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10 Favorite Fender Rhodes Albums
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Back in March, I posted about John Von Ohlen's The Baron (1973), a superb Fender Rhodes album. As mentioned back then, I'm a bit of a Rhodes nut, having fallen in love with the electric piano in the early 1970s in high school. I also hinted in my post that I planned on sharing my top 10 Fender Rhodes albums, which resulted in a hailstorm of emails asking me when that post would go up. So today I'm making good ...
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Backgrounder: O'Donel Levy - Black Velvet (1971)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
The early 1970s was an explosive time for pop music. Trade quotas were lifted on Japanese electronic products, and America was flooded with affordable component stereo systems. Stores helped you match a turntable to an integrated receiver and speakers based on your budget. If you didn't have the money, you could always go with a Japanese-made 8-track player with built-in speakers and an integrated receiver. Appearing on all of those integrated receivers was an FM radio band, which for the ...
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Perfection: Stan Getz - 'Stella by Starlight'
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
The very first song Stan Getz recorded for Norman Granz's Clef label, in December 1952, was Victor Young's Stella by Starlight. At the time, the Stan Getz Quintet was comprised of Stan Getz (ts), Duke Jordan (p), Jimmy Raney (g), Bill Crow (b) and Frank Isola (d). By then, the group had already been playing the standard at gigs. They did so on November 14 at New York's Carnegie Hall and four days later at Birdland. They also performed it ...
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CTI: The Brilliance of Hubert Laws
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
If you asked me to name one artist whose albums for Creed Taylor's CTI label hold up best today, I'd have to say Hubert Laws. Laws is probably jazz's finest flutist and is still with us, yet you barely hear or read much about him. In fact, if I had to sell off all of my CTI records, I'd keep Laws's nine leadership LPs and his many sideman records. Born in Houston, Texas, in 1939, Laws began playing flute in ...
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Backgrounder: East Coast - West Coast Scene (1954)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
By 1954, the 10-inch 33 1/3 and seven-inch 45 album formats had made inroads with consumers and were quickly replacing the 78. On the West Coast, labels that had been cultivating Los Angeles musicians came to realize that jazz out there had its own sound. With the 10-inch LP expected to expand to 12 inches within the year and become the industry standard, and the 45 likely to become used exclusively for rock 'n' roll, R&B and country singles, the ...
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Perfection: Tommy Flanagan: In the Blue of Evening
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
In 1960, pianist Tommy Flanagan recorded The Tommy Flanagan Trio, an album of easy-going jazz for Prestige's Moodsville line. Joining Flanagan was the exceptional Tommy Potter of bass and superb Roy Haynes on drums. By then, Flanagan had made a name for himself as a first-call sideman and would soon become Ella Fitzgerald's accompanist. While the entire album is top-notch, the track that has always stood for its sheer elegance and beauty is In the Blue of Evening. The song ...
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Jimmy Mundy: Swing Era Barnstormer
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Like Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman, Edgar Sampson and Sy Oliver, Jimmy Mundy was one of the architects of the swing era in the early 1930s. Born in Cincinnatti, Ohio, in 1907, Mundy played the tenor saxophone in regional bands, where he developed an ear for arranging. He first worked as an arranger for Earl Hines in the early 1930s and joined Benny Goodman in late 1935 after selling the bandleader a chart. Goodman needed a strong, authentic swing arranger of ...
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Backgrounder: Oscar Pettiford Orchestra (1956-57)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
In February 1943, bassist Oscar Pettiford joined Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in a Chicago hotel room and jammed on Sweet Georgia Brown, which was captured on a private recording. This was before bebop was codified, and Parker and Gillespie were virtually unknown outside of the big bands they were in. By the end of 1943, Pettiford was in New York recording for Commodore behind tenor saxophone giant Coleman Hawkins. Rolling forward, Pettiford would become bebop's first major bassist in ...
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