Home » Search Center » Results: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Results for "JazzWax by Marc Myers"

News: Interview

Interview: Ralph Carmichael (Part 3)

April 8, 2011

In the last years of Nat King Cole's life, he sounded comfortable in the arms of Ralph Carmichael's charts. Admittedly lighter and more commercial than Cole's earlier Capitol dates, these albums need to be put in context. Easy listening LPs like Touch of Your Lips; Lazy Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer and L-O-V-E were indeed lighter ...

News: Interview

Interview: Ralph Carmichael (Part 2)

April 7, 2011

Ralph Carmichael likes to arrange strings in clusters. This technique allows him to take the largest possible group of violins, violas and cellos and, by bunching them into groups and voicing them as mini ensembles, he ensures richness and clarity without clutter and sweetness. For Ralph, the goal always is to create a luminous frame for ...

128

News: Interview

Interview: Ralph Carmichael (Part 1)

April 6, 2011

Ralph Carmichael has arranged for Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Stan Kenton, Jack Jones, Peggy Lee, Julie London, Al Martino, Roger Williams and Sue Raney. But he is perhaps best known for his collaborations with Nat King Cole between 1960 and the singer's death in 1965. In fact, each holiday season you hear Carmichael's stereo arrangement of ...

142

News: Recording

Jack Millman: Jazz Studio 4

April 5, 2011

I'll wager that the name Jack Millman is new to you. If so, don't feel bad. Most jazz fans aren't aware of Millman either. Which is somewhat puzzling given how tasty and on the scene he was in Los Angeles from the late '40s through the mid-'60s. In addition to playing briefly in several major bands ...

111

News: Interview

Bridge over Troubled Water

April 4, 2011

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel don't get enough credit for their contribution to American music. Their recordings from the '60s are rarely played today, never covered and largely viewed as adolescent folk-rock relics from days gone by. They weren't as dramatic as John and Paul, not nearly as menacing as Mick and Keith, not as angry ...

105

News: Recording

Urbie Green in 1954

March 31, 2011

In August 1954, trombonist Urbie Green was offered a record date by Vanguard Records. Founded by Maynard and Seymour Solomon as a blues and folk label, Vanguard also recorded jazz, thanks to John Hammond, who had begun serving as the label's de factor jazz a&r man in 1953. Green's four-song session for the 10-inch Vanguard LP ...

172

News: Interview

Ella Fitzgerald and Irving Berlin

March 30, 2011

I will say from the outset that this post is an exercise in futility. But here goes: Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Song Book is my favorite entry in Fitzgerald's eight- album songbook series recorded between 1956 and 1964. It's an absurd claim, I know, since each of her tribute albums are like different flavors ...

News: Video / DVD

Music of the South

March 28, 2011

You are about to see a video clip of an important jazz film that hasn't been viewed by the general public in about 50 years. It's at the bottom of this post. Most people aren't even aware that the film exists, and the clip was put up yesterday on YouTube by Raymond De Felitta [pictured], director ...

140

News: Recording

Aretha Franklin: Columbia Years

March 25, 2011

Two weeks ago I wrote an advance review of Take a Look: Aretha Franklin Complete on Columbia for the Wall Street Journall (here). It's an 11-CD box plus one DVD from Sony/Legacy that covers Franklin's entire 1960-65 output for the Columbia label. The mega box tells two stories concurrently. One details the singer's development as a ...

140

News: Video / DVD

The Wrecking Crew

March 24, 2011

Hey, marketers at Coca-Cola, Geico, Pepsi-Cola and any other company trying to reach 70 million baby boomers. Here's a golden opportunity: Denny Tedesco, director of The Wrecking Crew, a new documentary about the Hollywood studio musicians who recorded thousands of hit singles in the '60s and early '70s, needs just $250,000 to pay off the licensing ...