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YouTubers Dig Hank Mobley
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 ...
Steely Dan: Black Friday
Adding the word “black" to a day of the week began in September 1869, after Jay Gould and James Fisk tried to corner the gold market. Prices plunged, wealthy investors lost money and the day became known in the press as Black Friday. After the stock market crashed on October 24, 1929, newspapers referred to the ...
Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae Music
You're in for a pre-Thanksgiving treat. Yesterday, I posted on a 1964 Jamaican mini documentary on ska, the island's dominant dance music of the early 1960s. Today. I found a high-resolution print of Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae Music (2009). It followed ska by slowing ska down and adding a soulful groove in the mid-1960s, setting ...
Latin jazz at its finest, drawing at times from bebop and Broadway
Conguero Sammy Figueroa brought a quintet version of His Latin Jazz Explosion band to Sarasota on Monday, November 22. As befits its name, the band and its leader were on musical fire all night for this Jazz Club of Sarasota concert. Figueroa spent many years as a leading Latin percussionist in New York City, working with ...
Documentary: This Is Ska
In Jamaica, before reggae and rocksteady, there was ska. Emerging in the late 1950s, ska was a combination of calypso, American jazz and R&B. Ska evolved as Jamaican singers and musicians put their own spin on the sound of American pop records that were played on large sound systems built for neighborhood parties. As ska grew ...
Johnny O'Neal: Keyboard Giant
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 ...
Shirley Bassey: History Repeating
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 ...
Meet Sweden's The Real Group
Formed in 1984, the Real Group is a Swedish vocal harmony ensemble that specializes in jazz. The group has taken on other types of music, including Scandinavian folk and classical. And over the years, the group has seen many different members pass through its ranks. The Real Group is still going strong today, touring in Sweden ...
Jan Lundgren: In New York
On May 31 and June 1, 2005, Swedish jazz pianist Jan Lundgren was in New York to record In New York for Marshmallow Records, an independent Japanese label founded in 1978. Backing Jan were bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington. The recording session took place at Nola's Penthouse Studio on 57th St., above the Steinway ...
Art Blakey: Flight to Tokyo
In January 1961, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers were on their first tour of Japan. That year, the Messengers consisted of a tough bunch of signature players—Lee Morgan (tp), Wayne Shorter (ts), Bobby Timmons (p), Jymie Merritt (b) and Blakey (d). This particular line-up of Messengers had been together since early 1960, when they recorded ...
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