sideman. He also played with the Jazz Messengers in the beginning when they formed under Horace Silver in the early 1950s and toured with Miles Davis in 1961. Despite two periods in the late 1950s and early 1960s when he was incarcerated briefly for narcotics possession, Mobley was able to record a wealth of ...
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Johnny O'Neal: Keyboard Giant
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Pianist Johnny O'Neal is extraordinary, even if he isn't as well known as other pianists around today. Influenced by Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson, O'Neal began as a gospel pianist in his home town of Detroit and spent the 1970s in Birmingham, Ala., working with local jazz musicians. In 1981, he relocated to New York to perform with flugelhornist Clark Terry and then became the house pianist at Birdland. From 1982 to '83, he was a member of Art Blakey's ...
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Shirley Bassey: History Repeating
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
In 1997, the British electronic duo The Propellerheads recorded and performed History Repeating with Shirley Bassey. The single reached #1 hit on the U.K. Indie Chart and #10 on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play chart, Dame Shirley's first top-10 hit on any U.S. chart since 1973's Never Never Never. According to Bassey, Alex Gifford, half the duo, wrote the song especially for her. The video poked loving fun at Brit TV's Jazz 625, and the Propellerhead's album's cover paid homage ...
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