Results for "san francisco"

Jazz News: Huge Music Donation to the Library of Congress

January 11, 2011

Universal Music Group has made a huge donation of treasured recordings from its vault to the Library of Congress. The material, dating from 1926 to 1948, includes music from Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, and Billie Holiday. Here's the story from the New York Times: Library of Congress Gets a Mile of Music By Larry ...

John Coltrane - "Afro Blue" (1963)

January 11, 2011

A Cool Ocean Breeze of Jazz

January 8, 2011

For anyone who hasn't seen Bert Stern's jazz documentary, Jazz on a Summer's Day (1960), go rent it immediately. This immensely enjoyable film, shot at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, is visual and aural candy. It is equal parts great jazz and people watching and both prove fascinating. The jazz audience of fifty years ago is ...

Jazz Poetry - "Canary"

January 5, 2011

Canary by Rita DoveFor Michael S. Harper Billie Holiday's burned voicehad as many shadows as lights,a mournful candelabra against a sleek piano,the gardenia her signature under that ruined face. (Now you're cooking, drummer to bass,magic spoon, magic needle.Take all day if you have towith your mirror and your bracelet of song.) Fact is, the invention of ...

Happy Birthday, Milt Jackson!

January 2, 2011

Paois Records: The Little Label That Could

January 1, 2011

What do a radio promoter in Livingston, Texas, an entertainment lawyer in Berkeley, California, a publicist in Lincoln, Massachusetts, a sales rep who is a grandfather, and an operations & marketing director balancing her laptop in one hand and young child in the other have in common? They are all on the team of San Francisco-based ...

The Story Behind the Smile: Terry Teachout's "Pops"

December 28, 2010

I just finished reading Terry Teachout's biography of Louis Armstrong, Pops, which is now out in paperback, and can recommend it wholeheartedly. Teachout, the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal, had access to a lot of previously unavailable material on Armstrong, including over 650 reels of tape recordings made by “Satchmo" during the last two ...

Merry Christmas!

December 26, 2010

Jazz News: A New Addition to the Louis Armstrong House Museum

December 21, 2010

A story in the Wall Street Journal provides details about a planned new visitor's center at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens. It will house the entire Armstrong collection. What a Wonderful House In Queens, the Louis Armstrong House Museum Trumpets Its Namesake Anew By Will Friedwald Louis Armstrong has been gone for nearly ...

Harold Land - A West Coaster Worth Surfing For

December 21, 2010

Hard bop saxophonist Harold Land (1928-2001) grew up in San Diego and started playing saxophone at the age of 16. He recorded some early sides as a leader in the late 1940s, but he really came into his own in 1954 when he joined the famous Clifford Brown/Max Roach quintet. He toured and recorded with the ...