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Jazz Articles about Jimmy Blanton
Birth of the Bass: Blanton Inspired a Line of Successors
by Dirk Sutro
Listen Jimmy Blanton brought jazz bass into the modern era in 1940 with his Ellington recordings including “Pitter Panther Patter" and “Jack the Bear," proving that the big instrument could move through the music like a sleek animal. In the decades that followed, dozens more jazz bassists picked up Blanton's innovative vibe, from beboppers like Tommy Potter to bassist/composer Charles Mingus and more recent master improvisers such as Scott LaFaro and Mark Dresser. But the music speaks ...
read moreRemembering Jimmy Blanton
by Scott Pollard
The saga of Duke Ellington's orchestra is an epic that lasted from the 1920s to the 1970s and has spanned the history of jazz itself. It is not only the story of a man and his music, but of the musicians that he wrote for and that interpreted his songs. Ellington prided himself on knowing his musicians' individual sounds so well that he could tailor each composition to the specific musical identity of each his sidemen. So to say that ...
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