Results for "JazzWax by Marc Myers"

Billy May in 'Nightmare' (1956)

December 28, 2013

Normally you find a Weekend Wax Bits in this space. Today, something a little different: a link sent along by reader John Cooper. It's Nightmare, a film noir with Edward G. Robinson and Kevin McCarthy. The music is by bandleader-arranger Billy May, with an on-screen cameo by Meade Lux Lewis on piano and May on trumpet ...

Early Stan Kenton on Film

December 27, 2013

Back in the 1940s, when radio, record company and movie studio efforts began to merge, shorts were viewed as a highly strategic way to promote bands in movie theaters before feature films came on. Here's a series of short films made with Stan Kenton... Jammin' in the Panoram (1942), with Howard Rumsey on bass...   Reed ...

Merry Christmas to One and All

December 25, 2013

Yusef Lateef (1920-2013)

December 24, 2013

Yusef Lateef, a saxophonist and flutist who was one of the last surviving members of Dizzy Gillespie's 1949 big band and who helped pioneer spiritual jazz in the mid-1950s, soul-jazz in the 1960s with Cannonball Adderley, and metaphysical jazz starting in the 1980s, died on December 23. He was 83. Yusef was among the first black ...

Dinah Shore: A Ton of Fun

December 23, 2013

Dinah Shore has long been discounted as a '50s pop bore, which is terribly unfair. Part of the problem with her image is her sunny mass-market appeal and girl-next-door personna. But in truth, she was highly regarded by all of the major singers and could swing with the best of them. Few could beat her natural ...

How TV Sabotaged Racism

December 19, 2013

Radio's greatest achievement in the late 1940s and early 1950s may have been its ability to narrow America's racial divide. As independent radio stations flourished after World War II and the wattage of radio towers grew more powerful, young listeners had access to all types of music. Favorite records weren't chosen based on the race of ...

Calvin Jackson: Ghost Piano

December 18, 2013

Many jazz fans are unfamiliar with Calvin Jackson, a Philadelphia-born pianist who has been largely forgotten today despite an exceptional career. After studying at Juilliard in the late 1930s, Jackson played piano in New York and led a band. According to Danish jazz enthusiast Timme Rosenkrantz in Harlem Jazz Adventures: A European Baron's Memoir, 1934-1969, “Calvin ...

Anita O'Day: 1963 and 1970

December 17, 2013

Singer Anita O'Day appeared in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1963 and Oslo, Norway, in 1970. In both cases she was in superb form—slickly wriggling into songs like a tight dress, moving above and below notes to make songs her own. As always, O'Day was in complete control and a consummate professional. Fortunately her performances were captured on ...

Louie Bellson: Hollywood, 1962

December 16, 2013

Back in the early 1960s, big bands led by jazz stars of the 1940s and '50s still packed clubs in Hollywood. The Summit was one of them. Owned and co-managed by Jimmie Maddin from 1958 to 1962, the Summit was at the corner of Wilcox and Sunset and could host up to 200 people. Maddin ran ...

Interview: Keith Richards

December 12, 2013

One of Keith Richards' favorite Rollings Stones songs is Street Fighting Man. I learned this two weeks ago after pitching him on an interview for my “Anatomy of a Song" column in The Wall Street Journal. He loved the examples I had sent over and agreed to do it (go here for a free read—or pick ...